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Why not to play with nitrate...


http://www.almanacnews.com/news/show_story.php?id=3710

1944 Gene Kelly film burns at Stanford Theatre

Gene Kelly, Rita Hayworth 'Cover Girl' film jams in projector, catches fire -- but sprinklers douse blaze

The 1944 film "Cover Girl," starring Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth, caught fire Thursday night about 10 minutes into the film at Stanford Theatre in downtown Palo Alto, forcing evacuation and temporary closure of the 1920s theater.

"We cauld see the flickering light from the flames from the orchestra" area near the front of the theater, audience member Kenneth Allen said of the 7:35 p.m. incident.

The theater, at 221 University Ave., was closed for repairs, primarily from water damage from overhead sprinklers that doused the flames.

Fire Battalion Chief Niles Broussard said no one was injured.

Allen said in an e-mail to the Weekly and some individuals that the film apparently jammed in the projector and caught fire.

"The downtown Stanford Theatre caught fire tonight when the nitrate film jammed in the projector and burst into flames. We along with all other patrons safely evacuated, and it looked like the fire did not spread, but fire trucks were still rolling a half hour after the first alarm," he said.

The subject line of his e-mail was, "It was okay to yell 'Fire' in a crowded theater."

Broussard said the blaze was controlled by the theater's sprinkler system in minutes, and the fire damage was limited to the projector.

But he said the theater sustained between $5,000 and $10,000 in water damage.

-- Bay City News/Palo Alto Weekly staff

Jack Theakston wrote:Why not to play with nitrate...


http://www.almanacnews.com/news/show_story.php?id=3710

1944 Gene Kelly film burns at Stanford Theatre

Gene Kelly, Rita Hayworth 'Cover Girl' film jams in projector, catches fire -- but sprinklers douse blaze

The 1944 film "Cover Girl," starring Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth, caught fire Thursday night about 10 minutes into the film at Stanford Theatre in downtown Palo Alto, forcing evacuation and temporary closure of the 1920s theater.

"We cauld see the flickering light from the flames from the orchestra" area near the front of the theater, audience member Kenneth Allen said of the 7:35 p.m. incident.

The theater, at 221 University Ave., was closed for repairs, primarily from water damage from overhead sprinklers that doused the flames.

Fire Battalion Chief Niles Broussard said no one was injured.

Allen said in an e-mail to the Weekly and some individuals that the film apparently jammed in the projector and caught fire.

"The downtown Stanford Theatre caught fire tonight when the nitrate film jammed in the projector and burst into flames. We along with all other patrons safely evacuated, and it looked like the fire did not spread, but fire trucks were still rolling a half hour after the first alarm," he said.

The subject line of his e-mail was, "It was okay to yell 'Fire' in a crowded theater."

Broussard said the blaze was controlled by the theater's sprinkler system in minutes, and the fire damage was limited to the projector.

But he said the theater sustained between $5,000 and $10,000 in water damage.

-- Bay City News/Palo Alto Weekly staff

With all due respect, we (i.e., Sony) have a perfectly gorgeous restored print of this. Nitrate is best saved for when no better print is available.

Mike S.

That's what I've been trying to figure out-- why would they run a nitrate print of Sony has a perfectly good safety print available?

The management of the Stanford believes in showing films in a form as close to original release as possible. That means, when available, a print made at the time of original release.

With his permission, I am posting a memo from David Packard regarding the fire. This should answer many of the speculations brought up in the last few days.

The recent fire in the projection booth at the Stanford Theatre has stimulated interest and discussion, so I will try to explain the event and its background.

The Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto was built in 1925. For its first 25 years every film shown was nitrate, and I am not aware of any notable event during that period. We purchased the theatre in 1987 and made major renovations and seismic upgrades (being near the San Andreas Fault). We designed the projection booth to comply with all code regulations regarding nitrate film, and we received approval from the local authorities to run nitrate. The booth has walls with very high fire ratings, two exit doors, smoke and heat detectors, fire sprinklers, and metal shutters to cover the ports into the auditorium. Nitrate reels are stored in specially designed bins.

Between 1989 and 2009 we have shown nitrate prints as part of our regular program many hundreds of times. When we show nitrate we always have two skilled projectionists, so neither machine will ever be unattended. We always inspect the film very carefully. Occasionally we have had splices break in the sound head (away from the heat of the film gate) but never any serious problem. On April 2, we were showing a Technicolor nitrate print of Cover Girl (1944). The event happened about three minutes into the first reel. The film broke, or jammed, or somehow got stuck in the film gate and immediately caught fire. The film below the gate continued into the take-up magazine and was not affected by the fire. The fire traveled up the film above the gate and entered the supply reel in its magazine. The entire reel (nearly 2000 feet) burned in the magazine.

After briefly trying to control the fire, both projectionists left the booth. The heat detectors did not respond immediately. The fire burning in the upper reel was briefly visible to the audience through the ports. Then the shutters closed over the ports, and the fire sprinker flooded the projector. The fire was over within a few minutes.

When we returned to the booth, we found that fire damage was restricted to the projector and was less than I had expected (thanks to the sprinklers). The sprinklers did not prevent the nitrate from burning but did limit collateral damage. We use Simplex XL projectors with carbon arc lamps. After cleaning the projector, we re-opened the theatre two days later.

The fire sprinklers continued for about 15 minutes and created an enormous flood of water that flowed into the balcony and seeped into lower floors. The water damage was significant, though not catastrophic.

My conclusion is that the proper design of the booth and the skill of our projectionists had their intended effect of minimizing the damage. It appeared to me that the Fire Department had the same opinion.

We plan a temporary moratorium on running nitrate until we evaluate whether we can take any further steps to make the booth even safer. One idea is a panic button that the projectionist can push to activate the sprinklers and shutters sooner. We certainly intend to install a floor drain to handle the water from any future sprinkler event. We also believe that we can develop a way to sense a fire in the gate and quickly and automatically cut and isolate the film in the two magazines.

Some people may wonder why we show nitrate prints at all. Sometimes they are the only print available. But often we do it for the quality. The afternoon of the event, we had done a side-by-side comparison (with alternating projectors) of our old nitrate print and a newly-made, nearly pristine print. A professional filmmaker was sitting beside me, and we both felt that no one could fail to be amazed by the great difference. This is no criticism of modern film restoration. The plain fact is that the old dyetransfer printing process can achieve results that are not possible with current methods. We all hope that future technology may bring back the old experience.

David W. Packard
President
The Stanford Theatre Foundation

Bit off topic: I once cleaned up President Wilson's projector (built in Washington DC- I forget the company) and it had both reels below the lamp house- the theory being the flame couldn't travel upwards & closely spaced rollers prevented it from traveling down. Sounds crackpot to me, but here's a picture of it: http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/floor2/ ... oscope.jpg

Supposedly it was a gift from Douglas Fairbanks.