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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Projector's cleaning method for archive
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 05-17-2016 10:51 AM
You need to be careful with brushes and plastic rollers, because you don't want to abrade the smooth surfaces (especially given that they make physical contact with the SR-D and SDDS tracks).
For our Norelcos, I do a start-of-shift deep clean consisting of the following routine:
Remove all pad rollers from their shafts and clean them by holding them in a car waxing non-abrasive cloth and rubbing. If that doesn't get all the dirt off, then use another cloth, slightly moistened. Last resort for baked-on crud is to use a tiny amount of rubbing alcohol. Replace rollers on shafts (relubing spindles if necessary), checking and double checking that they rotate freely, and that none are sticking or binding.
Remove gate assembly, backplate and shutter housing cover, and clean both the same way, but using a small paintbrush to get into smaller holes in the gate assembly, and/or an air spray if absolutely necessary.
Remove pad roller assemblies and do the same thing.
With all removable components out of the film path, clean the interior surfaces of the chassis with a barely moistened (with disilled water) non-abrasive cloth.
Sprocket teeth - with a soft, dry toothbrush (softest grade the store will sell), then spray the area with compressed air and remove the dislodged crud from nearby surfaces with a cloth. Soft metal and easily damaged - be careful.
Audio scanning drum(s) - pay close attention, as this is the only surface that actually touches the picture area of the film. Take a lens cleaning cloth moistened in rubbing alcohol and rub while rotating, being very careful not to touch the photocell.
Reassemble all components.
In between reels, clean gate components with a dry cloth, remove aperture plate, clean, clean behind it, then reinstall.
I would consider this a necessary cleaning routine if you're showing rare or irreplaceable prints.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 05-17-2016 02:29 PM
The procedure described above takes around 25-30 minutes. So, for a dual projector installation, that's an hour at the start of each shift in which film is to be run. It doesn't even have to be at the start of the shift: for example, if I have a DCP feature playing the night before an archival print, I'll do the projector cleaning while that DCP is playing. To protect a rare or irreplaceable print, I don't think that an hour of projector preparation time is too much to ask.
In between each reel (i.e. after the changeover but before rethreading), I will clean all the gate components with a non-abrasive cloth, remove and clean the aperture plate, clean behind the aperture plate and then replace it, briefly check the other components that contact the film surface (especially audio scanning drum(s)) for visible dirt and clean if necessary, and then give the entire gate area a brief squirt with compressed air, to reduce the risk of hairs sticking to the aperture edges from dislodged dirt.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 05-18-2016 09:55 PM
FIAF's technical commission recommends against the use of proprietary compounds (chemical mixtures for which the precise "recipe" of ingredients is considered commercially confidential and not published) in treating film elements, in line with their philosophy that the custodian of an archival film should do nothing that is or even possibly could be irreversible to it. The last time I looked at their technical documentation, the only film cleaning method they approved was ultrasonic, using 1,1,1 or perc.
Most FIAF member archives, therefore, will make it a condition of loaning prints to theaters that they must not do any sort of chemical cleaning to it whatsoever. In reality there is usually no need, because a print from a FIAF archive will almost always be a new or very lightly used print that the archive itself will have cleaned recently, anyways.
FIAF's policy is definitely debatable, especially where release prints are concerned. If a print is designated as viewing status (i.e. it is not being kept for preservation as a reference source for future work on the movie), then it exists to enable the movie to be seen, and IMHO the projectionist showing it should be entrusted to do what is necessary to make it look and sound as good as possible to the audience here and now, even if that does incur the slight risk that a treatment used may, say, slightly increase the risk of dye fading in 20 years' time (for example). But "no chemicals" is FIAF's rule, and it is one that their member archives expect theaters borrowing their prints to obey.
The commercial archives (e.g. the studios) are as a general rule less strict. Furthermore, many of their prints are former general use release prints that have been used heavily, and show it, before being pulled from circulation at the end of the main release and designated one of, say, two or three keeper prints for use by the small number of arthouses and revival houses that might want to play the title again. Most of these archives probably wouldn't even notice if I FG-ed one of their prints, and in many cases doing so would absolutely enhance what the audience sees.
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