Rescuing Damaged Film
During early stages of decay, the film content can be rescued by transferring it to new film stock. Once the film becomes brittle it cannot be copied in its entirety. Because the gelatin emulsion usually stays intact during the degradation process, it is possible to save the image on sheet film using solvents to dissolve the base off the emulsion. Once the emulsion has been freed from the shrunken support, it can be photographed or transferred to a new support. Because of the solvents used, this is a delicate and potentially hazardous procedure and is an expensive process for a large collection. Degraded motion picture film cannot be restored in this way, but sheet films often can.
While digitization would be an ideal way to preserve the contents of cellulose acetate film, current standards do not allow for scanning at sufficient resolutions to produce a copy of the same picture and sound quality as the original. Currently, the National Film Preservation Institute advocates film-to-film transfer as the best method for film preservation, with the copies stored in proper environmental conditions.
Read more about this topic: Cellulose Acetate Film
Famous quotes containing the words rescuing, damaged and/or film:
“Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption.”
—André Bazin (1918–1958)
“When a man’s life is destroyed or damaged by some wound or privation of soul or body, which is due to other men’s actions or negligence, it is not only his sensibility that suffers but also his aspiration toward the good. Therefore there has been sacrilege towards that which is sacred in him.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“If you want to tell the untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you’ve got to find a language. Which goes for film as well as prose, for documentary as well as autobiography. Use the wrong language, and you’re dumb and blind.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)