Rare home footage of WWI servicemen has emerged in Tasmania, some showing the earliest moving images of the state's soldiers bound for the Great War.

Ruby Clarence Hales filmed WWI veterans marching near Waratah in Tasmania's north-west from the 1930s.

Other material recorded soldiers in 1914 in preparation for the coming conflagration.

Grandson Rod Hales has now donated the 1930s footage to the state's archives.

"It's something that would have been lost completely," he said.

Two other Tasmanians have passed on films showing WWI servicemen reunions in the 1930s, and the even earlier footage has emerged showing members of the Tasmanian Expeditionary Force in 1914.

Caroline Homer from the Tasmanian Information and Research Service said the 1914 footage was particularly significant.

"We don't have any other footage of Tasmanian soldiers at that time," she said.

The films are being put on display at the Army Museum in Hobart.

The museum's Major Chris Talbot said the 1914 film showed a different side to the servicemen.

"There seems to be a bit of larrikinism going on. They've obviously completed their training, there's a few guys standing on a wooden beer keg holding another wooden beer keg, obviously full of you-know-what," he said.

"Glasses of beer, guys pushing each other around and generally playing around, you really don't see that kind of footage in most military films we see."