OT: Harry Potter (was Re: Yet Another cabe Pretty Printer)

[Bill Vermillion]

"Ang utong ko ay sasabog sa sarap!" exclaimed Bob Stockler
while reading this message on Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 21:31  
and then responded with:

> On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 04:32:47PM -0400, Bill Vermillion wrote:
> | 
> | And release prints aren't always of the highest quality - so the
> | above is not to say that a good print cant be made, but good prints
> | aren't that good.   I don't know what the difference in quality
> | the printing on Kevlar makes, but I've heard other says that the
> | difference between the old nitrate based films to the acetate based
> | films gave a decline in quality.

> Cellulose nitrate hasn't been used for movie film since not
> long after George Eastman had his company (Eastman Kodak) buy
> a small company in Kingsport, TN, that produced alcohol by the
> destructive distillation of wood.  That was in 1929.

Wrong.  Nitrate film was used for commercial 35mm film distribution
up until the early 1950s.  Though acetate [safety film] was used
for home film and non-theatrical films from the 1930s, nitrate
was used for another 20 years.

*****************

Nitrocellulose

   Nitrocellulose (Cellulose nitrate, guncotton) is a highly flammable
   compound formed by nitrating cellulose (e.g. through exposure to
   nitric acid or another less powerful nitrating agent). It was used
   until World War II as a smokeless propellant, replacing gunpowder.
   Other uses include plastics, films and membranes for Western blot.

....

Nitrate Film

   Nitrocellulose itself was used as the first flexible film base
   beginning with Eastman Kodak products in August, 1889. It was used
   through 1933 for X-ray films, where the hazard of its flammability was
   most acute, and continued to be used for motion picture films thorugh
   1951. It was replaced by safety film, with an acetate base. The use of
   nitrocellulose flim for motion pictures led to the widespread
   requirement for fireproof projection rooms with wall coverings made of
   asbestos. A cinema fire caused by ignition of nitrocellulose film
   stock was a central plot element in the Italian film Cinema Paradiso.
   Nitrocellulose film base manufactured by Kodak can be identified by
   the presence of the word "Nitrate" in (usually) red letters between
   perforations; acetate film manufactured during the era when nitrate
   films were in use was marked "safety" or "safety film" between
   perforations in (usually) yellow letters.

   Color negative film was never manufactured with a nitrate base, nor
   was 8mm or 16mm motion picture film.
************

The film mentioned above 'Cinema Paradiso' is a nice film and was
released last year in a longer restored version.  That and
Tornatore's "Legend of 1900" are really fine film and good examples
of the current Italian art form.


> The plant he built there made less flamable cellulose acetate
> to be used as a film base using cotton as raw material.

> Since all of the cellulose acetate produced was not of quality
> required for film base, he hired some people from the British
> Cellotex(?) company who were knowlegeable about making spinerettes
> to make acetate rayon.  My first (and late) wife's father was one
> of them.

That's interesting.  Speaking of British films, I saw parts of one
of the trainging films the British government used in showing 
nitrate vault fires and how it is almost impossible to quench them.

>From the descriptions I've heard the nitrate prints are more
brilliant and many are still being shown in film revivals.

> Since all of the cellulose acetate produced was not of quality
> to make either film base or acetate rayon, they started using the
> rest to make Tenite thermoplastic.

> I went to work for them (Tennessee Eastman Company) on 01/02/1949,

> PS - While cellulose acetate film base may not have the optical
>      quality of cellulose nitrate film base (and I doubt there
>      is any difference), at least not so many people are being
>      killed in movie theater fires.

Read some of the posts on the alt.movies.silent and you will find
that those who have seen it rave about it.  There were many theatre
fires but that did not stop nitrate from being used for
distribution up to the 1950s.  [I've looked to find exact dates and
havn't found it so far].

My parents would tell me about the local projectionist that had a
film get on fire and he grabbed it from the projector and threw it
out the window of the booth onto the overhang of the marquee.  The
fact that there was a couple a feet of snow on that put the fire
out - or at least contained it until is was consumer.

The blanks for making 'instanteous transcription' or record master
had a cellulose nitrate coating. At times we'd take the 'thread'
left when cutting record lacquers and put it in a small pile - and
stand out 3 feet away and toss a match into to demostrate. A big
puff, a cloud of smoke, and it's gone. Less than a second. Large
mastering labs would use a vacuum device to suck the thread into a
jar filled with water and then dispose of that.

But considering that cellulose nitrate is close to gunpowder in
composition that's not suprising.

>      The transition to Edison light bulbs from carbon arc
>      illumination may have helped too.

Of course the arcs weren't that safe - and now it's all bulb
technology.  I remember being in a booth [after begging the
mangager to get into see them] and watching the projectionist
fire up the arcs on the old Simplex projectors.

I've been a film fan/buff since I knew what it was.  And as a kid
my parents had bought my brother and I a 16MM projector [silent]
and we'd get a film for our birthday.  These were the shortened
versions of such things like the old Abbott & Costello films.

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com