Static Electricity and Black & White Film

[Tim Carroll]

In my continuing research of black & white cinematography, I was reading in the January 1994 issue of AC about how they shot Schindler's List.

 

Janusz Kaminski talks about one of the problems with shooting 5222 and 5231 is the static electricity created by the film moving through the camera and how the sparks from the static electricity fog frames of the film.

 

This is the first I have heard of this. I shot a black & white short with 7231 in 2003 and didn't run into this in the five 400 feet loads we shot. I am wondering if this is a big problem and if anyone else has dealt with it?

 

Am planning on a Black & White shoot later this year and want to know if this is something I should be concerned about?

 

Thanks for any and all info.

 

Best,

-Tim

[K Borowski]

From what I recall about reading about this in this forum in the past, it had to do with too little moisture in the air and a damp sponge in the camera was enough to solve the problem.

 

Another problem with B&W film is that it doesn't have rem-jet, but has an anti-halo die instead, which isn't always enough. Something to do with shiny gates reflecting enough light back through to cause halation anyway.

 

I've shot a bit of 8- and 16mm film, with no problems of either of these types.

[John Sprung]

It's an issue if you have extremely low humidity, or at temperatures so low that all the humidity is frozen out of the air. Static can affect any film, not just B&W. I'd rather humidify the whole set than put anything wet inside a camera. Mix a little anti-static fabric softener with the water in the humidifier or sprayer.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Dominic Case]

The remjet backing on colour neg stocks is made of carbon, so it is electrically conductive and static charge can't build up. B/W neg doesn't have remjet, so it is more susceptible to atatic build-up. It has been a problem for darkroom techs in the lab who are only used to handling colour stocks. If you rewind b/w neg too quickly, you'll get static fogging.

 

Techs who started out when it was mostly b/w knew how to handle b/w neg - but they've all retired long since.

 

As Karl & John point out, low humidity is what makes this a problem. Moist air conducts any static charge away before it builds up too much. A humidifier on set is good - but keeping the stock in a humid environment (in the short term) might also help - as would a humidifier in the loading room. On location, maybe a slightly damp sponge in the camera might be the best solution after all (no idea where you'd put it safely though.)

[Chris Millar]

I've seen it when loading 16mm onto daylight spools from a 400' cores the faster I would the more 'stirkes' I'd get - it was old Ilford fp4, never seen it no matter how fast I wind on modern Plus-X...

 

Its not very bright at all, but with the proximity to the film you'll fog two areas, seperated in time by the circumference of the core when the static occurs. Sometimes it'll happen with the tape that holds the paper backing onto 120 (medium format) film even with a good flash this has never noticably fogged my stills as the actual exposed film is too far away by then...

 

If you're interested take some gaffer tape into a dark room (Nashua brand is good for it) and peel it off fast - you can see a similar effect.

[Cameron Preyde]

The light that you see in a dark room from Scotch tape being pulled off a reel is actually a form of X-Ray.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/science/28xray.html

 

Pretty interesting stuff...

 

 

 

I've seen it when loading 16mm onto daylight spools from a 400' cores the faster I would the more 'stirkes' I'd get - it was old Ilford fp4, never seen it no matter how fast I wind on modern Plus-X...

 

Its not very bright at all, but with the proximity to the film you'll fog two areas, seperated in time by the circumference of the core when the static occurs. Sometimes it'll happen with the tape that holds the paper backing onto 120 (medium format) film even with a good flash this has never noticably fogged my stills as the actual exposed film is too far away by then...

 

If you're interested take some gaffer tape into a dark room (Nashua brand is good for it) and peel it off fast - you can see a similar effect.

[Chris Keth]

On location, maybe a slightly damp sponge in the camera might be the best solution after all (no idea where you'd put it safely though.)

 

As slightly nutty as it may sound, I did almost that very thing on a B&W short I shot out in the desert. I taped a little square of clean leather chamois to the inside of the door for the body of our gold II. It was maybe 1x1 inch or slightly larger. Every mag change it would get a few drops of condensation off of my water bottle. Not enough to be dripping wet, just damp. I can't really certify that it did anything, but I can say that in about 8000 feet of film we shot in 105F-125F temps and probably <10% humidity, there were no weird flash issues.

[Chris Millar]

The light that you see in a dark room from Scotch tape being pulled off a reel is actually a form of X-Ray.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/science/28xray.html

 

Pretty interesting stuff...

 

Interesting stuff!

 

But not what I am talking about:

 

From the article:

The phenomenon has been observed only when tape is unpeeled in a vacuum.

 

The phenomenon I mention is visible light and in normal atmosphere ;)

[Robert Hummel]

Late to these questions by many years... When at Technicolor helping with the dailies on Raging Bull, I solved this problem for Michael Chapman, ASC when I found the solution in an old SMPE pamphlet from the 1930s that said it was important to ground the camera when shooting in low humidity situations (like Santa Ana winds in Los Angeles).

Once Michael Chapman did this on Raging Bull, it eliminated the static issues completely. He ran a length of zip cord from the camera to a pipe on the wall of the sound stage. It was most egregious when shooting slow motion (high speed) shots.  

It earned me my very first screen credit.

Later on I learned that the original name for the ASC was "The Static Club."

Edited November 5, 2024 by Robert Hummel

[Don H Marks]

If you have ever peeled the leading edge tape off a roll of 120 format still film in the dark you would know. If your eyes are adapted you can even see it. 

[Steve Switaj]

Waaaaay back in college I earned beer money by shooting events for some of the local papers. It was all B&W still work, mostly B-level stuff that the staff photographers couldn't get to, stuff like local high school and college sports, often with a quick-turn darkroom session thrown in at the end of the day.

We were in the northeast United States and it could get quite cold and dry in the winter. And of course, many sports are outside. On days like this if I was in a hurry rewinding the film (and it was easy to be in a hurry) , or I used the power rewind on my motor drives, I would often get little lightning bolts across my Tri-X.

Also, for those who haven't seen it, inside an old 35mm still film cartridge, the end of the film was attached to the spool with an inch-long piece of paper tape.

When I was in the darkroom I would always rip it off as quickly as possible because it would delight me by producing a visible green flash. It wasn't bright enough to fog bulk of the roll, but it did leave a pretty cool image of itself on the film right at the end.

Didn't take much to amuse me back in the day, I guess.