Nitrate Fires & Movie Vaults: Films LOST and FOUND

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[@B3D5X]

My buddy works for Paramount and within the last couple of years they built a brand new archive vault in the San Fernando valley. All temperature and humidity controlled. The nitrate films get their own special vault that's sealed off from everything else. They're taking preservation seriously these days which is great.

[@GlowstoneWolf]

thats so lovely to hear!! i hope no more films are lost

[@kchishol1970]

I'm sure that fact that there is money to made with their film library is some incentive for that effort.

[@Pioneers_Of_Cinema]

@@kchishol1970 No doubt about that - Before TV, home video, internet etc etc, studios couldn't justify the need to keep storing product that they did not think had any future revenue potential. We mustn't forget that movies have always been an uneasy blend of commerce and art.

[@moldyoldie7888]

Is this the PHI Stoa film vault built at Santa Clarita by David W. Packard? (I'm not familiar with SoCal.)

[@B3D5X]

@@moldyoldie7888 No it's I believe somewhere between Woodland Hills and Thousand Oaks. They keep the exact location confidential.

[@dalemccarthy]

Very recently, about 30 seconds of previously lost footage from Theda Bara's "Cleopatra" (1917) was discovered!!

[@cameronboushehri9423]

Film vault fires are extremely painful for me to imagine. All those glorious vintage classic films gone in a flash. 😭😭

[@alexfraser9132]

As someone who's into exploitation cinema, this stuff haunts me every day. I've got tons of paper materials for films lost simply because their owners-after playing them as much as they could-abandoned them to either get thrown out by the labs when they stopped paying storage fees, or when it shut down and the owners couldn't be found. For the longest time I had some camera negative for a lost film that a guy rescued from a dumpster filled with celluloid after a lab closed. It's always nice when the trailer at least exists, but oh does that make the pain worse sometimes.

[@theflyingbrit6345]

Yeah this video did male me sad

[@johnkaplun9619]

Honestly, the worst for me was the universal fire a in 2008 which destroyed master tapes from the 50s straight up to the 90s. Elvis to Nirvana masters, gone.

[@Stonecutter334]

That was criminal. But wealthy criminals in the USA are above the law completely now. Corporations are free to do whatever they want from our food to our medicine to our history. Thanks Republicans for destroying everything you can. Stay Rich!!

[@nareyubr]

Noah, have you watched the Beatles' documentary "Get Back"? When I learned the original footage was completely shot on 16mm color film and I saw the remastering done with it I thought "wow, that's quite some analog resurgence right there!"

[@arricammarques1955]

Filmed with ARRI 16mm BL BTW.

[@sonyviva308]

Its Resurgin' time!

[@PassCookie]

Yeah but the original footage was VERY grainy (of course 60s filmstock is not as good as todays). For get back it was upscaled via Ai. If you want to see some of the footage restored but with it's original high grain in HD you can watch the music videos for don't let me down and get back on the 2015 "1+" blu ray or the don't let me down video is also on youtube. I never liked the high grain on those. The 35mm filmed color videos for paperback writer, Rain, Hello Goodbye, Hey Bulldog, Strawberry Fields Forever etc looked perfect with no grain visible.

[@kewrock]

@@PassCookie Yes. Some blue-ray releases of old movies actually look worse than the standard definition releases we got used to. Criterion's release of On the Waterfront looks terrible. There's so much grain, it looks like a swarm of gnats between the camera and the actors. It's distracting. That's the one that stands out in my mind. Another is The first two Mad Max movies. To be honest, they actually looked better on VHS.

[@seralegre]

An important piece of film we also have lost is original NASA recordings of human landing... We only have the recording of the screen that was casted to TV, but the video with better signal was lost, and more moments of apollo program

[@kensims4086]

Wasn't that shot on a secret lot in disney studios? I read that years ago.

[@werdlederdle]

It worries me that my parents have a store of nitrate movies in the garage casually.

