[photo-3d] RE: Bob's mention of cellulose nitrate

[ers <ers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Film used to be made of this stuff-- heavily used as motion picture stock thru 
the 1940s. That's why the old theater projection booths have all those steel 
shutters everywhere. Explosive, and toxic gasses. And rem, the projectors of 
the day used carbon arc to generate the light! A funny-- sort of-- story about 
nitrate film that I heard from an old-timer projectionist is that in the early 
days of movies one of the near East tribes had a shortage of powder, and was 
using chopped up British movie film in their rifles to shoot the British. Art 
imitates life?

Our initiation-- and safety lesson re the danger of the stuff-- for a new 
projectionist was to take a yard of nitrocellulose film, have the person hold 
one end and let it dangle down. You told the person that if he could let go 
before the strip went up after you touched a match to the bottom, he wouldn't 
get his fingers scorched. No one can do it.

Elliott