Is Old Film Safe?

 

Flamable nitrate film in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009).

 

In the museum business, it’s not that unusual to hear stories of the discovery of unexploded ordnance in a collection.  It’s been sitting there in storage for decades (perhaps since the Civil War or World War I) and then suddenly – in the blink of an eye – it’s a crisis.  Police are called;  the building is evacuated.

It’s understandable to have a similar panicked reaction when old film stock is discovered.  Perhaps you’ve heard the stories of horrifying theater fires in the 1920s.  Or recently watched the mountain of discarded nitrate film erupt into flames at the climax of Inglourious Basterds.   Nobody wants to find a ticking film bomb in their attic.

Is this a reasonable fear?  I posed this question to Snowden Becker, one of the co-founders of the annual international Home Movie Day event and the nonprofit Center for Home Movies.  Snowden is a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas, Austin, School of Information where she is studying how home movies and amateur media become integrated into our larger cultural heritage.  She frequently consults on preservation issues for personal and institutional film collections.

Snowden’s answer was fairly reassuring – at least 99% of the time, there’s no reason to call the police or evacuate the building.

“If there's one thing an average person knows about old film, it’s that the cellulose nitrate stock used before 1950 was extremely flammable, unstable when deteriorating, and very dangerous to store in the home or under other uncontrolled conditions.  The fact that people are generally aware of this is a testament to the potency of the ‘nitrate won’t wait’ slogan of pioneering film preservationists who were desperately trying to save the disappearing treasures of early cinema.  The only downside of their successful messaging is that it may have made some people fearful of handling film they discover in their homes or institutional collections, because ‘it might blow up.’

“The good news is this:  Any 16mm film that you might encounter in your attic--as well as ALL of the other commonly encountered amateur film gauges such as 8mm, Super8, and 9.5mm--is what’s called SAFETY film.  Instead of cellulose nitrate, it’s cellulose acetate, a non-flammable alternative to the more dangerous nitrate film.  Chances are that any family films you find will be safety film.  HOWEVER…  if you do discover any 35mm film (it’ll be about two fingers wide, with matching perforations running down both edges), you should immediately contact your nearest film archive for advice and assistance.  They’re easy to find online.  A good place to start is this easy-to-access National Film Preservation Board directory.

“When rummaging through that box of films in your attic, basement, or closet, your only concerns should be inadvertently damaging the film material itself or possibly exposing yourself to some health risks related to the films’ storage conditions and state of preservation.  For instance, if you’re prone to asthma or allergies, be especially careful that you do these initial investigations in a well-ventilated area.  This can be dusty work and sneezing is an occupational hazard for the film archivist or anyone who handles home movies.”

© 2011 Lee Price

Other Audio Formats

The family collection material that has passed down from our parents and grandparents is sadly lacking in audio material.  It would be great to have tapes of our ancestors sharing their family stories, but alas…  if they exist, we haven’t found them.

But just in case – as we continue searching through the boxes – I thought it might be wise to ask Cassandra Gallegos, Preservation Administrator at George Blood Audio and Video, about the preservation of other audio formats besides tape cassettes.  Do families ever find other audio formats stored in their basements or garage?  And if they do find an old reel-to-reel tape, how do they go about listening to it?

Here’s Cassandra’s response:

“I'd say that any imaginable audio format could find its way into a family collection. Especially if anyone in your family happened to be a pack-rat!  You might find Eight-Tracks, Reel-to-Reel, and various disc formats including Instantaneous, Lacquer, Transcription, and commercial Vinyl discs with cores ranging from glass to cardboard.  We’ve gotten a quite a few queries from people who happened to find this type of material in their attic or packed away in a closet.  It was once common for folks to go down to the local five and dime to record a quick message as a novelty and soldiers overseas often jumped at the chance to record a message to send back to their loved ones.

“If you find an unknown audio format, feel free to take a picture and contact us at George Blood Audio and Video.  We take lots of questions from people who just want some information on what they have.  The audio preservation community is small and tight knit.  If we can’t help you, we can certainly put you in touch with someone in your area that can.  If you happen to live in the area of a university, you might want to see if they have a preservation department in the library or an audio program.  They often have equipment they use for their own collections.  Local/regional archives can also help you.  They may even be interested in having the audio digitized if you are willing to donate the original object to their oral history collection.”

One of the great pleasure of doing this blog is the opportunity to collaborate with some of the finest, most respected people working in the field of preservation today.  Thank you, Cassandra, for sharing your expertise in audio preservation during the past month!

