35mm Film Cells Review - Collectible or Crap

Ok lets start with what is a film cell? Well you remember those old projectors in school that  your teacher would put the big film reel on and you'd watch some old safety movie. Well that reel of film is made up of thousands of frames of film, sorta like a flip book. Each frame of film is called a 'Film Cell',... several consecutive cells are called a 'Film Strip'.

Its always been a hobby to get a few favorite clips of a film and mount them like a slide or onto a photo frame with a photo from the movie. It started with 8mm then 16mm now with the invention of digital 35mm has joined the fun because so many people, and theaters are selling off the old films they can no longer use. Full length 35mm films can be very expensive, especially if the movie was a hit at the box office. So you may wonder why people are cutting up these pieces of movie history and selling them at a $2 - $20 a piece. Well the truth is, most of them aren't. Unless its damaged in some way, most film collectors would never hack up these prized items. Even a slightly damaged hit movie could go for a nice chunk of cash. So what are being sold on Ebay and Movie Memorabilia sites??

35mm Movie Trailers are just what you see on the big screen, a 1 or 2 minute preview of an upcoming movie. Because they are only a couple minutes long they are rather inexpensive to buy. And because they are previews, they have several action packed scenes in them. 35mm movie trailers are perfect for cutting into pieces and selling to the collector who doesn't have access to hundreds or thousands of dollars for a full film. 90 percent of the time, these are what you will find being sold on Ebay & Memorabilia sites. And in my opinion thats NOT a bad thing.

Keep this in mind, its STILL a piece of authentic 35mm film cell of the movie., who cares if its cut from the trailer or the full length film... they're the same scenes. Also trailers are sometimes made before the final cut of a movie. So you might actually get a rare piece of scene that was never released in or cut out of the full length film. This is of course rare, but it can happen. Film Cells cut from trailers are also usually in pretty good condition, they weren't run through the projector as much a Full length film.

Now there are 2 kinds of 35mm film cells to be aware of... Scope (Cinescope) & Flat. Now some sellers will tell you there is no difference, thats is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. If you plan on buying a film cell or strip and putting it into card and shoving it into a drawer never to be seen again, well then it doesn't matter what kind of film cell you buy. However if you plan on occasionally looking at it, you may have a preference. So let me quickly explain the difference between the two types, which are played in two different types of projector (or more specifically the focal lens of the projector)

Flat - A film cell from a FLAT, is the best choice if you want to see the image as it was seen on the screen. The film strips in the photo above are FLAT. Hold the strip up to the light and thats is the exact image you saw at the movies. These strips and individual cells are great for displays and mounting. The problem I've found with these is that they often have a smaller image on the actual strip... you'll notice the black wide screen appearance of the film strips above.

Scope(Cinescope) -  A film cell from SCOPE  differs because it is elongated. Often times the image will fill the entire cell, but the image will look taller and somewhat distorted. This is because a scope film is played through a Cinescope lens which corrects the image when projected to the screen.

In the end its up to you which kind of film cell or strip you prefer. As far as being collectible, sure they are. They are pieces of film history that is disappearing due to digital technology. Are they valuable? Well thats up to you, I paid $15 dollars for a film cell of Princess Leia from my favorite scene of Star Wars. I would never pay that much for a post 1989 film cell, but $2 - $8 for a film cell or better yet a strip of cells isn't a horrible price, if its from a movie you really are a fan of. I wouldn't buy these as an investment, but for a cool movie memorabilia collectible... can't beat the price or semi rarity.