[@Yessir1506]

Send it to the museum, they can take care of the film better

[@Pioneers_Of_Cinema]

Convince them to donate to a film archive. Most countries have film archives. They would not want them to catch fire as you cannot put it out. There could be priceless lost films there. Regardless of how rare the films may be, Nitrate is a beautiful unique film stock, that safety film, video or any other medium cannot match.

[@the_chris-tea]

I'm currently working at a local artist run center, on the first day of my job a man came in with a pickup truck full of films he found in the crawlspace of a house he just bought. It was all nearly lost because he originally took them to the dump! Luckily someone working at the dump told him to call the local museum who directed him to donate them to us. The films are safely living in our archives now and I had the delightful job of finding the contaminated vinegar syndrome films (it's like the worst vinegar I've ever smelled).

[@allys537]

I'm in a race to scan and preserve my family archives of film and slides for all of us to see, it's amazing to think of how many of these pictures I've scanned that haven't been seen for decades, it's like a rediscover of the past. One beings back all kinds of lost memories and you forms new memories from looking at old negatives and slides. That's why I love film, you can still hold it and still have something. Great episode.

[@kanalchannelofficial2932]

It's very difficult to find a film that dates back to the 1800s, and some of the films are not complete and some are full-length. Thanks to Analog Resurgence's research efforts. greetings from Cambodia.

[@kelleebolden7936]

This is truly a wonderful post from you Noah. I have to believe that there are "lost" silent films out there, just waiting to be discovered, again. Hopefully they won't be too far gone.

[@selzzaW]

It's incredible to think how quickly we can lose modern media on a whim while we seem to think it will last forever. A few years ago, Machinima deleted their entire catalog of videos, destroying 10 years worth of works. They may not necessarily have major artistic merit, but they don't deserve a fate like that.

[@nobodysperfect06]

Same thing can be said for deleted scenes or outtakes of movies in the days before home media existed, as in, before VHS and DVD, it was sadly the industry-wide tradition to destroy or discard deleted scenes or outtakes from movies. There are sadly films with deleted scenes that will never be seen again such as King Kong and The Wizard of Oz. However The Wizard of Oz might not have had its deleted scenes intentionally destroyed, cuz it's believed that MGM was the only major film studio in the old days of Hollywood to have the foresight about saving and preserving deleted scenes

[@johnkaplun9619]

One of the big problems is people's perception that this stuff doesn't matter anymore. The problem is you can't say that about what is unknown, there are countless examples of artistic works that weren't fully appreciated for decades or centuries. That can't happen if the work doesn't survive.

[@Pioneers_Of_Cinema]

Very true. A few reservations of the merit of most of the last few years output though.

[@hassesiemonsdochter574]

Also a number of films were preserved because of US copyright laws. In the beginning of motion picture it was not posible to copyright a movie. So they made a paper rol with a picture of each frame. While the original film was torn down by age or bad storage,the rols of paper where still good preserved.

[@mojotheaverage]

I love learning about lost film and the irony that old film footage of film reels being burned whilst so much of film history has been lost is painful

[@truefilm6991]

Great topic! Well I worked small jobs at the Frankfurt TV station way back in the late 1970s to early 80s. They transferred most of their material that was originally shot on 16mm and 35mm film onto vídeo tape to make room, and destroyed the film footage. That is a huge loss, since the video tapes, containing poor SDTV transfers, are deteriorating even faster than film would. Thankfully many tv shows were made by independent companies that still keep their film footage, so that we now have restored versions available on Blu-Ray, looking better than ever. IMHO film is still the safest storage medium, not becoming obsolete and unplayable, and certainly better than data floating in the cloud.

[@jody2873]

I live in a retirement town with the majority of old people getting rid of their old 8mm personal film reels, slides and units. Have picked up all at the local transfer station or in the dump. I collect about all I find and have movie nights! Thanks interesting video,,👍

[@isidoros20]

Love this. I used to work in a film restoration lab in Goritzia, Italy. Loved the work.