© 2011 Lee Price

Appropriate Care for CDs

George Blood Audio and Video uses these machines from Rimage to create
and thermally print labels on CDs and DVDs.

This is what I want to do:  I want to digitize the taped oral history memories of my mother, save them to CD, and then store the CD in a safe and secure place.  Then many decades later, my great-great great grandchildren will find it, pop it into a 22nd century CD player, and hear the voice of their great-great-great-great grandmother telling the stories of her youth.

Chances are it won’t happen quite like that.  But I at least want to start the process following 21st century protocol for best preservation practices.  For advice, I turned to Cassandra Gallegos, Preservation Administrator at George Blood Audio and Video.  An expert in audio preservation, Cassandra knows the weakness inherent in CD technology and has good recommendations for minimizing their impact:

Thermal printing on CD.

“CDs have a number of preservation concerns.  Optical discs consist of various layers. Their metallic reflective layer categorizes them.  This layer can be either gold or aluminum.  If air reaches the base of an aluminum disc through either a deep scratch or a manufacturing defect in the protective lacquer top coat, the metal will oxidize (rust).  This phenomenon is referred to as CD rot. Gold discs do not suffer from CD rot but have higher starting error rates.  These errors are unnoticeable

at first because of the built in error

CD with writing on hub.

correction system; however, by the time errors start becoming a problem, the CD is very close to being over run by errors that can rendered the CD unplayable.

“The way you label a CD is a preservation concern as well.  CDs should never be labeled using a any pen that could scratch or make indentations on the label.  This is because the information within a CD actually sits closer to the label side.  Many people

lay a CD to rest on its label side thinking this will keep scratches from damaging the CD but a scratch on the reflective side of a CD can often be buffed out while a scratch on the label side might destroy the CD.  There are various CD labeling markers that claim to not harm the informational layer.  These pens have not been around long enough to have any evidence that the ink will not damage the disc.  Paper labels can cause a disc to spin unevenly in a drive and are susceptible to water damage.  We use a special thermal process to print ink directly onto a specially coated CD.  If a special CD printer is beyond your price range, you may safely write on the clear inner hub of a CD without fear of losing the information.”

© 2011 Lee Price

Digitization and Audio Preservation

Some people tout digitization as the answer to all preservation concerns.  But I have my doubts.  Within the past year, I’ve seen hard drives crash, data become mysteriously corrupted, and CDs crack.  The digital world just doesn’t look all that permanent to me.

I posed this concern to Cassandra Gallegos, Preservation Administrator at George Blood Audio and Video.  Do I really need to digitize my cassette tapes or should I just keep the tapes and make duplicate copies?  Cassandra acknowledged that my worries were legitimate but nevertheless sees an important role for digitization in audio preservation:

“The tape copy should be digitized.  Digitization remains your best defense against analog obsolescence – and it’s obsolescence and accessibility that are my two primary concerns here. Obsolescence is a big concern with any media as well as playback devices.  The cassette tape has already reached its obsolescence point with the popularity of optical media.  Playback equipment will become increasing harder to find and it will be even harder to find replacement parts for the equipment if it is to require maintenance.  CDs and digital files also have issues with obsolescence as technology advances.  Digital isn’t forever.

“The idea behind preserving audio materials is to sustain the audio essence from one media/format to the next.  My recommendation is to digitize the cassette and have the file saved to a hard drive (either on your computer or externally) and placed onto a CD for accessibility.  Copies should be stored in geographically separate locations.  Some basic metadata (preferably embedded into the header of the audio file) will also help preserve the object.

“Magnetic tape and CDs each have their own inherent vices.  The actual digital files on the CD will be the easiest to sustain.  By this I mean that although both the cassette and CD will happily sit on the shelf with no physical signs of decay, the CD with digital files is one step ahead of the analog cassette preservation-wise.  Having said this, it is important to remember that CDs are by no means a long-term preservation solution.  Technology changes quickly so who’s to say if 10 years from now the CD is no longer seen as a viable media format.”

© 2011 Lee Price

A Successful Blogathon

For the Love of Film (Noir): The Film Preservation Blogathon ended on Monday with over $5,000 raised for the Film Noir Foundation  and their effort to restore The Sound of Fury, a 1950 film noir starring Lloyd Bridges.  I am very proud of having participated in this international effort that harnessed the power of over 80 bloggers.  Since we celebrate preservation on “Preserving a Family Collection,” it seemed appropriate to dedicate a week to the support the work of film preservation.

