Film Internship Week 2

Yesterday, I was at the Heinz History Center to learn how to physically do
inspections. Tuesday is not my usual day to be there, but do to scheduling
conflicts, I arrived Tuesday morning and worked on film from 9:30am-12pm.
I must say I had a lot of fun doing inspections. David showed me how to
set up the machine and the reel. Then he demonstrated how it worked and
things to look for in the film. We also went over the inspection sheets as
well with the film preservation guide. With each film I will be writing
down the observations from the reel, such as the title, what kind of film,
sound, color, and the date, measuring the reel for the approximate number
of frames, and noting any emulsions, splices, or damages. All of the cans
need to be checked for vinegar syndrome which will be done at a later
date.  Today I inspected three films. I was nervous about breaking
something, so I went very slowly, which did not make my film wind as
nicely as it could have. I do feel that I am beginning to get the hang of
the inspection process. David said that most of the films are in decent
shape and should not have too much trouble with any breaking, which is
good because we do not have a splicer. There is a lot of Westinghouse
Electric films and David said he thinks we have a few of training for the
Navy submarines, which would be pretty cool to view. More next week!