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A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

wsj.com

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Re: A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

#21

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

ghaff wrote: post #17
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even just films. The BBC was notorious for taping over old programmes to save money on tape and thus there's early episodes of Doctor Who that are lost along with some classics such as episodes of Hancock's Half Hour. I'd suggest that tapes should be digitised and that way they're far easier for the public to watch and categorise them so that other hidden gems can be found again.

Are you willing to pay for it? I've been involved in getting the archives of a small-time newspaper digitized and it's not cheap in terms of either time or money. There's a near-infinite amount of decaying and fairly rare analog media out there--and much that has been lost as companies have gone out of business, etc. It's not realistic to digitize all of it.

> Are you willing to pay for it?

I'd be happy for some of my tax money to go to a historical preservation project.

Maybe it'd be feasible to get members of the public to volunteer to do some of the digitisation - that should reduce costs, but I can imagine it would be difficult to keep track of where all the originals are and quality of the digitisation.

Re: A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

#22

Post by MattGaiser »

ghaff wrote: post #17
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even just films. The BBC was notorious for taping over old programmes to save money on tape and thus there's early episodes of Doctor Who that are lost along with some classics such as episodes of Hancock's Half Hour. I'd suggest that tapes should be digitised and that way they're far easier for the public to watch and categorise them so that other hidden gems can be found again.

Are you willing to pay for it? I've been involved in getting the archives of a small-time newspaper digitized and it's not cheap in terms of either time or money. There's a near-infinite amount of decaying and fairly rare analog media out there--and much that has been lost as companies have gone out of business, etc. It's not realistic to digitize all of it.

What are the costs like? Are they mostly staff?

Re: A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

#24

Post by retrac »

bombcar wrote: post #16
speakspokespok wrote: post #6

This is tangential to the article but when ever I read about a lost film being found there’s always mention of how it was found in a vault. I can’t help but always try to imagine what that is. Can anyone describe what these vaults are like? People can reference a data center but most probably have never been in one. However I’m very familiar with the slightly dusty smell, the whine of fans and HVAC, the odd people th…

Some are preservation vaults but the originals were fire containment boxes (basically) because that film burns insanely well.

In the mid-20th century film switched to modern plastics like cellulose acetate, and later PET (which are still quite flammable). But before that, it was the first kind of plastic invented -- nitrocellulose plasticized with camphor. Nitrocellulose is also known as gun cotton; it's literally explosive.

It degrades over time, with the plasticizer separating and the film becoming brittle, eventually turning into a powder that can ignite from friction or even auto-ignite. More than anything else, that's why so many early major films are lost. They turned to dust. And then exploded.

> The use of volatile nitrocellulose film for motion pictures led many cinemas to fireproof their projection rooms with wall coverings made of asbestos. Those additions intended to prevent or at least delay the migration of flames beyond the projection areas. A training film for projectionists included footage of a controlled ignition of a reel of nitrate film, which continued to burn even when fully submerged in water. [...] Owing to public safety precautions, London Underground forbade transport of movies on its system until well past the introduction of safety film.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrocellulose#Nitrate_film_fi...

Re: A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

#25

Post by ghaff »

MattGaiser wrote: post #22
ghaff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to pay for it? I've been involved in getting the archives of a small-time newspaper digitized and it's not cheap in terms of either time or money. There's a near-infinite amount of decaying and fairly rare analog media out there--and much that has been lost as companies have gone out of business, etc. It's not realistic to digitize all of it.

What are the costs like? Are they mostly staff?

It's a mix. For loose issues, it's mostly people's time. We have a large format scanner and it takes maybe 10 minutes per ~16 page issue or so once you get into the flow. For bound volumes, they'll really need to get sent out to somewhere that has specialized equipment and that will cost $1 to $2 per page.

Re: A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

#26

Post by ghaff »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #21
ghaff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to pay for it? I've been involved in getting the archives of a small-time newspaper digitized and it's not cheap in terms of either time or money. There's a near-infinite amount of decaying and fairly rare analog media out there--and much that has been lost as companies have gone out of business, etc. It's not realistic to digitize all of it.

> Are you willing to pay for it? I'd be happy for some of my tax money to go to a historical preservation project. Maybe it'd be feasible to get members of the public to volunteer to do some of the digitisation - that should reduce costs, but I can imagine it would be difficult to keep track of where all the originals are and quality of the digitisation.

I have no idea how you'd crowdsource something like that outside of a local group of some sort who could come into an office and volunteer.

The reality is that there's a near-infinite amount of stuff that could be digitized and someone needs to make a call about what's worthwhile. At some point you're just digitally hoarding and spending a lot of time/effort/money to do so.

Re: A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

#27

Post by signalToNose »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #15
RobotToaster wrote: post #4

It's great that they saved this one, but how many more films like this are rotting in vaults? > the museum has so many reels that it hadn’t paid attention to “The Oath of the Sword.”

Not even just films. The BBC was notorious for taping over old programmes to save money on tape and thus there's early episodes of Doctor Who that are lost along with some classics such as episodes of Hancock's Half Hour. I'd suggest that tapes should be digitised and that way they're far easier for the public to watch and categorise them so that other hidden gems can be found again.

I see it as cultural Darwinism. Remember Sturgeons law. 90% of everything is crap. Culture is mostly like casual conversation and ephemeral

Re: A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

#28

Post by naikrovek »

retrac wrote: post #24
bombcar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some are preservation vaults but the originals were fire containment boxes (basically) because that film burns insanely well.

In the mid-20th century film switched to modern plastics like cellulose acetate, and later PET (which are still quite flammable). But before that, it was the first kind of plastic invented -- nitrocellulose plasticized with camphor. Nitrocellulose is also known as gun cotton; it's literally explosive. It degrades over time, with the plasticizer separating and the film becoming brittle, eventually turning into a powde…

gun cotton and nitrocellulose are not "explosive." they both burn very easily and quickly, but they do not explode.

explosions are another class of reaction.

Re: A 1914 silent film considered lost was rescued from a vault

#29

Post by ghaff »

signalToNose wrote: post #27
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even just films. The BBC was notorious for taping over old programmes to save money on tape and thus there's early episodes of Doctor Who that are lost along with some classics such as episodes of Hancock's Half Hour. I'd suggest that tapes should be digitised and that way they're far easier for the public to watch and categorise them so that other hidden gems can be found again.

I see it as cultural Darwinism. Remember Sturgeons law. 90% of everything is crap. Culture is mostly like casual conversation and ephemeral

I probably have more of a preservationist urge than most people. But, at some point, you really have to accept that you're not going to preserve (and properly index, provide access, backup, etc.) every word, photo, or video that's been put on media in some form.
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