[@The1queencollector]

We found an old silent black and white cine home reel in my Great Aunts home after she died, its from the early 1920s, we had it put to DVD, my Grandad, Uncles, Aunts and my Great Grandmother whom i never knew were on it, fabulous find and a look into thier past.

[@johnkaplun9619]

My grandpa shot slide film all the time. He passed away in 2005 and that's were pictures of me and the fakily cease to exist. After he passed, people took digital pictures which were almost never printed and once the camera was forgotten the pictures were gone. As you point out digitals not aways the answer. Even the cloud requires huge server warehouses running at all times and companies that won't endlessly compress files to death.

[@cynthiamhocevar5575]

I have part of my estate dedicated to film restoration.

[@kit-ekat8139]

I really love seeing content about the topic of silent film preservation and you did an incredible job discussing it

[@inkaststudio]

Your videos are always well produced and researched. It's like watching television 👍🏾

[@bailzer01]

Amazing video as always, Noah. This one hit me harder than usual. Thanks for all that you do! Amazing production quality. Keep ‘‘em coming!

[@biancaportillo6552]

im not a film expert by any means but im fascinated by 1890s-1920s culture the world was so different and art was just so beautiful. films are a time capsule of certain eras and the fact that we lost so much of those visuals is sad.

[@STINSONShobbies]

Dude! Absolutely great video. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Keep up the great work and come out with more videos like this if you can!

[@martyjackson4166]

This was a really great video about a topic I feel is unfortunately very under-discussed. My student thesis film’s plot revolves around someone searching for a lost film, so I’ve been doing a ton of research into lost films, and it really is incredible and depressing how much of humanity’s history and culture and art has been lost due to fires, vinegar syndrome, poor handling, and especially intentional junking of films. Unfortunately, a lot of everyday people’s memories and stories on 8mm/16mm home movies continue to be lost all the time due to people not knowing how to care for their films. An interesting follow-up video topic might be about individual people can do to preserve their own films? That’s a topic that especially seems to be hard to find much discussion about. Again, great video, thanks for covering it!

[@daves9551]

Awesome episode! Did not know about the original film material. Very interesting. 👍

[@cal_cur]

I'm so glad you did a video on this! I've spent wayy too much time tracking down unidentified nitrate film fragments and sending them to archives, and it's nice to see a popular channel cover this topic. :)

[@cal_cur]

Also, I just sent you a DM on Insta!

[@KieranHighman]

Splendid video here, and by quite a coincidence today is the 10th anniversary of 2 missing Dr Who episodes being found (Galaxy Four: Episode 3 & The Underwater Menace: Episode 2). That was quite a moment for me, the first time I'd witnessed a recovery. The mystery surrounding the lost films from that show (whether it be the finished tele-recordings or the 35mm inserts they'd telecine during studio recordings) were what first sparked my interest in the film medium. Here's hoping for many more recoveries of the world's lost films!

[@Markybug-Keira-Cody]

Extremely interesting and sobering viewing Noah !

[@garymattscheck9066]

What about Theda Bara's silent movies, such as "Cleopatra "?

[@elveskickass]

I'd love to see the inventory list from the MGM vault fire.

[@rubentorrejon5652]

Love your channel! Best Regards from Madrid!

[@naqoyqatsi123]

wonderful video! thank's for sharing this

[@szelag]

It's an interesting thing to think about. On one hand I love preserving as much of the past as we can. Whether it be cinema productions or family photos, film reels or moments taken on old cell phones - whatever it might be. All those moments. At the same time, I feel like film being a tangible medium is a reminder that in the grand scheme of things - all of this is fleeting. Gotta enjoy things as much as you can, while you can.

[@LyndonSoulGroove]

Great to see this film....I noticed you took part in straight 8 , i did too, i was the guy on scooter, last night watched a US film i know but not too well , its "The holiday inn " Bing & Fred Astair...picked it up for less than a pound at a garage fair its the DVD with a colourised version issed in 2008, back then who would have thought seconf hand DVD would become so cheep...Enjoyed it in the world of constant streaming & adverts its good to put on a Vinyl Record or a DVD or a super 8 film ..and relax...

