FilmGuard

[Neal Scanlan]

Hello,

I'm using the FilmGuard system and was wondering: Is it safe to store the film for the long term still coated in the solution?

[Randy Stankey]

Yes. As long as the film isn’t sopping wet with the solution.

The best way to apply FilmGuard is to use a media/gauze cleaner like the Kelmar. Soak the media rolls then run the film through the machine. You can do it either on the projector or at the bench if your film winder has a bracket to hold your cleaner. I made a bracket for my booth and would often run the film through the cleaner as I built the film up or as I inspected reels. Just be careful not to get FilmGuard on the part of the film where you make the splices or else the tape won't stick.

Once you get the first coat applied, it is best to run the film through the projector, with the cleaner on, a couple-few times. This will even out the coating of liquid and get off any ground in dirt. Once you've gotten this far, you can store the film normally with no problem. In fact, FilmGuard can minimize the appearance of "vinegar syndrome" or other kinds of film degradation. As usual, YMMV due to factors like storage conditions or the condition of the film before FilmGuard was applied.

You can apply FilmGuard by hand, using a film-safe cloth or cleaning pad but you won't get an even application like a film cleaning machine gives. The real beauty of FilmGuard doesn't appear until after the film has been run through a cleaning machine two or three times.

If you are using FilmGuard on films that you keep at home, you can apply it by hand and it won't hurt anything as long as you don't leave the film sopping wet. Maybe you could wind the film through a second pass with a fresh cleaning pad to even it out and get rid of the excess liquid.

I would be circumspect about using FilmGuard on archival film or one-of-a-kind elements. It probably won't hurt the film but, if you ever want to duplicate the film or do any kind of restoration work, the liquid on the film might interfere with your process, necessitating a time consuming and, likely, expensive cleaning procedure.

I used FilmGuard, for years, in almost every booth I worked in...even at Cinemark where the stuff was supposed to be completely banned for political reasons.
I used it anyway but I kept all evidence locked up where nobody could find it without searching for it. Every time one of the corporate kahunas visited the booth they would always comment about how nice and clean my film looked. I would just smile, say thank you and tell them that we worked hard to keep film clean.

They didn't know that it was the FilmGuard doing all the work!

Bottom line: In all those years, I never had any problem with FilmGuard damaging film.

Caveat: There have been some copy cat products out there, made by other people, which do not have the good track record that Brad's FilmGuard does. It is not known whether or not those counterfeit products damage film. Be careful!

[Neal Scanlan]

Hello Randy,
Thank you for the advice. I have found that after a couple of runs with FilmGuard and a third run with only a VERY soft/dry microfibre cloth on both sides of the film that the projected image looks absolutely stunning.

[Randy Stankey]

...the projected image looks absolutely stunning.

That's how I got the go-ahead to use FilmGuard in my first booth at Cinemark.

I bought a bottle of FilmGuard with my own money and brought it to work, one day. I got an old Cinemark policy trailer that had seen better days then went about the process of getting it REALLY dirty. I ran it and showed it to the theater manager. After that, I ran it through a Kelmar cleaner, in the usual way, without FilmGlard. He thought it looked better than before but it still looked like crap.

I told the guy that I wanted to show him something and told him to come back later.

I cleaned the film at the workbench then ran it through the Kelmar, this time, WITH FilmGuard. A couple of runs later, I called the manager back and showed him.

He took one look and immediately accused me of switching film on him. That's when I showed him the bottle of FilmGuard and the media cleaner I used that had dirt literally caked on the rolls. He was all upset because I wasn't supposed to have FilmGuard in the booth.

I had asked him, before, for permission to buy FilmGuard and he called up the home office for approval. That's when they told him, "Hell no!"
Turns out that there had been some personal disputes between Cinemark and another party associated with FilmGuard and corporate management summarily banned the stuff, just out of spite. However, when I showed my manager what FilmGuard could do in just a couple hours' time, he was sold.

We hatched a plan to use petty cash in order to get the money to buy more FilmGuard. It was common practice to use petty cash to buy Q-Tips, masking tape and other supplies for the booth from nearby stores so we just listed the money under "Booth Supplies" and nobody was the wiser except me and him.

