Saving Old Movies

Nothing lasts forever…just as your food turns rotton, your film is doing the same..slowly but surely it will fade. So, it’s incredibly important to store your precious memories in archival materials, this way we can slow the decomposition and hold onto your collection as long as possible! This article from Science History dives right into the topic.

JoAnn Greco is a Philadelphia-based journalist who has written for dozens of newspapers, magazines, custom publications, and websites. She is also the co-founder of the online magazine The City Traveler, which publishes articles on urban destinations written by professional journalists.

Juan Emilio Viguié caught the movie bug early, just as the technology for creating motion pictures was developing. Born in 1891, he was barely out of his teens when he bought his own camera and began shooting newsreels about life in his hometown of Ponce, Puerto Rico. He eventually made his way to Hollywood, where he worked for Universal and Paramount, then returned home to set up his own film studio.

Viguié found success and even a degree of international fame when both Fox and MGM bought distribution rights to several of his shorts, including one about Charles Lindbergh’s 1928 visit to Puerto Rico. Eventually, Viguié would go on to produce Puerto Rico’s first “talkie” feature, Romance Tropical, an 80-minute love story set on a mysterious island. Released in 1934, it enjoyed a brief but well-received run in Puerto Rico, then fell out of circulation.

The film’s original negatives also disappeared; it’s anyone’s guess whether they were tossed out or destroyed by fire—an alarmingly common fate for early films (the Library of Congress estimates that 75% of the silent films and talkies made before 1929 have been lost forever). Like Romance Tropical, most of these films today have no name recognition, but titles featuring Lon Chaney, Clara Bow, and other early screen stars have also gone missing. So have a 1917 version of Cleopatra and the first screen adaptation of The Great Gatsby, released in 1926.

full article here!

16 & 35 mm Film Canisters

We stock Film Storage Containers for 16-mm and 35-mm film. These containers are made from inert, archival polypropylene. Containers come with ventilation slots to facilitate air exchange. Raised ribs on the floor of the of the containers help with air circulation.