[@zorkikat]

Nitrate film isn't made from Potassium Nitrate. It's called "nitrate" because the material is cellulose nitrate, an early plastic material made from "gun cotton" which was very flammable and as a result, were sometimes explosive.

[@robfriedrich2822]

They made so much things with this plastic. In some cases register tabs for an organ, it was discovered late.

[@brineb58]

Well done ... thoughtful and kinda scary!!!

[@driley4381]

I love what the BBC has been doing with animation to restore those lost classic episodes of Doctor Who.

[@EVATHESAVIOR-vr9dd]

Thank you, I am now moved to tears in the bathroom at work

[@beaviselectron]

Excellent...thank you for this.

[@emersonsilva9782]

A suggestion for a video would be a guide on how to search and spot old film that is potentially valuable for preservation.

[@MindMan424]

And I still wonder if there were any deleted Wizard Of Oz scenes from that 1965 MGM vault fire ...

[@nelsonm.5044]

Quite an interesting video I was not aware that so many early films and even masterpiece were gone forever or badly damaged

[@scottzema3103]

Find more Dawson type caches in the end run destinations for these films. one was found in Iowa. Is any schedule of film delivery to the obscure, small town theaters available from that time? Not in New York or Chicago but in Boise or Ames or other end run small towns. Also perhaps the lost Jack Johnson film also may be found in Cuba, as Johnson was immensely popular there. Films with Spanish language versions may also be found in Latin America as well as Spain and the Caribbean. although somebody probably thought of that. A systematic trace of possible original locations for the film runs may produce results, particularly in their end destinations? Abandoned theaters in the Midwest?

[@geoffolehane]

This is why I love to hear stories about old films that were found while renovating a home or something .

[@DethronerX]

Beautiful presentation, sir

[@RetroGamerBB]

I wish library of Congress had a streaming service

[@user-tf2ru7oz6w]

I would love to see a print of the movie CONVENTION CITY will show up in some forgotten archive so it can be found and preserved. You Tube is also a great place to find film that was thought to be lost.

[@ltrono]

Thanks so much Noah!

[@donkeypoo99]

These should be sent to the Victorville Film Archive

[@lubowrc]

That's super interesting topic!

[@nicholassheffo5723]

Unfortunately, all digital backups are non-archival and the best way to store a film is on film, along with protecting the original camera negative, et al.

[@SinaFarhat]

Interesting and informative video! Its like generations of classical musiciana that was important when they lived, but after their death their music lost its status as the next generation created the new style that took over the old style! Its not until many many years later that the old musicians music gets rediscovered and they get to be respected and their music played! By the way just look at the old US gameshows that got erased because tape was expensive and also it probably back then didn't make sense that someone wanted to watch the old stuff when new episodes could be recorded! Have a good week!

[@DavidBirchphoto1.]

Fascinating video, as a fan of the golden age of cinema this upload really interests me.

[@AyanoAishisdaughter]

I hope that somebody finds the rest of From Our King and Queen Through India (1911) all I saw was the soldiers

[@gianlusc]

This video shall be preserved ☺👍🏻

[@trotterhorsewatsonjr.6668]

We must concentrate on the ones still around and savable! Stop worrying about the lost ones they’re gone save the ones still around!❤

[@oofmeister-vr7zk]

Great video!!!

[@poetcomic1]

We have come a long way from when someone forgot to pay $20 to renew the copyright on 'It's A Wonderful LIfe' and it went into public domain.

[@JR_Taylor]

Your best video, congratulations

[@alexlandherr]

I recently bought a 16mm sound blooper print of ST:TOS. It has some “red shift” but I know a scanning/restoration place that might be able to reduce that issue somewhat.

[@robfriedrich2822]

Too often copyright isn't the dog what attacks thieves, but the dog what bites the postman.

