Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1940)

21 National Archives Building and views ^ of the film vaults &* FILM IN THE NATION'S ATTIC WILLIAM M. NELSON WHAT happens to America's historically essential movie film, the few thousand feet with long range interest of the thousands of miles of celluloid that, every week, are sprocketed past the nation's lenses? The question is an engrossing one, far more absorbing even than the ancient and baffling query which relates to the eventual disposition of old razor blades. A few years ago, there might have been many answers. A Mr. Jones in Oshkosh had gathered about him a wealth of rare cinematic material. This or that museum was establishing a film collection. And so on. But today there is one film collector who for a few years quietly and efficiently has been gathering film documents about him until his collection now overshadows any other in the United States. So vast is his collection that he is at the present time considering the building of large storage vaults to house 80.000 additional reels which he hopes soon to acquire! Who is this collector? None other than Uncle Sam himself. At the beginning of the present decade, Congress passed an act creating the National Archives, an official "attic" for the United States Government, where might be collected, stored and preserved, by the best methods modern science is able to devise, the documents which have recorded, and contributed to, the growth of this great nation. When it came to designing and planning this Gargantuan storage place, there was nothing backward about Uncle Sam, for he intended to include in it not only documents on paper, but documents visual and audible, on film and record, as well. Today, in the National Archives Building on Constitution Here is how the 16mm. film maker does it — latest equipment for non theatrical film storage Neumade Products Corporation Photographs by The National Archives How United States Archives Building preserves records Avenue, in Washington. D. C, the film section is a vast department in itself, the existence of which is a concrete insurance policy for the film history of the United States. It is amazing t<' witness the results that have been accomplished in the five years of its existence. Before these film archives were established, comparatively little was known about the scientific preservation of film for centuries to come. The few government agencies which had made extensive use of movies kept their films as best they could, but this was often not very well. And about preserving film for posterity, they knew little or nothing. But, in the past few years, the Division of Motion Pictures and Sound Recording in the Archives, working in cooperation with the Bureau of Standards, has engaged in research, the results of which are of great importance. For example, it is a well known fact that nitrate film, the inflammable film used by Hollywood but never in 16mm. or 8mm. widths, decomposes on long standing. If it stands too long under improper conditions, it may deteriorate rapidly and create a fire. Today, in the Archives, there are four large vaults which together hold some 2,000 reels of nitrate film. Each reel is kept in an insulated steel compartment. To guard against the danger which the pent up gases of decomposition of nitrate film may present, there is a trap door at the back of each compartment, which can be forced open by slight gas pressure from within; hence this provides for easy and safe escape of the gases. As further precaution, the vault is kept at a constant temperature of fifty degrees, and the air in it is maintained at a relative humidity of fifty percent. The very lights which illuminate the vault are enclosed in vapor proof globes. Under conditions such as these, the Archives feels it can call its storage of nitrate film "safe." Such precautions are not necessary in the case of 16mm. films, which are made, without exception, on acetate of cellulose stock. This material, as investigations of the United States Bureau of Standards have shown, is remarkably stable and does not decompose. Therefore, the storage of such films for future generations is chiefly [Continued on page 32]