No matter how you slice it...film collecting is messy business.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

No matter how you slice it...film collecting is messy business.

Sure, if rich you can match your cans, barcode, have lots of horizontal or vertical film shelves and temperature-controlled film vaults...but it still boils down to film cans or reels on shelving...or the floor.

And when you run out of shelving, you use the floor for shelving. I found this photo on the internet, along with the rest of these photos. This guy titled it reorganizing film, so maybe he has the shelving, and the floor storage is just temporary. 35mm is for the big boys. I just deal with 8mm and 16mm.

 

Temporary or not, floor storage is very common for film collectors if you are short on space or shelving. 

It is common to see film jammed on shelves any way they can fit.

Here is a smaller collector and is neater about it in his man cave...

In the old days they made film shelving to store film vertically. But they are very rare to come across nowadays and they cost $$ when you do find them.

For me it has been a lifetime of being short on space. Space cost $ and I've always worked on a shoestring budget, consequently I have always been short on space. Even growing up I had no space as a kid. My parents didn't have a lot of $ and I grew up in a 1 bath 4 room house in L.A. My bedroom was a foldout bed in the living room. 

An old gal down the street saw some of my film archive and said I was a hoarder.

Some of my films being organized from M-R... 

I told her I'm not a hoarder, I'd just short on space. I've got a few million feet of film and if I had more space and shelving the same thing, she called hoarding, would not be so jammed up. So, if I am a hoarder, it is being a 'hoarder by design' and not by desire. I rather have tons of space and shelving...but I don't. A real hoarder fills up any space they get no matter how large. That is the acid test.

Anyway, she inspired me to expand my shelving for cine' film with 3 or 4 more 6-foot-tall chrome wire shelving units. I don't have that much room for them, but I can put them on casters and double stack them. When I need something from the rear shelf unit, I pull out the shelf unit in front of it. 

I am not really a film collector; I'm a film archivist. I don't necessarily want the films; I just want decent digital scans of the films. My goals changed in 2023 from maintaining a physical archive to becoming a digital archive. But it is a benefit to education as well as the archival record when you can handle, inspect and smell the films versus just dealing with scans. And in the big picture, it is hard to get rid of everything even if you want to go all digital. It takes lots of time to dispose of things properly unless you just trash it all in a dumpster.

16mm IBT Dye Transfer Technicolor Lab Head

DDTJRAC

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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

 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Now...if you are low on space and want narrow aisles between your shelving...

I've found that 14" -16" is the minimum for aisle space for me to work in. If you are anorexic, then maybe 12" aisles are good for you. Either way narrow aisles only allows for working sideways, rubbing your stomach or back along the shelving and not much room to pull and organize things. A better shelving aisle to work out of is 30" - 36". But space is $$.

If you do go for double and triple stacking of shelves on caster with no aisles, then get 4" casters and not the 3" casters. 4" allows for half-ass easy moving. And rolling works best on concrete or hard floors, not carpet. But you can roll on carpets, you just may need help if you have lots of weight. The heavy shelving sinks into the carpet and forms a dent that it must be pulled out of.

They make 5" casters, but you need a 1/4 - 20 screw size for most chrome wire shelving. And once you go to 5", the casters use larger diameter screws. You check it out...I can't breastfeed it all to you.

 

 

Edited February 14, 2025 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

I was setting up my home movies (found footage) on its own 6' t x 48" w x 18" d 6-shelf chrome wire shelf unit. I found it can easily hold 156 400-foot reels per shelf. That translates to 936 400-foot reels per shelf unit. If you are short on room, put another shelf unit on casters and park it in front of the rear one. Pull one out to get at the rear unit. That is what I'm doing. But if you do, be careful on the top shelf with avalanches if you move the shelf unit on carpet. On hard floors it rolls fine, on carpet it is hard to roll. Top shelf can be boxed to keep films from falling. The higher you go up the shelf unit, the more things wobble. 

I'm also burping all my cans as I organize them to de-gas. I'd love to get some of these yellow cans. I like yellow cans to hold split reels in. Makes it fast to find as I have very few yellow cans. When you need a split reel...you need it now!

 

Edited March 31, 2025 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Mark Dunn]

Presumably you're aware that the ideal for archival storage is horizontal, to reduce sagging, core breakage and warping.

Though if the films are tightly wound it is less of a problem. Common sense would suggest that it would not apply as much to 16 and 8mm as they are lighter.

I have my own S-8 films stored flat, but 16mm. leader and so on are on edge for convenience because I actually use those.

https://www.archives.gov/preservation/formats/motion-picture-film-storage.html

Edited March 31, 2025 by Mark Dunn

[Don H Marks]

What is this archive? How is it accessed or is it a personall collection? Is it an investment or monetary establishment?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

16 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

Presumably you're aware that the ideal for archival storage is horizontal, to reduce sagging, core breakage and warping.

Though if the films are tightly wound it is less of a problem. Common sense would suggest that it would not apply as much to 16 and 8mm as they are lighter.

I have my own S-8 films stored flat, but 16mm. leader and so on are on edge for convenience because I actually use those.

https://www.archives.gov/preservation/formats/motion-picture-film-storage.html

 

I generally store films horizonal, just because I have no specialized racks for vertical. I think vertical storage was more of a thing back in the day. When I first got into cine' film I wanted vertical racks because that was what I saw in some photos. 

 

In the mosh pit

Selection from 'Whoop-Whoop' project 2015

D.D.Teoli Jr.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

9 hours ago, Don H Marks said:

What is this archive? How is it accessed or is it a personall collection? Is it an investment or monetary establishment?

 

Are you talking about my archive or the other photos in this thread? 

My archive is an open content archive with a wide area of collection. The content is generally put up at the Internet Archive. It is non profit, it make no money at all. 

Here are some of the films...

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

I don't have much film up there because I still don't have a proper scanner. Once I do and can scan some of the film in the archive. I can put up maybe 10,000+ clips / shorts. I only have 758 as of now, even without a scanner, but some of it is VHS.

Here is an old copy of the scope of the archive, but it is much larger now...

Collection Scope Of The Daniel D.Teoli Jr. Archival Collection : D.D.Teoli Jr. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I have very wide-ranging content, some of it is the best on the internet. Say, Aunt Jemima, here is only part of the collection. No time to scan the rest. But beside that it is all in decent res. That is what separates my archive from the rest. I offer decent res and even hi res for free if people write me, generally speaking.

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

I work in many hundreds, no probably over a thousand areas. I can't even count them all. Some areas are very obscure, but if I run across something...I have a folder for it. 

If you are talking about the other film collections here...I found the photos on the internet. I don't know much or anything about them.

Edited April 1, 2025 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Don H Marks]

Ok, so you scan and put on the internet archive. I suspect that is a lot of work. How much of your collection do you think you have uploaded?

In terms of old advertisements, for example, if I wanted to search for old Nikon brochures, would  I find them on the internet archive?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Hi Don,

Sorry for the late reply. Sometimes it takes me some time to get back to threads. You just have to look for yourself at the I.A.  I got lots of Nikon stuff, but most has not been uploaded or scanned. No idea about how much I've uploaded. Very little, but can't say. A lot of it still needs scanning.

Here is what they have on Nikon.

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

Look for the media type filters on the left of the page. 

I don't have much up on Nikon. Just this.

Nikon F 2 Photography Guide D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. ( 1) : D.D. Teoli Jr. as archivist : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 

 

Edited April 25, 2025 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.