Even very large film archives often don't get a chance to inspect their holdings but if possible, its worth going to the effort to develop some overview of the state of your collection. This could save substantial later efforts when you need to do repair work on a print that’s soon to be screened. An overall inspection will also give you an idea about what deserves the highest priority for transfer, repair or even isolation, if an acetate print is suffering from vinegar syndrome.
A good thing to look for when inspecting an older print is colour fading. If you suspect a print is fading, make sure it is put in the best possible storage conditions, i.e .dry and cool. (For more information, go to the storage section.) This will retard fading, but if the print is important, you should really copy it onto either new stock or video. It would be a good idea hang onto the original though; it could provide useful information in the future.
The handling section provides information about film with physical damage, such as film that is shrunken or that has damaged sprockets while cleaning provides instructions for cleaning film that is dirty or suffering attack from mould, mildew or fungi.
Some dirt and even scratches can be overcome by wet-gate printing into new stock. This process plays liquid around the stock as it prints and in doing so fills in scratches to the base side of the original. Scratches to the base side, rather than the shiny emulsion side, do not remove any of the picture, they just show up when light is projected through. When the scratches are filled with liquid, the light can pass through without re-fraction. A new print is then made from the resulting image.
Restoration
Case Study
Preserving the film of Margaret Tait by Janet McBain
The curator of the Scottish Screen Archive talks through the problems and solutions of preserving and restoring the films of the artist filmmaker, Margaret Tait. These films don't always exist as definitive versions and some of them are hand-painted.
Due to the rather high profile nature of feature film restoration, the term itself can sound quite grandiose. For your film, restoration could range from basic physical repair, to the careful consultation of prints and having a new print made. It may even extend to the use of some digital restoration software, though this is currently very expensive and used predominantly only by professional film companies and organisations.
Digital software can get rid of emulsion scratches, employ colour correction and re-introduce missing frames. There are several packages in existence, with more on the way. Those current include Diamont, Fireworks, Archangel and Phoenix. With these systems, scanned film frames can have their scratches filled in and other damage covered-up by copying information from elsewhere in the frame. Missing frames can be replicated by simply providing an intermediate point, drawing on information from either side of the gap. The restored images can then be recorded onto digital videotape, but professionals will reprint onto film.
At the moment, as an artist filmmaker, it is unlikely that you will have the need, resource or finance to undertake this process. This, however, may change in the future as the software and set-ups become cheaper.