“June and Art” has already returned to its normal routine of romance, period photos, love letters, and charming artwork.  The transition for “Preserving a Family Collection” looks as if it will be a bit rougher.  The blogathon hit right in the middle of our series on preserving audio media, particularly tape cassettes.  Cassandra Gallegos, Preservation Administrator at George Blood Audio and Video, was providing fantastic advice and recommendations for ensuring the long-term preservation of audio collections.  Four entries had run on the subject and my current plan is to resume this series on Monday.

Also, I want to return to the subject of home movies for a series that will provide practical information on how to preserve collections of 8mm, super 8, and 16mm film, but that’s probably several weeks away.

I truly appreciate everyone’s patience.  And if you were one of the contributors to the Film Preservation Blogathon, please accept this huge thank you for your generosity!  You supported a good cause indeed.

© 2011 Lee Price

The Restoration of a Film (Hollywood or Home)

From February 14 through 21, Preserving a Family Collection is participating in For the Love of Film (Noir):  The Film Preservation Blogathon.  Through this blogathon, over 80 bloggers are hoping to raise significant funds to support the work of the Film Noir Foundation and restore The Sound of Fury, a 1950 film noir starring Lloyd Bridges.

Please contribute to this worthy cause by making a donation at  this link, the Maltese Falcon donation button, or through the donation buttons on host sites Ferdy on Films and the Self-Styled Siren.

Today is the final day of the For the Love of Film (Noir) blogathon.  We’ve been raising money to restore a deteriorating nitrate print of The Sound of Fury, a 1950 film noir starring Lloyd Bridges.  And this cause got me to wondering:  What are the differences and the similarities between restoring a professional Hollywood film like The Sound of Fury and the work that has been done to restore old home movies?

I posed this question to Snowden Becker, an expert on film preservation.  She is one of the co-founders of the annual international Home Movie Day event as well as the nonprofit Center for Home Movies.  Currently, Snowden is a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas, Austin, School of Information where she is studying how home movies and amateur media become integrated into our larger cultural heritage.

For our final contribution to the For the Love of Film blogathon, here are Snowden’s thoughts on the various challenges of film restoration:

“Fundamentally, the photochemical restoration of any film – whether it’s a commercial feature or amateur footage – is going to be the same:  Assess, stabilize, and repair the original film elements, then create the highest-quality intermediate elements possible. Sometimes these will be digital – for instance, if extensive soundtrack cleanup is needed, or if there is physical damage to specific frames or segments that can be repaired only using digital tools.  Those intermediates are then used to produce a new film print that resembles, as closely as possible, the film as it was originally shot or shown.  Archivists and lab staff working on a nitrate print must take into account the combustible nature of nitrate film when transporting and storing the preservation elements (which may come from several different institutions – feature film restoration often involves multiple members of the international film archive community, as this story in the New York Times describes).  Tinted, toned, or other early color films will typically present additional difficulties when it comes to making contemporary film stock match the look of the original.

“Where these processes differ most profoundly, however, is in the elements that may be available for a specific film – and, of course, in the budget at a restorer’s disposal! Home movies are often (though not always) reversal originals;  that is, the film that is exposed in the camera is processed to become the positive film screened in the projector, instead of a negative from which positive prints are made.  With reversal stock there is no negative;  the reversal stocks used for home movies are also much higher in contrast than negative and positive film and challenging to reproduce accurately, so copies are extremely rare.  An original home movie is therefore unique and

A still from the famous Zapruder
film of the Kennedy assassination.

irreplaceable.  (Just ask Abraham Zapruder, whose 8mm film of the Kennedy assassination was damaged shortly after its creation by a Life magazine photo technician.  Those notorious ‘missing frames’ have been speculated about by conspiracy theorists ever since.)

“Feature films, on the other hand, having been mass-produced for commercial exhibition, may have any number of different negative or positive elements surviving in good enough condition to be of use in a preservation or restoration project. These elements may include (in descending order of quality and desirability) an original camera negative, finegrain interpositives or "lavender prints" (so called because of the distinctive color of the low-contrast reproduction stock), internegatives or duplicate negatives, and release prints.  Any of these elements may vary in appearance, duration, or other particulars, such as foreign-language intertitles for silent works, or reflect the conditions under which they have been stored or screened since their creation.  For features, in other words, one may simply have much more material to work with.  Finding out what elements exist for a specific film, and then determining how to combine those elements to maximize their good qualities and minimize the effects of age or poor handling, is a big part of the restoration process.