[@robfriedrich2822]

Video can also be lost media. In the late 1960's a company produced video tapes, what disintegrated. So many shows were lost forever. In one case a film amateur was allowed to film a music show, his family recorded the sound from the TV and they used modern technology and stills to recreate the show, but it was half a making off, showed it from the perspective of the live audience.

[@morganalabeille5004]

The Fox vault fire also resulted in the death of a 13 year old boy when the fire spread to nearby houses. His name was Charles Greeves.

[@tracyotrhuiskamp1012]

Would love for the four lost Charlie Chan features to be found

[@jimduffy7199]

Good use of the music from the HTV ident!

[@thomasm.longiii3752]

I hope more can be found. Though I know not all will be found, hopefully at least they can try to find as much as possible

[@Otokichi786]

Ah, the topic of "films too hot to project.";) I ran across an otherwise sober and educated KZbin video maker who said: "Silver Nitrate films are flammable!" Oh well, "Nitrate-based/Nitrocellulose film base" doesn't roll off the tongue, eh? On with the motion picture film preservation subject and the "glow of Nitrate-based films" seen in early 20th century movies.

[@janetcarbone4213]

It’s just so sad. So much history and entertainment 😞. Really glad they are trying to save what they can. My greatest hope is that there are still some gold mines preserved like the Mitchell and Kenyon films found over in GB. In some ways I prefer the silents. It’s like Gloria Swanson said-“We had faces!” Great great stuff! The only bad part was if you had to go to the bathroom during the movie👎🏻

[@8bit_cat72]

As I am watching this I am actively scanning negatives of old family photos from the 1950s and 1960s. I'm not in these photos, I was born way after them, I am simply doing it because It should be done.

[@threestoogescritic3280]

Love the three stooges shoutout!

[@user-kv8ce5qe7q]

Some old TV shows from the '50s have perished.

[@PlutoPebble]

I'm so fascinated by how raw footage can decay and how or if they can be restored.

[@Pioneers_Of_Cinema]

Nitrate film (pre 1950) will slowly decay if not kept under climate control. Humidity and heat are the biggest threat. It will eventually turn to a a sticky sludge or even dust. Highly flammable too. If caught early enough all film can be rescued by making a new copy onto safety film stock and most damage can be repaired if it is not too far gone. The problem is that studios have to have a financial incentive to preserve, copy and restore. Archives do their best but they are under staffed, under funded and have a shortage of space. ,. with a lot of film not even seen or catalogued what it is. I've done some restoration work on Nitrate 35mm, some of the extremely heavy scratching comes up pretty well but there are always remnants of damage.

[@PlutoPebble]

@@Pioneers_Of_Cinema wow...yes its unfortunately quite destructible to its self and its environment.

[@calzstevenson7017]

Then when the internet crashes (which will happen one day) all those videos in the cloud will also be gone forever, along with many stores in SSD will go if it's a solar flare or gama burst causing it

[@atompunk5575]

Glad that someone is saving these movies, now I'm wondering about the preservation of Video Games, a tricker subject

[@Biosynchro]

That does sound interesting. However, with so many copies of games being used in emulators and so on, is it even a problem?

[@atompunk5575]

@@Biosynchro that is true, but how many of those copies will be around in the next 50 years? Or even 25 years? How many people do you know that have a copy of Medal of Honor Frontlines, which i have on my PS2, how about Shadow the Hedgehog? What about Bioshock? Fallout (1997) Fallout 2 (1998) I know for a fact that MIT has the first video game, Tennis for Two in their archives. Let me add this as well, physical copies of a game, now a lot of them are digital, as close as i can hold it is my Laptop.

[@hattree]

I did a paper on this topic years ago. This is a huge problem with videotape as well. Not flammability, but separation of the magnetic layer and the plastic or acetate base.

[@sbcinema]

I probably have a thousand vhs - beta video2000 and other cassettes, most of them are very good preserved. One of the biggest problems beside the separation is mold that can destroy the magnetic layer. I recommend storing them in a cool, dry place in the dark. I also store particularly valuable cassettes in such a way that they are protected from magnetism and other rays. If there is general interest in it, I'll make a video about how to best store your cassettes and how you can digitize them with the highest quality.

