Summer Lovin....aka Summer Cleanin

Yesterday was by far the funniest/saddest time I have spent working with this collection. I decided to give myself a break from the down and dirty condition reporting and actually physically inspect an entire film. Part of my reasoning for this was that I need to know what is actually on the film in order to write about it in my paper, not know about its poor physical condition. I began with going through the reel that had the attached newspaper article. Unfortunately I could not determine if it was a Pitt game, or the Penn State Ohio game mentioned in the paper based on my limited view on a light table with a magnifying device. When viewing the film on the rewinds I found 4 burnt holes and 4 hot cement splices. The film itself is pretty clean, slight warping, and probably affected by vinegar syndrome due to discoloration of my gloves.
Following the inspection of this film I actually cleaned and spliced two additional films. Both films were very dirty and I used renovax (not sure of spelling) film cleaner on small pieces of cloth. The first film, Pitt v. W. Va 1963 had some shrinkage issues and one splice. Interesting, the film actually was a splice of the reversal negative and a duplicate print of the negative about 300ft into the reel. After the gentle cleaning of the film, I placed it on a 3 inch plastic core, as the original reel was quite rusty. I also spliced a new leader to the film, as the original was very crimped. This film’s content seemed very interesting and included shots of the scoreboard and crowd.
The second film I gently cleaned was a 1958 practice session. This film had severe water damage (which is not surprising, as these films were originally stored in a basement). Like the other film I cleaned it, and then placed it on a plastic core for the same reason. I also spliced a new tail to this film, as the original was much damaged. Working with this film really emphasized the fact that many of the films in this collection are in very poor condition and in dire need of conservation. Sadly, I can only work with a small sampling of this film, and the work I can do myself is very limited based on my resources and lack of knowledge or qualifications.