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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

#41

Post by fredoralive »

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.

The BBC does have a project to digitise the archives, partly because you just can’t get the players anymore for obsolete formats like D3 (…which most of the old analogue 2” quad library was transferred to when that became obsolete).

Although just having a digitised archive doesn’t mean it can all be made public ally available, there are lots of rights issues and so on (writers and actors will want to be paid etc.) that prevent mass access to the archive.

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

#42

Post by mmaunder »

Half of all American films made before 1950 and over 90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever. The vast majority (75 to 90%) of silent films are lost forever. This is mostly due to fire caused by the nitrate used in the film. Projectionists used to have an escape tunnel from some projection rooms in case of fire.

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

#44

Post by gabrielhidasy »

naikrovek wrote: post #35
hexane360 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosion >An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Supersonic explosions created by high explosives are known as detonations and travel through shock waves. Subsonic explosions are created by low explosives through a slower combustion process know…

I'm not talking about a shock wave, but a pulse wave. would you feel the event from a reasonable distance? true shock waves will generally kill you because they move faster than sound.

So you are talking about a detonation, a specific type of explosion that involves a supersonic wave, almost everything you would see as a munitions expert would be one of those.

A dictionary definition of explosion is "a rapid expansion in volume associated with extreme outward release of energy", that includes things like, gunpowder deflagration, aerolized gasoline burning, or even a pressurized container (like a pressure cooker) rupturing. Film burning on a metal tin as they were stored could fit this definition pretty well.

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

#46

Post by zitsarethecure »

dhosek wrote: post #37
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.

Doctor Who fans are probably the most aware of this. It’s hard to say which is the more stunning fact: how much of early Doctor Who was lost or how much of the lost managed to be recovered later.

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren't some of the lost episodes recovered from copies that were illegally made by people recording the show off their TV? I can't help but feel that the costs to preserve these things would be much lower if we just let fans do the backing up.

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

#47

Post by CptTightpants »

ghelmer wrote: post #31

Sounds interesting but behind the WSJ paywall. A story I find very interesting is the recovery of a large number of films found preserved under permafrost under a former ice rink in Dawson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_Film_Find

https://archive.is/20230528160758/https://www.wsj.com/amp/ar...

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

#49

Post by CaliforniaKarl »

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.

Some of your tax money—assuming you pay US federal taxes—is! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Film_Preservation_Fou...

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

#50

Post by speakspokespok »

mdrzn wrote: post #13
speakspokespok wrote: post #10

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? Does film have a smell? People can reference a data center but most probably have never been in one. They all have a slightly dusty smell, there’s the whine of fans and HVAC, the…

You (involuntarily) triple commented

Sorry about that.
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