Women of The Outer Hebrides - Waulking Song | AI Enhanced 1941 Film [ 60 fps]

A group of women singing while finishing Harris tweed in the Outer Hebrides islands of Scotland.
A time capsule of a long vanished era.
Filmed by Jack Cardiff of Powell & Pressburger fame in 1940/ 41
AI Enhanced using Deep Learning techniques.

The girls are seen here 'waulking' or tucking the tweed cloth. A form of finishing to remove oil and dirt.
Waulking was a social occasion for the Island women to get together, sing waulking songs and perhaps have a good gossip. It was also hard work.

The practice has since disappeared with industrial methods now used. Fans of the Outlander series will appreciate this remarkable film time capsule.

Filmed in 1941 by Jack Cardiff who is best known as the cinematographer for Powell & Pressburger.
Cardiff photographed The Red Shoes (1948), Black Narcissus (1947), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943).

Original Film - The Western Isles is part of the British Council film archive of short documentaries made by the British Council during the 1940s. The films were designed to show the world how Britain lived, worked and played. View, download and play with the archive at https://film.britishcouncil.org/resou....

Watch the full film The Western Isles on the British Council Creative Commons site.
https://film.britishcouncil.org/resou...

The historic importance of The Western Isles (1941) was lost on the UK government at the time.
UK Minister of Information to Churchill, Brendan Bracken, personally wrote to the British Council, claiming that the film was living proof that "the British are frivolous. " We are fighting the war to perpetuate a way of living long since outmoded"

To it's credit, the British Council distributed the film nonetheless.

Note: The film also features actress and folk singer Kitty Macleod.

The Deep Learning AI Restoration Process:

Some of the deep learning AI machines like Dain, and DeOldify are freely available from the Github community, if you are prepared to learn how to use Google Colab.You can also try the DainApp for desktop, but will need a computer with a good graphics card, and lots of patience.

This was the process I followed:

1. Removed artifacts and noise.
2. Interpolated new frames ( from 24 to 60fps) using the DainApp, to add depth awareness
3. Upscaled the original 480p film to 4K resolution using Topaz Video Enhance AI and Vidcoder.

This short AI enhanced film is published here for preservation purposes and to add an immersive and transformative experience to the work of early filmmakers.
It is free to view and not commercially available on DVD or for republishing elsewhere.
Published here under the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video as outlined by the Center for Media & Social Impact.
https://cmsimpact.org/code/code-best-...