“The size and length of the film being restored is the other major factor that differentiates commercial and amateur film preservation, and is the primary factor in its cost.  Home movies were typically shot on small-gauge film – 16mm, 9.5mm, 8mm, and Super8 being the most common – because it was cheaper, and because the correspondingly smaller cameras were more portable and convenient than the 35mm equipment and stock used by movie studios.  Small-gauge film reels and cartridges held anywhere from 25 to 100 feet of film, enough for about 2-3 minutes of memories;  a feature film, on the other hand, can run to a dozen 1,000-foot reels or more.  Foot for foot, 35mm film is more expensive than smaller gauges, and the proliferation of intermediate elements for feature material multiplies that cost further.  On the other hand, while 35mm film is preserved to the same format, it’s considered impractical to create 8mm or Super8 preservation copies of home movies.  Increasingly, they’re optically printed (blown up) to larger gauges – 16mm or 35mm – as part of the preservation, with a corresponding increase in cost.  Expert restoration work on a few minutes of home movie footage may run to a few thousand dollars, but feature restoration can easily cost ten times as much. Creating a lasting, stable preservation copy of a feature or a home movie isn’t cheap.”

I hope to return for more discussion with Snowden Becker in the near future as we fully turn our attention to strategies for preserving home movies.  In the meantime, I am very appreciative of her deeply informative contributions to this great blogathon effort.  Thank you, Snowden!

© 2011 Lee Price

Is There Such Thing as a Home Movie Noir?

From February 14 through 21, Preserving a Family Collection is participating in For the Love of Film (Noir):  The Film Preservation Blogathon.  Through this blogathon, over 80 bloggers are hoping to raise significant funds to support the work of the Film Noir Foundation and restore The Sound of Fury, a 1950 film noir starring Lloyd Bridges.

Please contribute to this worthy cause by making a donation at  this link, the Maltese Falcon donation button, or through the donation buttons on host sites Ferdy on Films and the Self-Styled Siren.

So far in this wide-ranging For the Love of Film (Noir) blogathon, we’ve seen blog entries on animated noirs, western noirs, science fiction noirs, horror noirs, and even (!!!) noirs with happy endings.

But what about home movies?  Can there be such a thing as a home movie noir?

I posed this question to Snowden Becker, one of the co-founders of the annual international Home Movie Day event and the nonprofit Center for Home Movies.  Snowden is a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas, Austin, School of Information where she is studying how home movies and amateur media become integrated into our larger cultural heritage.  She frequently consults on preservation issues for personal and institutional film collections.

Snowden’s response to my home movie question was enthusiastic and fascinating (and the clips are great!):

“As far as making a connection between film noir and home movies, I don’t think that'll be too hard.  I’ve definitely seen some examples that would fit the bill with very little stretching.  In fact, this footage of street-corner life shot in South Dakota in 1938 may easily be read as a proto-noir classic!

(Click here for video link – just first six minutes for street-corner life.)

Screen capture from "Britton,
South Dakota, 1938-39," filmed by
Ivan Besse.

“Strangers shoot suspicious glances as they hurry past the camera, then disappear into mysterious doorways.  Is that man waving a cheery hello?  Or hiding his face from view?  The bright winter sunlight makes the afternoon shadows longer and darker, and you can almost feel the deep chill in the air.  Something's not right in this town.  These people have secrets they want to keep hidden…  but this camera wants to find them out!

“There’s also Robbins Barstow’s Disneyland Dream – shot in 1956, not long after the theme park was opened – which is pretty much the ANTI-noir film:

(Click here for video link.)

“It was named to the National Film Registry in 2008, alongside the classic noir features The Killers (1946) and Johnny Guitar (1954) (often described as a “noir Western”). The contrast between the wholesome family life depicted in Barstow's film and Lionel Rogosin’s feature-length docudrama On the Bowery (1957), also named to the Registry that year, is a great illustration of the sunshine-and-shadow split in American filmmaking – and American life – which just got more and more complex as the postwar years deepened into the Cold War years and the Atomic Age.  Life, it seems, was never this simple again – although it really may never have been this simple in the first place.”

UPDATE:  A fun addendum to this entry: In the “Disneyland Dreams” anti-noir clip, the home movie catches Steve Martin working in Disneyland in 1956. He appears at the 20:20 minute, and he’s the guy walking left to right in the top hat.

And here’s Steve Martin sharing about being caught on film in a famous home movie, courtesy of the Cartoon Brew blog:
Steve-Martin-in-Disneyland-Dream

© 2011 Lee Price