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I had a collection of old 16mm films I had picked up a while back. The films were all on cores and double stacked in 35mm cans. The films were wound kinda loosely and were ready to blow. You can see the separation with the arrow. These were all multiple titles ganged up on large reels. No way to get them out of the deep 35mm cans without the centers popping out. And if you ever have popped out the core of a film, you know there is no getting the toothpaste back in the tube. 

In such cases a pizza peel works wonders when handling the film.

pizza%20peel%20film%20handling%20(2).JPG

An old gal was visiting me from down the street. She saw the peel and asked if I liked to bake pizza. I told her yes, but I don't do much with pizza any more since my teeth are shot. And that peel was for film anyway. My pizza peel is much smaller. 

I got the film collection all spread out to breath. The collection was from an old 99-year-old porn director. His ex-porn star wife in her 70's sold it to me. The film was all stored in cans in a hot CA storage unit. The VS was so bad you could smell the film across the room when you opened a can.

VS is developed from a combination of heat and lack of ventilation. The gas builds up in the can and it feeds on itself once it gets going. But if you catch the film in time, you can air it out for a spell, like 6 months or a year and the smell pretty much goes away. (In many cases.) Letting the film breath does not magically cure the VS, but it slows down the decomposition a lot. There is something like 80 or 90 films in the collection. But vast majority has to be broken down from cores. Too bad I don't have a lacky intern to do the work!

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Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

 

 

 

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