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Author
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Topic: Looking after your films
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Lee Mannering
Film God
Posts: 3216
From: The Projection Box
Registered: Nov 2006
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posted February 15, 2007 01:03 PM
Picked this up from a very interesting web site.
How should films be stored?
Storage is the most important consideration for your films at home. They should be in a film container, preferably plastic, and kept in a dry place with minimum temperature and humidity fluctuations. The container will assist with keeping dust and other foreign matter from the film, and prevent unnecessarily rough handling.
Excellent storage for black and white film is a cool dry room (around 15oc-18oc) which maintains stable conditions throughout the year. To ensure your colour materials last for a similar period, temperatures of less than 8oc are recommended - a much more difficult and expensive option. In both cases, the drier and more stable the conditions, the better for the films (although a relative humidity below 15% can cause the emulsion to irreversibly dehydrate and become fragile).
Stored films should be wound onto a spool at moderate tension. The tension that a projector winds film is probably too tight in most instances. The ideal wind tension is when a film just holds itself together on the spool. Before projection the film should be rewound at a greater tension to prevent the film slipping against itself and causing small scratches as the projector pulls the film into the projection gate. If the film has to be transported, such as through the post, then the film should be wound to the same tension as for projection. This will prevent scratching if it is jostled during transport.
Water is a severe hazard to films and may destroy them completely, so films should be kept well away from places where a leak or overflow of water may occur. Remember that water is not always visible, as high humidity environments mean that there is a lot of water in the air which will accelerate the film's deterioration, and even allow mould to grow. Unfortunately refrigerators are a high humidity environment.
Sometimes the boxes or cupboards used to store the films in may emit chemicals, used in the glue or manufacture of the construction material, which are detrimental to films. Cardboard boxes should be avoided, as should any space which smells strangely. The smells may be from chemicals which have an effect on the stability of your films. Avoid storing films with chemicals, such as cleaning products or paints.
www.nfsa.afc.gov.au/Screensound/Screenso.nsf/AllDocs/C0DE72A922A34E27CA256B5D001597F5?OpenDocument#1
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted February 15, 2007 01:59 PM
Excellent post, Lee.
Most of it I knew, but there were some great points in it.
I store in the lower section of my frost free refridgerator, all in sealed freezer bags with selica gel packets, (to ensure that the film doesn't get "moisturized"), and I have had great luck. Early on, I had problems as the fridge in my first apartment was an old model fridge and it had enormous problems with moisture.
The whole link was quite informative, as well as a great link for other info.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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