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Topic: Film fades even in sealed conditon, how come?
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Hugh Thompson Scott
Film God
Posts: 3063
From: Gt. Clifton,Cumbria,England
Registered: Jan 2012
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posted June 03, 2012 08:14 PM
As far as I can gather Winbert,film does need to breathe,and
sealing up film in airtight cans and shrinkwrap, can damage them
especially if they are acetate based,The fading of the colour just means that the dyes used are coming to the end of their life and
I suppose temperature and humidity must have an effect on the
speeding up of this process.It sometimes puzzles me when some
of our members say with understandable dismay that a well loved
film has faded,and when I check my own copy,find it's okay,then
that makes me wonder what conditions are different to mine,
what chemicals have been used to clean/lubricate,what kind
of light has been put through the film and what stock is it
printed on.I can remember when "JAWS" was big back in the
mid 70's,and this was reported in the National press over here
that there were concerns over the saturation of colour,where
the blue sea wasn't as blue and the reds weren't as red,I have
always felt that the powerful lights on 35MM projectors must
have an effect on colour,but the prints don't seem to survive
to inspect after their circuit release.
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Hugh Thompson Scott
Film God
Posts: 3063
From: Gt. Clifton,Cumbria,England
Registered: Jan 2012
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posted June 04, 2012 10:47 AM
Hello Bill,yes temperature must have a bearing on film fade,but
the high powered light that is put through film,and the heat
that is hitting the rear of the film plate must be a factor in dye
fade.For instance,in India,where curried food is popular,if it gets
on clothing is very difficult to remove,being a natural dye,The
ladies in India just let the sun bleach out the stain.I know the spectrum of sunlight is different to tungsten,but the fact remains
that a lot of light and heat is focused on a small frame for a short time.Have you noticed on some of your old films,if you
have white film as tails,how the frame from the projector gate
is shown as a dark imprint through the length of film,and thats
only from a 100w QI lamp.
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted June 04, 2012 12:55 PM
Temperature definitely does have a part in fade ....
I decided upon a little experiment once. I had two somewhat faded copies of "Close Encounters of the Third KInd" (the digest). They still had decent color, but the process was already started.
I took one, placing it in a freezer storage bag with selica gel packets in the bottom of my frost free fridge ....
The other, I tossed in the bin outside! It was the middle of summer mind you, and it was a three week over one hundred degrees period of time.
I went outside to look at the print that was in that big old dumpster, as it was to be dumped by the city the next morning. It has been four days, and that print was absolutely, totally, beet red with no color left at all.
When I finally sold the other print, two years later on ebay, it had not faded further one little bit.
This is why some people are flabberghasted when they swear, (on ebay), when they last played them, (God knows when THAT was), the color was fine, but then they add, "But they were safely tucked away in attic, (gasp) or even worse ...
My metal storage shed in the back of my house!
(double gasp!)
Now, you can't stop fade once it has happened, and sooner or later, those film dyes, on eastman, kodak SP, (Fuji, in some cases) will fade, but you can hold off that process for a very long time and have a fun collection to enjoy for much longer than you might expect.
--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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