[@hattree]

@@sbcinema At the time I wrote about it decades ago at this point, they were talking about 2" Quad tape used since the 50's into the early 1980's. A lot of it was wiped and taped over, but there are only a few existing working machines. There are significant degradation issues with it.

[@sbcinema]

@@hattree I also have a few of these tapes lying around, a problem with them is often that the foam inside the case dissolves and makes the tape sticks. as far as the machines are concerned, they are easy to repair but there are not many of them because they are big and bulky. Another tape-based storage medium are, for example, audio tapes and computer tapes, it is now really difficult to find a working computer that can still play them.

[@hattree]

@@sbcinema Yes, I know about the foam breakdown. They were also seeing the oxide layer flake away on playback.

[@nigelcarrington2910]

opening theme was used by HTV in UK.

[@tugglemiles2991]

My Mom remembered a movie that started melting while being shown everyone ran out of the theater.

[@peterpeterson3266]

Just like we humans, eventually there is no trace we existed!

[@DennisTrovato]

Damn, now I'm depressed. :/

[@user-kv8ce5qe7q]

I was thinking about The Gold Diggers Of Broadway from 1929.

[@rolandomendez2243]

Even now I think there are a lot of lost youtube videos, or is the platform itself that keeps the videos this way. Lately I was trying to find a video that I saw years ago, it was a really dumb one of some guys playing an electric guitar cover of peanut butter jelly time. Searching for this is really difficult because all the results are high-production videos. Also there was a parody of the first E3, that one had a decent production quality. But I can´t find it. In the case of youtube, I don´t think a lot of small videos are gonna get to far through time.

[@user-vr6xm8lm1o]

I still say MGM did a great job saving the Our Gang silent movies, and doing their best saving and restoring the 1st silent Our Gang movie, in 1922? At least MOST of it was saved ...😊

[@cojaysea]

Life’s whirlpool 1917 made in Fort Lee lost . Most of the original movie Greed 1924 was cut and then lost . Both films adapted from the novel McTeague by Frank Norris .

[@marcoaurelio4903]

Iam from brazil and extremly horrified at the cinemateca situation. Think about MGM being overrepresented makes me feel bad about how much non north american old movies are in the grand schema.

[@deadpan80]

the sad thing is that - most like everything else - no matter the efforts, all films will eventually fade out of existence

[@haydnwolfie]

This video just made me sad :/

[@snakes3425]

I can't figure out who thought it was a good idea to use film that is essentially made of gunpowder.

[@beefchicken]

Potassium nitrate? Research fail.

[@paullatimer1639]

They have to stop using the wrong statistics. Of the 10,919 silent feature films produced between 1912-1929 14% survive in original 35 millimeter, 11% survive in 16 millimeter or other gages. So that's 25% complete. 5% also survive either films that are missing one reel or are fragments. 70% of silent features are considered compleatly lost. That still leaves us with over 3,000 films and even in the 21st century one or two still turn up.

[@cici-ht6px]

Rko dumped theirs in the ocean

[@nordicnostalgia8106]

It's regretable, but understandable how they didn't conserve film back then. They hadn't gotten around to become old yet and they were inferior compared to newer films. People in general I believe didn't get attached to movies like we do today, either. It reminds me of how much the cardboard box video games came with is worth now. Most would throw them in the trash, especially parents. I certainly didn't take care of mine

[@arricammarques1955]

ARRI LASER SCANNER : )

[@robfriedrich2822]

Pretty often it's the fault of a projectionist's disobedience, that he didn't returned the copy, what enables us to watch this movie today. Would they have copy protection, it would be protected from any use.

[@luissegovia8205]

Te pareces mucho al joven George lucas !! De ahí debe venir tu pasión por el cine Greetings from chile 🇨🇱🇨🇱🇨🇱

[@HoaNguyen-iq5rg]

😱🎞📽