In order to keep people from finding my stash, I peeled all the labels off the packages or covered them over with generic labels that simply said, "Film Cleaner" then hid everything in the back of a cabinet where nobody ever looked.

Like I said, one of the kahunas from corporate came for a visit, one day, and commented about how clean all our movies looked. The manager and I just quietly snickered to ourselves.

After that, we used FilmGuard on every print that I could and, when I changed jobs and went to Mercyhurst College, I used FilmGuard on 100% of my films.

As I said above, the only time you shouldn't use FilmGuard is when you are working with archival prints, OOAK elements or things that need special care.

If you have older, acetate film FilmGuard can stop or slow down the occurrence of "Vinegar Syndrome" (degradation which gives off acetic acid as a by-product) and it can also help older film stay in better shape because it is lubricated as it plays through the projector.

In all that time, I never had a problem with any film that I used FilmGuard on and every print looked as good as the day they were new, except for ones that had pre-existing scratches.

[Neal Scanlan]

Great story, thank you for sharing.

[Matthew Hidy]

Not perhaps quite the answer you may searching for but...

In the year 2021, if you are screening prints that are not your own, I would suggest contacting the lending institution / archive for permission if you feel that you need to use FilmGuard.

With regard to Randy's comment about FilmGuard stopping or slowing down vinegar syndrome, I do not buy that. It may help a severely warped print project with less issues, though.

Perhaps, you should research about the decay of petroleum base oils. That may inform you whether it may be safe for film in the long run. Just saying: I can't think of a film archive that likes to use it. I do personally like to have it on hand if I encounter any water damaged or blocked film or decomposing nitrate, however, as it can help separate bonded layers of film.

[Randy Stankey]

I agree that, in the present climate, it is wise to use caution.

When I worked at Mercyhurst, I did speak to our distributors and they were universally on-board. In fact, almost everybody I spoke to seemed happy to be getting free film cleaning at my expense.

With vinegar syndrome, no, FilmGuard will not reverse the process once it has started but, since vinegar syndrome is autocatalytic (the by-products of the reaction tend to hasten the process) removing as much acetic acid as possible can slow it down. If film has been treated before it begins to degrade, FilmGuard can delay the onset. This, I have proven myself. I have a few reels of film that I treated with FilmGuard, years ago, and they are still as good as the day they were stored away. One reel of 16mm film did have a distinct vinegar smell when I got it and it is still playable.

Now, as to the ingredients of FilmGuard... This is kind of a convoluted story.

In the days before Brad came out with FilmGuard, I had already been experimenting with something similar.

When I worked at Cinemark, I started looking at other products that we were already using on film and I was thinking about how to apply them using a film cleaning machine such as the Kelmar cleaner. I looked at products like Renuvex and Xe-Kote and I studied their ingredients and how they were supposed to work. I came up with a plan for something that was very similar to FilmGuard but Brad beat me to it by a long shot. I don't have the time, money and resources that Brad does. My plan was more like a basement science project. Brad's was a full blown business model.

When FilmGuard came out I was happy. My idea was proven and I didn't have to do any of the work. Better to pay somebody else than to fuss around in your basement, tinkering with half baked ideas that might not work. Right? Even if I did come up with an exact duplicate of Brad's product, I never would have had the resources to bring it to market like he did. I'm just happy to know that there is a good product that people can use to take care of film. I don't need to be the guy who invented it.

So, yeah, I do have some idea of what FilmGuard is made from.

Right about the time that FilmGuard came out is when I switched jobs from Cinemark to Mercyhurst. About a year after I started using FilmGuard, there, the science lab at the college got a brand new mass spectrometer. The prof. who was in charge of the thing was itching to try it out on something. Everybody in the science department was trying things out. Tap water and other run-of-the-mill stuff. I ran into the prof. and started BS-ing around about the new mass spec and got the idea to analyze some FilmGuard.

So...yes...I know what FilmGuard is made of but, since the stuff is probably still under patent, you won't hear a peep out of me. If you want to know, for yourself, read the MSDS for FilmGuard. The MSDS is accurate. However, I will say that there isn't anything in FilmGuard that hasn't been used on film for decades.

