3200 rolls of film

[FNG]

https://petapixel.com/2022/03/20/ph...xel&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-share

Cool story...

 

[walrus]

That's a great article! I vaguely remember the Boston Tea Party, I was just a bit too young.

walrus

 

[Stuball48]

Hard for me to imagine what stories are in those 3200 rolls of undeveloped film.

 

[fronobulax]

That's a great article! I vaguely remember the Boston Tea Party, I was just a bit too young.

walrus

You vaguely remember 1773? I'm impressed. When people said you sucked, I thought they were talking about your guitar playing, not your vampiric heritage

 

[dreadnut]

Wow! Those photos need to be developed and digitized.

 

[walrus]

You vaguely remember 1773? I'm impressed. When people said you sucked, I thought they were talking about your guitar playing, not your vampiric heritage

walrus

 

[dreadnut]

One of my favorrite comedy skits.

 

[SFIV1967]

I'm surprised somebody big like Getty Images is not imediately after those film rolls.

Ralf

 

[Brad Little]

I read the Boston Globe article when it came out a week or so back. I was playing flute/sax in a Boston band 1970. We played several gigs in Harvard Sq, Cambridge Common and some other parks in the area. Outside chance we're in a roll or two.

 

[Midnight Toker]

That article was posted on my Zep forum the day it was published. All are chomping at the bit over what possible pics might be in those rolls from Zep's 4 legendary nights at the Tea Party in Jan 1969. It was said the crowd was so enthused that a very young Zep w/ only 1 album's worth of material were culled back on stage for several encores where they wound up having to play some Yardbirds tunes and even a couple Zep tunes twice that night!

 

[fronobulax]

That article was posted on my Zep forum the day it was published. All are chomping at the bit over what possible pics might be in those rolls from Zep's 4 legendary nights at the Tea Party in Jan 1969. It was said the crowd was so enthused that a very young Zep w/ only 1 album's worth of material were culled back on stage for several encores where they wound up having to play some Yardbirds tunes and even a couple Zep tunes twice that night!

<veer>

Since you are a Zep fan, I was once in a friendly conversation with the development director for an educational institution. I was told about a matching gift opportunity. Further exposition indicated that the match was coming from "Led Zeppelin". Apparently the executors of John Bonham's estate were able to give money away (primarily from royalties) for charitable purposes, and someone in a position of authority had a connection to the institution. hence the match.

 

[Midnight Toker]

<veer>

Since you are a Zep fan, I was once in a friendly conversation with the development director for an educational institution. I was told about a matching gift opportunity. Further exposition indicated that the match was coming from "Led Zeppelin". Apparently the executors of John Bonham's estate were able to give money away (primarily from royalties) for charitable purposes, and someone in a position of authority had a connection to the institution. hence the match.

Nice! Bonham's estate would be his widow Patricia, and daughter Debbi, son Jason. They do quite a lot of charity work, especially in their beloved Midlands, as does Robert Plant.

 

[JohnW63]

I can tell you what stories are on those rolls of film. Unusable faded out stories, unless they were kept in a fridge the whole time. Even if they were developed, old color slide film starts losing color. If you didn't know about special plastic non reactive to film 3 ring binder sheets, it might even be worse. I can't think of a single reason to have 3200 undeveloped rolls of film or events that people would pay good money to publish.

 

[jp]

What an incredible find and a great opportunity for that guy to get all that film developed. Awesome story.

Thanks for posting FNG!

 

[Opsimath]

I can tell you what stories are on those rolls of film. Unusable faded out stories, unless they were kept in a fridge the whole time. Even if they were developed, old color slide film starts losing color. If you didn't know about special plastic non reactive to film 3 ring binder sheets, it might even be worse. I can't think of a single reason to have 3200 undeveloped rolls of film or events that people would pay good money to publish.

According to the article most of the film is B&W, if that makes any difference in its possible survival. It also said the photographer kept some of what he felt were his better rolls in cold storage, his fridge I believe. They found a lab that specializes in developing outdated film and have processed some test rolls. Their Go Fund Me had raised over $30,000 at the time of the article so looks like there is a lot of interest in seeing what is on those rolls. Here's hoping they will have a high success rate.

 

[fronobulax]

I can tell you what stories are on those rolls of film. Unusable faded out stories, unless they were kept in a fridge the whole time. Even if they were developed, old color slide film starts losing color. If you didn't know about special plastic non reactive to film 3 ring binder sheets, it might even be worse. I can't think of a single reason to have 3200 undeveloped rolls of film or events that people would pay good money to publish.

Did you, by any chance, read the article? There are references to two labs which have experienced success in processing "expired film" that are involved in the project. One is https://www.filmrescue.com/ I wonder if your expectation of failure is too cynical?

One reason I am inclined to believe the labs can process the film and obtain useful results is an analogy to computer media. There are a lot of myths about what can be recovered from a disk drive and what can't but the truth is the success rate is pretty high if you are willing to spend enough money to do so. Whether something can be attempted with a reasonable chance of success and whether the cost of that attempt is "worth it" are two different questions.

Recovery technology has advanced but the space shuttle Columbia's disk drives are a good example.

How Ontrack Recovered the Data from Space Shuttle Columbia

Six months after the crash, engineers were able to find the remains of a hard drive from the shuttle. NASA sent this hard drive to Ontrack in hopes of recovering as much data as possible.

www.ontrack.com

 

[Midnight Toker]

Not to mention, what current digital processing can easily be used to faithfully restore old grainy faded photos. Especially when a whole roll of film requires the same processing. It would be a "set it and forget it" process. It's the content, more than the quality, that's of interest. And that's just the processing on millions of photo bug's home computers. What can be done by professionals in that world goes well beyond that. I'm still blown away by things like the WWI doc They Shall Not Grow Old. It makes WWI look like it took place in the 60's!

 

[sailingshoes72]

Wow! I just went back to read the article, looked at the photo, and realized that the coffee table in front of Charles is stacked with film canisters. The Boston Tea Party was a legendary music venue in the late 60's and early 70's. Along with the Filmore East (NYC), Electric Factory (Philadelphia), Warehouse (New Orleans) and Whisky-a-Go-Go (LA) it was an early stop for national acts touring the country. It was a favorite concert venue for the Allman Brothers Band in 1969-70, whenever they toured the Northeast. There may be some historic photos of the original ABB in this collection of undeveloped film.

 

[Midnight Toker]

From the gofundme page...


And one from Zep's official site w/ Tea Party MC and photographer getting ready to introduce Zep on their 2nd visit to Boston in May of 69.

 

[JohnW63]

Frono, I did not read the article. I know bad form. However, the analogy of magnetic media and chemical media is not a great one. Magnatism has a longer life than a very thin film of chemical emulsions. While digitally scanning the results may allow someone to guess at the details lost, film doesn't have pixels, really. With color film, certain colors go off first. I think the reds. and then others. It's not like color film is just black and white details with color shading. Some of the detail IS the color. A persons face could almost go clear on a slide film, if they weren't cared for properly.