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Post by William Martin on Nov 19, 2003 17:05:26 GMT
How likely is it that film was dumped by the bbc in land fill sites rather than burned, I would imagine dumping in a land fill would be cheaper and easier that burning?  how long would a can take to rust through? and is there any way of recovering such material??? |
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Post by H Hartley on Nov 19, 2003 18:59:42 GMT
Preservation of anything buried William is in the laps of the Gods.You just never can tell what nature is going to give up..or give in..
As for burning it, i cant imagine BBC employees stoking up the bonfires, the unions would have gone mad.
If anything they were just skipped. Or they may have gone to the people who destroy cinema prints when the release has finished. These days they just put a band saw through it and it may be recylced.
During WW2 a lot of films were lost for ever as they were recycled for much needed silver etc.
band sawed prints have been recovered by some maybe mad enthusiasts who have tediously spliced it all back together again.
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Post by Gareth R on Nov 19, 2003 20:33:28 GMT
It's not realistic to consider trying to recover anything from landfills. To quote the Restoration Team's FAQ on the subject :
1) The 16mm prints were spooled, and removed from their cans prior to being thrown away.
2) The way that landfills work. Bulldozers are used to churn up the garbage and compact the earth. So any 16mm films that survived being spooled, or were thrown away in their cans, were more than likely crushed by a bulldozer when the earth was compacted.
3) The nature of the film. Film soaks up water like a sponge. There are water trucks at landfills to water the land to help the bulldozers in compacting the earth. So no doubt the films got wet. When film soaks up water, it expands, and the emulsion (picture) on the film will come off, and turn to powder, resulting in blank film.
4) Then you have all the dirt and rubbish that could stick to the film and rub the emulsion off the film like sandpaper, resulting in blank film.
5) Some of the landfills have been turned into parks, towns, even motorways... Even if the films were only junked weeks ago, terminal damage would already have been done to them in that short time.
Plus, as the FAQ doesn't mention, you've got the simple logistics of physically trying to locate the material. Landfills typically cover a very large area and go a long way down below the surface.
Without a small army of industrial excavators and manpower, it would be a formidable enough task to try and find something that you knew for sure had been disposed of in that particular landfill just a week ago. You can imagine how difficult it would be to try and find films that *might* have been thrown away in that landfill a quarter of a century ago, which could now be 20-30 metres below the surface, and which would be useless even if you did find them.
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Post by dubs on Nov 19, 2003 22:41:12 GMT
Oh - don't be such a pessimist!
I'll match you shovel for shovel!
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Post by H Hartley on Nov 20, 2003 0:15:50 GMT
Too right Dubs! thats the spirit? is there any truth in the rumours about a scrap dealer who had a loft full of BBC stuff he had got out his skip hire services? who knows! there might be just some tiny gas pocket under a mall in Essex where methane blows over a Dr Who film keeping it dry and clean  |
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Post by dubs on Nov 20, 2003 1:08:51 GMT
Couldn't we demolish some malls on the pretence of looking for buriied reels of Revenge Of the Syphilitic Daleks 94 or whatever?
I bags first sledgehammer.
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Post by William Martin on Nov 21, 2003 16:46:22 GMT
get time team on to it
just a thought though has anyone ever dug up a film from a land fill to find out? I thought it would be a lot of trouble to burn them and that it would have been easier to dump them, more chances for film to go walkies this way. de-spooled film will have had it but film in a can has a chance as long as the can stays shut and is cushened by rubbish/garbage around it then it could survive for a while
feavered imagination wild speculation etc
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Post by Simon Mclean on Nov 21, 2003 21:04:55 GMT
Remember what the Blue Peter Time Capsule looked like when they dug it up though - eurgh!
And that was just in the Blue Peter garden - can you imagine what a film would look like after being dug up from a landfill?
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Post by Gareth R on Nov 23, 2003 19:35:50 GMT
just a thought though has anyone ever dug up a film from a land fill to find out?
How would you actually *find* the films within the landfill, even if you knew for sure that they were there (which you wouldn't)?
As was pointed out earlier, films thrown away in the 70s could have 20+ metres of other compacted rubbish on top of them now... it would take a huge amount of effort, (not to say proper industrial excavation equipment), to unearth them even if you knew *precisely* where to dig!
Are there any records surviving to indicate which landfills were definitely used for the disposal of film? And are any of those landfills still accessible, or have they all been built on?
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Post by H Hartley on Nov 23, 2003 20:51:44 GMT
I think they are not allowed to build on a landfill for at least thirty years as essentially it is a living thing shifting and changing.
However if you have ever been to the old 70s type of rubbish tip, there use to be plenty of scavengers there and indeed if you were a washing machine repairman for example you might have had a little deal going with the tip manager to rescue certain machines you needed parts for. So there maybe hope that some stuff never reached the landfill which as you say would be a monumental task to sift through.
Wasent the recent Dads Army find of 'seige of godfreys cottage' originally fished out of a skip and left forgotten in somebodies shed for years?
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Post by William Martin on Nov 24, 2003 16:18:57 GMT
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How would you actually *find* the films within the landfill, even if you knew for sure that they were there (which you wouldn't)?
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dig it all up
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As was pointed out earlier, films thrown away in the 70s could have 20+ metres of other compacted rubbish on top of them now... it would take a huge amount of effort, (not to say proper industrial excavation equipment), to unearth them even if you knew *precisely* where to dig!
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dig it all up
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Are there any records surviving to indicate which landfills were definitely used for the disposal of film? And are any of those landfills still accessible, or have they all been built on?
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that was going to be my next point
dit them all up
I supose we could use divining rods? or specialy trained ferrets
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Post by William Martin on Nov 24, 2003 16:22:54 GMT
I think they are not allowed to build on a landfill for at least thirty years as essentially it is a living thing shifting and changing. However if you have ever been to the old 70s type of rubbish tip, there use to be plenty of scavengers there and indeed if you were a washing machine repairman for example you might have had a little deal going with the tip manager to rescue certain machines you needed parts for. So there maybe hope that some stuff never reached the landfill which as you say would be a monumental task to sift through. Wasent the recent Dads Army find of 'seige of godfreys cottage' originally fished out of a skip and left forgotten in somebodies shed for years? yes this is the best bet (only bet realisticly) and again your right about the managers and truck drivers etc, do we know the names of companies and the dump sites involved perhaps there are some names and addresses that could be useful. |
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how long would a can take to rust through? and is there any way of recovering such material???