There really isn't any secret to FilmGuard. There isn't any magic ingredient. If you want to say that there is a secret, it's more about the WAY FilmGuard is used, not necessarily the ingredients. If you want to know more than that, read the patent documentation. Everything is explained, there.

FilmGuard is fine for use on everyday release prints or film that you keep at home. No, I wouldn't use it on archival film. No, I definitely, definitely don't recommend using it on negatives or preservation copies. Yes, I agree that you should get permission to use it if you don't own the film.

If you are careful, using FilmGuard exactly according to the instructions, and don't leave the film sopping wet, I don't believe that it will harm film.

In more than a decade of use, I have never had a problem using FilmGuard.

[Leo Enticknap]

In the year 2021, if you are screening prints that are not your own, I would suggest contacting the lending institution / archive for permission if you feel that you need to use FilmGuard.

Many archives specify in the small print of their [film] print-lending agreements that no proprietary products or treatments may be used on them while in the borrower's care, anyways.

There is a history to this. Back in the 1970s a treatment called 3M Photogard (a derivative of the Scotchgard fabric protective treatment) was marketed aggressively as a means of film preservation. Claims were even made, e.g. in the page linked, that Arrhenius (accelerated aging) tests were done, the results of which indicated that Photogard was safe for use on preservation master elements. The treatment was effectively a laminate coating applied to, if I remember correctly, both the base and the emulsion side.

If those tests were done, the results were misleading, because within 10-20 years, a huge amount of anecdotal evidence started to emerge of the coating discoloring, shrinking and distorting an affected substrate, and separating from the film and taking fragments of emulsion with it. In short, it worked great for the first few years after application, but then destroyed your movie.

It was particularly popular in underfunded archives in developing countries that had a hostile climate for film preservation (hot, and/or damp), and in which the cost of atmospherically controlled vaults was even more prohibitive than it is in the developed world. Horror stories did the rounds of the camera negatives of iconic Bollywood features (for example) having been ruined by Photogarding them.

A fundamental operating principle in doing any kind of preservation or restoration work on unique historical artifacts is to do nothing that is, or possibly could be, irreversible. Related to film specifically, for example, ultrasonic cleaning is considered acceptable, because the solvent used is known to evaporate completely, and the process has been in widespread use for 50-60 years without any evidence emerging of it causing long-term harm to treated elements. But the Photogard experience gave many technical archivists an intense suspicion of proprietary treatments.

That having been said, the debate about FilmGuard is somewhat different. It was invented and intended for enhancing the quality of technical presentation of release prints, not as an aid to the long term preservation of master elements. Unless we're talking about a release print with specifically unique provenance (e.g. a surviving nitrate print from the initial release), a release print struck from a preservation element is not unique and irreplaceable: its job is to provide access to the content, not to preserve it. If damaged, it can be replaced by writing a check. Many if not most of the big non-profit archives require borrowers to provide proof of their financial ability to replace a print if they accidentally damage it.

Therefore, many of the restrictions that archives (especially the FIAF ones, which have an embedded culture of arrogance and we-know-best going back to the 1930s) impose on the use of their release prints - no plattering, no proprietary cleaning treatments, etc. etc. - serve only to restrict or degrade the quality of access to their holdings, without fulfilling any preservation objective. I once argued this point with a former curator of the UK's National Film and Television Archive (which has likely been renamed several times since then), who was forced to admit that his "no plattering" rule was based on a brief conversation with a union projectionist around the time platters were first marketed, and that he himself had never even seen one in use.

In other words and IMHO, I don't care if FG causes problems for a release print in 50 years' time. Its job is to make that movie look better for an audience here and now, and it does that excellently.

[Steve Guttag]

My experience with Film-Guard is similar to Randy's in that for a vinegar print, while it will not reverse a print, it sure seems to put the brakes on further degradation. This has be echoed by more than one collector where it was either Film-Guard or pitch the print. Film-Guard can make an otherwise un-runnable print runnable. When I was running film, I used it on every show for release prints (and PTRs on EK prints with a fresh set of PTRs for every reel). I had a specially made version of the Film-Guard pads, which I purchased directly from Brad that was extra soft and had very fine dimples in it. The trick was to have it cut a little short because it WOULD expand over the course of the week. Brad said it was such a hassle (and nobody else was complaining), that it never went into full production. I still have the remainder of the case I bought.

