Please help asap! Need some facts!!

[Steven Yarmel]

I just finished a long day on a 35mm short set, and in a complete fluke dropped two 500' cans of exposed negative from about waist height onto concrete. The cans look alright, and they were sealed with tape already. Should I be worrying my ass off like I am right now?

[Matthew W. Phillips]

Honestly, I doubt you need to worry. The only concern would be if those cans popped open. If not, you're good.

[Brad Grimmett]

Make sure to tell the lab what happened before they process the film. If there is damage they may be able to find it before they run it through the bath and screw something up.

I'm no expert in this arena, but I've heard this advice given before in similar situations. If you haven't already, you should tell the 1st A.C. and DP what happened.

[Max Jacoby]

Ask the lab to check for sparks on the neg. Not sure what it is called, but if I translate from German it should mean something close to 'pressure exposure'. Basically if a filmcan hits the ground, the resulting pressure can cause accidental exposure on film. On a film I once worked the camera truck was in a bad accident and we had to return all the unexposed filmstock.

[K Borowski]

Max, this is exposed film, so obviously nothing can be done to alleviate this problem. If you drop a can off of a high-rise building, you might get sparks, or wreck a car and flip it three times with film flying out the window on the Interstate Highway.

 

Otherwise, you're fine! Stop worrying! :-)

[Hans Engstrom]

Was on a shoot in Russia earlier this year. On the way to Russia an accident happened when the busdriver had to break because of animals on the road. Our producer was standing in the bus so he crashed into the dashboard and had to leave in an ambulance with broken fingers and broken ribs. Later I learned that he was holding the cans in a bag when this accident happened. Some of the cans had dents on them and some more than others. Because of the risk of "preassure exposure" I didn´t use some of the cans. The D.O.P. had previously been on a production when this had happened and together we took the decission not the use some of the cans, I involved him in the decission because we where allready in Murmansk and there was no way to get new cans over there so it meant that they had to lower the shooting ratio a bit.

 

Pressure exposure happens, but a drop from waist down to the floor? I think you are ok and now when you have done that misstake you wont do it again, that´s the beauty of it. Doing misstakes without ruining anything is the best way to learn.