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Author Topic: nitrate still in circulation (aka Columbia Pictures and ETS/DFS, you suck!) Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-24-2007 03:39 PM                        Today, I received print #0004 of "Cash and Carry," a one-reel Three Stooges short. This was a nitrate print, but was shipped in a standard ICC can (with no markings or red reel band) out of the Salem, MA. ETS/DFS depot. This is where I point out that storage and exhibition of nitrate film has been illegal for decades in Massachusetts. Worse, it was shipped with no warning to a platter house that is completely ill equipped for nitrate screenings (even if such were legal). The manager has notified the booker and hopefully this print will be taken out of general circulation. What is really scary is that a) I almost plattered it without noticing the black-on-clear "NITRATE FILM" edge markings and that b) someone else had done so (original leaders were missing and heads and tails had a good amount of shoe polish on the edges). To anyone who handles prints of pre-1950 films, _always_ check for the SAFETY FILM edge markings. Better safe than sorry. To the distributor and depot: WTF is a nitrate print still in general circulation? Are you crazy? There would be one heck of a liability lawsuit if anything happened. This is yet another reason why film should be inspected at the depot level.  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-24-2007 04:01 PM                     Scott, Do you still have that print? Can you expose it to "black Light" and see if it glows? Kodak impregnated that film with a fluorescent dye that glows under black light. (UV Light) Is it possible that the NITRATE markings are from the negative and that the print is acetate or safety film? KEN  |  IP: Logged Cameron Glendinning Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 845 From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia Registered: Dec 2005 posted 12-24-2007 04:28 PM                     I would suggest that you burn one frame, well away from the rest of the print, its the easy way to tell. Personally I like the look of nitrate on the big screen! I have however been in a position to legally run it before.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-24-2007 04:32 PM                        I told the manager that I wanted the print out of the building. I could probably get it back if needed. I did burn a couple of frames and the result wasn't too impressive, but the print was overall in good condition and might just have been well preserved. Markings were black on clear, indicating that the print was nitrate (white on black would have indicated a nitrate negative) and there was nothing that said "safety" anywhere. Original leaders were missing and I didn't want to cut out any more film to give it the flame test. I will not take any chances with this sort of thing, and neither should the depots and distributors. (I agree that nitrate looks great, but there's no excuse for running a public nitrate screening in a venue that isn't equipped for it. It is also no excuse for shipping a print that is very likely nitrate to a random theatre without both sides' being aware of the situation.)  |  IP: Logged Cameron Glendinning Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 845 From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia Registered: Dec 2005 posted 12-24-2007 04:57 PM                     Agree with you 100% Scott. I was horrified many many years ago when we found out that we had run a 6 week season of "Stairway to heaven" that was nitrate! Worse still made up on a 12,000 ft spool  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-24-2007 05:00 PM                        I should add that I'll happily edit my original post if the print turns out to be safety. I mostly intended it to be a warning that some nitrate may still be around and that we all need to be careful to avoid potential disasters.  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 12-24-2007 05:21 PM                        The first booth I worked in was one of the concrete boxes designed to kill the projectionist rather than the public. Of course if you were fast enough you might get out before the big metal door swung shut! Of course, we never actually tested it in a true lock down situation or even a simulated one as it was 1972 and the prints we were running were safety film! Still the booth was pretty impressive as a fortress or a prison! No handle on to the door on the inside if the safety bar shut came down! Metal shutters would drop in all the port wholes I was 17 or 18 and that was just so cool! Well I was 17 when I started in 72 and 18 when I realized "Hey if this catches fire I'm dead!".  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-24-2007 08:05 PM                     You can always tell by the smell... NItratem has it's own very unique odor. Mark  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 12-24-2007 10:54 PM                       Scott, if you got a distinctly orange flame from the burn test, with an accompanying "whoosh" sound, it was nitrate. Flame up and bright, then back down as all the film is consumed. While a person may be successful getting a small amount of safety film to burn in such a test it's very slow and weak, and the flame soon goes out on its own, leaving most of the frame unburned. quote: Ron Funderburg I worked in was one of the concrete boxes designed to kill the projectionist rather than the public. More than anything, those were designed so the public would not know there was a fire. If you could be locked inside, then something had been changed on the door. That wasn't the norm.  |  IP: Logged James Westbrook Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1133 From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa Registered: Mar 2006 posted 12-25-2007 01:11 AM                     Tim's right. Most, if not all theatres would have the booth door closed when the movies were running so as customers won't wander into the booth and disrupt the presentation of the movie. The booth operator would have to be able to open the door to leave. In case of a film fire, the booth operator was EXPECTED to flee and close the door behind him to contain the fire. Often, the fire would be contained in the magazine or the projector head. These may have been more common for a theatre to have a film fire, be down for a day or two until repairs were made to the magazines/projector heads and then be back on screen.(The upper and lower magazines were supposed to be kept closed when the film was running.) The steel fire door and port window fire shutters, along with the steel and concrete-enforced booth, kept the fire contained. The fellow who trained me for projection told me all kinds of stories about near-mishaps with nitrate film: He had started working booth in the early 30's. He mentioned one fellow had been building up film from 10 minute reels to 20 minute house reels when the film ignited on the bench: The fellow's corpse was still hunched over the bench. In the picture warehouse, there are photos of a Simplex 35 at the AFI screening room that sustained damage from a film fire. This occured in 1975.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Pitt Master Film Handler Posts: 266 From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK Registered: May 2007 posted 12-25-2007 02:41 AM                     There are non-fire ways to test whether a film is nitrate or safety, but they involve the use of unpleasant chemicals. Besides, I would have thought most (if not all) nitrate prints would have deteriorated to at least stage 2 by now. The leaders might be 'new' safety film spliced onto the original nitrate print, be careful what you test.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 12-25-2007 04:02 AM                     quote: Thomas Pitt I would have thought most (if not all) nitrate prints would have deteriorated to at least stage 2 by now. I've seen Nitrate film over 90 years old that still looked as good as new, and I've seen some from WWII that was totally gone in the '70s. The age of the film really doesn't give any indication as to it's condition.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-25-2007 08:29 AM                     Stephen is on the money there. Nitrate that is now propely stored has a long life ahead of it. Steve  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-25-2007 11:54 AM                        Scott, is it really illegal for ANYONE to run nitrate up there in Mass...even if your booth retains all the safety items that were in place when nitrate was being run -- safely, for the most part -- up until the 70s? We still have all the saftey factors in place to make our booth nitrate compliant; all we'd have to do is remove the DTS readers. We have the fire retarding reel magazines, the double thick concrete bunker-type walls, the fire shutters and doors with the heat links, etc. I would hate to think that a municipality would totally ban the running of nitrate if an exhibitor could demonstrated that his booth was nitrate safe. I mean, millions and millions of feet of nitrate film were successfully run for decades without any theatre fires once the safety precautions were put into place. Seems to me that a TOTAL ban like that would be over-kill and bureaucratic stupidity.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-25-2007 01:52 PM                        Frank--yes, it's completely illegal here to store, transport, or project nitrate film. I agree that this is a bit over-broad and silly, but it is the law. All of this is emphasized on the (otherwise, largely pointless) operator license test. I haven't handled much nitrate film and that which I have seen has been in generally good condition, with no smell. When I first realized that this reel might be nitrate, I called someone whom I trust who had run quite a bit of nitrate at UCLA in the early 1990s. We went through the usual ways to tell what is what and ended with the conclusion that it "probably" is nitrate. The frame that I burned would not burn underwater (I tried), but that may have been the splicing tape and not the film itself that was burning. In any case, I'm not going to cut out any more film for the sake of burning it. If this is nitrate, which it appears to be, it should be in an archive, not in theatrical distribution.  |  IP: Logged

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