What has also been observed by me and others is that Film-Guard can leach out color dyes, which can be seen on the pads. I've also found that a print treated with F-G has a softer emulsion and is more prone to scratching, if presented to the print so mistakes show up.

It is not for archival prints but I'd use it on any release print or one that didn't have a restriction on it.

[Gary A. Hoselton]

If I were to apply FilmGuard using applicator machine attached to Kelmar rewind bench, at what speed should I run film thru it? On a projector, film goes thru the applicator quite slowly, whereas I run the rewind bench at 50 on the Variac to get the job done in reasonable time. If your advice is to set Variac for slow speed, will the brush-type motor tolerate a slow speed without overheating or other discomfort?

My present interest is a 1982 LPP-color reel 3 of "The Quiet Man" with massive horizontal and vertical scuffing on base and emulsion sides primarily during the horse race scene, black lines and spots appearing on screen like heavy random vertical and horizontal "black rain". Seems like FilmGuard on media might clean out the scuffs and optically smooth their edges. Can FilmGuard sufficiently improve the image so it is pleasant to screen?

I can't imagine how this one reel was so mistreated, as the remainder of the feature is in reasonably good shape given that it appears to have been run a lot in its revenue life on long play devices--two to three feet have been nibbled away from reel beginnings and ends, a frame at a time. Print came from Spain, English language and no captions.

[Steve Guttag]

I was at the Uptown in DC, which was a reel-to-reel house until 2005, I only used the rewind bench for F-G application. I never went above 50% and typically ran it in the 40-50% range. Then again, I never rewound film at 100% even before the film cleaner. I never found the need for the rush and was more concerned about cinch marks. Some where in the archived site, I probably show the set up at the Uptown and what speed I had it set to. The word "whipping" comes to mind.

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[Randy Stankey]

Steve's setup is almost identical to the way I did it.
I made my own bench bracket out of plywood but virtually everything looks the same.

Same with me about the speed. Never over 50%.

I would build the movie up at the bench, through the cleaner. I'd stop just before the end of a reel so no liquid got on the part of the film where I was about to put splicing tape. After the splice was made, I'd use a wet Kimwipe to lightly dampen that last foot or two.

I preferred to build from heads-out reels onto a 6,000 footer then rewind the whole thing back, through the cleaner again. That way the movie had two trips through the cleaner before I even pre-screened the film for the first time. By the time an audience saw the movie, it had at least three trips through the FilmGuard machine.

Back in the 1970s a treatment called 3M Photogard (a derivative of the Scotchgard fabric protective treatment) was marketed aggressively as a means of film preservation.

I got some animated policy snipes from Filmack that were treated with Photogard. That stuff was TERRIBLE! It was a hard varnish like coating that wasn't even completely clear. It looked like somebody just dipped the film in polyurethane varnish and didn't let it level out before it dried. The film looked just as bad on the screen, too!

When you put FilmGuard on film that's also been treated with Photogard it smells like burning rubber when it goes through the heat of the projection lamp! The whole booth just stunk!

The good news is that after many, many runs through the Kelmar cleaner, saturated with FilmGuard, the coating starts to come off and the smell starts to go away.

By the time I had run the film through FilmGuard for about a year it seemed like the Photogard was gone.

[Paul Finn]

I have used the lubricant LPS-1, as a substitute, which has all of the qualities and characteristics of FilmGuard, It is great for cleaning the projector film path - sprockets, gates, traps, rollers, and film splicers, as well as anything else that accumulates film contamination. It will clean and not damage delicate electronic circuits/boards and also is great for circuit board edge connectors. I had a couple of polyester base film loops that were used repeatedly over the years for projector format setup that I often cleaned with LPS-1 just to watch for long term damage and never saw any. Of course, any cleaning on release film prints was done with FilmGuard, but I would not hesitate to use LPS-1 for spot cleaning in a pinch.

Paul Finn