Perfs

Grrrr. Spent some time yesterday repairing a reel of 9.5 sound film. Went to run it today and it tore about three times about 60ft or so from the end. So I stopped patching it up and had another look at it on the rewinds and I've found out why it kept breaking. The last 60ft or so is quite brittle and on practically every frame extending from the top left of the perf almost to the edge of the film are tiny little hairline splits. These aren't actual 'tears' yet, just tiny splits but even the gentle claw on the Super Vox (yes it lives again with it's lovely, very pricey rewound motor!) is enough to push them over the edge and break the film. This calls for preventative measures which means the practically the whole lot will have to be taped to shore up the perforation and prevent the splits turning into tears. Applying splicing tape to every frame over 60ft or so of film is not only going to use up a lot of tape but is going to take quite a bit of time. What's really annoying is that they're not 'proper' tears, just these tiny little hairline splits (which is how I missed them when I was checking through the film yesterday). This is good because it means the damage won't show onscreen but it's frustrating that even the gentlest projection is enough to send the damage 'over the edge'. I've never encountered quite this sort of damage before and I hope I never do again because it's so incredibly finicky and in an ideal world where everything's easy the film would still be strong enough to hold or, better still, the splits wouldn't be there at all, but then

Nothing's ever f**king easy!