Nitrate!

okay so um uh here are my interns and assistants Keshawn Colin and Ryan uh Colin found a reel that he threw in the trash because it was so deteriorated and here it is here I I can't see what I'm seeing here all right so um here is a real oh it's sideways all right this is the way YouTube's gonna have me do it um this is a reel of nitrate film that deteriorated and it basically has fallen apart so there's not really any way that we can um get it back so I rescued it from the trash um Colin did you want to light this on fire I like my eyebrows okay it's not going to be crazy but here we go um you got it if yeah you can film yeah yeah all right all right so here we go so I might stand back a little bit yeah [Music] it's it's very hot I like you guys are standing way back so uh in August I went to uh the Museum of uh modern arts uh film vaults which are based in Pennsylvania and we went to their nitrate bulbs which were temperature controlled and they were set up in a way that if a film caught on fire that it wouldn't catch the other films on fire and so they were fire resistant uh little shelves each film had its own separate little cubby and then each section had its own way to mitigate fire if it um had uh caught on fire and then if the whole little Vault caught on fire then there was a way to pump uh stuff in it to suck the air out and to also make it to where it uh wouldn't catch to the rest of the building well this is not as dramatic as I hoped it was going to be yeah maybe uh somebody wants me to describe the aroma it's what does it smell like you guys yeah it is kind of a plasticky I wouldn't be surprised if it's some nitrate and some acetate Maybe the thing is if I had spooled it out into something it would have been more dramatic what's in the fireball don't know where it was from but I I've got archival studies that's about Raging Fire yeah like they put it it was in a like a yeah like a smoke stack yeah yeah that was a government facility I think they were using uh and it was National Archives or loc that did it yeah it's not a pleasant smell I wouldn't want to send it candle Yankee Candle to make a nitrate film it out somebody says sorry Peppa Pig it's not gonna happen but uh there you go there's some nitrate film um and like I said there might be some other film in there too uh that makes it super stinky but um yeah nitrate film is flammable and uh it doesn't spontaneously combust but there are reports that it does become it's super super flammable if there's like a static spark it would actually catch fire so all right guys have a great weekend um hope you enjoyed our quick little cookout um and we will see you guys next week everybody take care bye and the only way you could really do that