Hi Mary,

Here's a nitrate film story for you (maybe of what not to do with it). I
had about 3 lbs of some nitrate film in my studio for several years in much
the same fashion - commercials and short ends mostly. Last year, I was
moving from Edmonton to Vancouver so I thought I should dispose of it as my
studio tend to heat and cool wildly and without warning. I made sure that
the film I was holding was not negative originals (you can tell if its a
print of nitrate negative on safety stock or a nitrate print) and with a
little research, I also made sure that there were other copies of the
various items/titles in existence. I was busy with moving and packing, so
on my last day in town, I left the film in a small bowl at my mom's house
in her porch and told her I would figure it out soon. Then I hit the road.
I called my local archive and their advice was to burn it. I didn't think
that was very safe so I called my local eco station and they never got back
to me. I figured that if it needed to be burned, it should be burned with
some decent safety and supervision so I called my local fire department.
The only easily accessible phone number (besides 9-1-1) was the fire
investigation number. I left a message and they called me back within
seconds and told me in no uncertain terms that the bomb squad would be
calling me to handle this. This mostly sounded like a joke to me, but
apparently, the bomb squad doesn't usually have much to do in Edmonton.
Within another minute or two, the head of the bomb squad did indeed call me
and wanted to know very many details about nitrate film and its
decomposition. We talked at length and I explained the different stages of
decomposition it could go through and how this film was quite stable -
probably stage 1 - and that it would likely last a good long time without
combusting, longer if it was kept cool. After all, it was only a little
faded and discoloured - it wasn't sticky, smelly, soft, oily, powdery or
warped. He said, 'lady, I'm not moving my ice cream so your film cam blow
up in my freezer." I told him the best thing to do was probably to burn it
in a controlled environment and since it doesn't need air to burn, it would
be good to have some firemen on hand when they did it. I wasn't trying to
insult them, but apparently the bomb squad never asks for help from the
fire department. So then had to call my mom and tell her that the bomb
squad was coming over to her house. They showed up in full gear with sirens
and lights, something that looked like a swat truck, and 5 or 6 other
unmarked trucks. They made her leave the house and take her dogs. Soon
after that, about 10 fully-outfitted officers stood in my mom's front porch
staring at a bowl full of film for over an hour. I had her take a picture.
After two hours, they told her she could come back. They left with the film
in a box and we never heard what happened next.

Best,

Lindsay McIntyre


On Sat, Dec 15, 2018 at 2:04 PM mstark...@gmail.com <mstark...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi all
>
> Thanks for all the responses. Very encouraging. I’m waiting to here back
> from the archive who currently have the films and will update you when I
> know more!
>
> All best,
>
> Mary
> On 15 Dec 2018, at 20:19, Larry Urbanski <lar...@urbanskifilm.com> wrote:
>
> I'm quite curious as to the title or content of this nitrate film.
> Although one archive may not want it, another might. I've sent nitrate to
> the LOC several times, and I know  other archives had footage (it was a
> Chaplin film, Those Love Pangs), but the LOC still wanted it for their
> collection.
> Larry
> Urbanski Film
>
> On 12/12/2018 6:31 AM, Mandar Gotad wrote:
>
> You can do film scanning
>
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 16:18 mstark...@gmail.com <mstark...@gmail.com
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have three reels of 35mm suspected as nitrate and confirmed by my local
>> film archive recently. They want to dispose safely of the film via a third
>> party… And don’t recommend that it is taken back into a domestic
>> environment as they told me it will invalidate my house insurance.  I’m
>> torn between recklessly wanting it back to set fire to myself (!) and
>> document as an artwork. I have very little idea what is on it apart from
>> it’s 1920s (and presumably not thought to be significant if the archive
>> want to destroy it). It’s not in bad condition and has just been sitting in
>> my studio for the last three years. I suddenly panicked about it
>> spontaneously combusting after watching Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen
>> Time, which includes lots of footage of film setting on fire!
>>
>> Any recommendations, thoughts, warnings, advice from an artist filmmaker
>> perspective, rather than an archival perspective, are welcomed.
>>
>> Mary
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>
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