Forgetting Celluloid?

[martin clark]

Joe - I realise the first stage can always be recovered & reused (it'll be on the carpet somewhere, a few feet east of where you picked the pen up) - but how messy is the 2nd-3rd stage separation/refuelling on one of those?

 

[Joe P]

Martin,

You don't know the half of it. Use the pen for 250,000 miles and all you have left is the nib and a few drops of ink.

Joe

 

[joel]

I was very struck by the comments below a You Tube video of Led Zeppelin backstage at Madison Square Garden in 1973. Posters were amazed at the "HD" quality of the (film) footage. They had trouble believing that image capture was that good

"It feels kinda strange knowing that this vivid footage is from over 45 years ago Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were so young back then...
"Not gonna lie, I like older HD cameras better than new ones. They just look so cool, I can’t describe it."
"This footage is from 46 years ago, but it looks like its from 2023"

It made me wonder if younger people today have lost the knowledge that celluloid film even existed and was capable of producing high quality images many decades ago?

I saw this effect when I showed my own kids the "Apollo 11" movie (shot on 70mm film). They refused to believe it was real at first. Could not understand how something that old could look so good. I think they see "old" digital video from the 90's or before; shot on phones, handycams, amateur video gear etc and just extrapolate backwards that any moving picture capture more than 15 years old must be grainy, fuzzy rubbish. It kind of annoys me for some reason.

How do they think the old, classic Hollywood films shown on TV were made?

We used to shoot TV ads on 35mm ( mostly Arri III and BLs. What a waste

 

[chartz]

I've watched films with my son where I swear there were several minutes of shots that never lasted more than a couple of seconds at most and no tripod used in the entire film. Made my 'kin head spin. Maybe if they show a scene for too long we can see the joins in the tech.

That is awful and unwatchable. Tiring too.

 

[wulbert]

What most people know as photographic film base has been, presumably still is, plasticised cellulose triacetate for a very long time.

Celluloid is plasticised cellulose nitrate. Cellulose nitrate is highly flammable and under the right conditions, explosive - nitrate it a little more than the grades used for (celluloid) films and you have gun-cotton.

(The very great majority of cellulose esters are made from cotton linters - hence gun-cotton.)

I vaguely remember a TV science programme with James Burke where he showed us exploding snooker balls from yesteryear. Must have been made out of a related "wonder material". I used to love James Burke.

 

[Vinny]

I vaguely remember a TV science programme with James Burke where he showed us exploding snooker balls from yesteryear. Must have been made out of a related "wonder material". I used to love James Burke.

Yes - I remember that too. Same material - celluloid.

The very earliest, mass-produced plastics included celluloid and bakelite (both trade names). Celluloid in particular was seen as synthetic ivory and tortoiseshell. THE big UK manufacturer was BXL - Bakelite Xylonite Limited (xylonite is another name for celluloid, both of them trade names, BXL being destined to change names and ownership many times), and their company logo included an elephant and a tortoise.

Celluloid is also what table tennis balls are made from, or used to be. Throw one in a fire, from a safe distance, and see what happens.
The factory (BXL) next door to where I first worked made the film and the balls - stamped with numerous names, not least Helix. There used to be countless rejects around the place - thin or thick spots or out of round.
The feint small of camphor (the plasticiser in celluloid/cellulose nitrate)......................happy days.