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  • (orchestral music)

  • - [Narrator] We're in Culpeper, Virginia,

  • at this building, which once belonged to the Feds.

  • - [Narrator] On the surface,

  • the purpose was they stored gold here.

  • - [Narrator] Four billion dollars' worth

  • of gold currency, to be exact.

  • But that was just on the surface.

  • - [Narrator] The real purpose of it

  • was sort of an anti-nuclear contingency program.

  • - [Narrator] During the Cold War,

  • if the big bomb went off,

  • they would move the president here.

  • But that's all in the past.

  • Now they house something completely different, film.

  • - Yes, we have the classics here,

  • we have Casablanca,

  • and we have The Maltese Falcon,

  • and we have Frankenstein.

  • We also have Gigli,

  • and we have all the Adam Sandler movies.

  • - [Narrator] This building is now

  • the Library of Congress's Packard Campus.

  • Its goal is to ensure the survival and conservation

  • of our nation's films.

  • And over 144,000 of the most precious of these

  • is under the care of George Willeman.

  • (film leader beeping) (projector whirring)

  • But first, let's explore the building.

  • - There is a suite

  • where our technicians do nothing but repair films.

  • We have specialized rooms for printing,

  • for film processing,

  • DataCine transfer, cylinder recordings,

  • special suites for doing two-inch videotapes,

  • one-inch videotapes,

  • three-quarter-inch videotape.

  • You name it, we play it.

  • - [Narrator] All these rooms exist

  • because the Packard Campus

  • is about restoration and preservation.

  • And those first early pieces,

  • they were made on nitrate.

  • And that's what George is in charge of.

  • He's head of the nitrate vaults.

  • The oldest and most dangerous of all the film bases.

  • - We have 124 nitrate film vaults.

  • They're very austere-looking, like a high-security prison.

  • And they're very thick-walled,

  • designed to protect us from the films

  • and the films from each other,

  • because nitrate film has the basic same chemical compound

  • as gunpowder, and is highly flammable.

  • A nitrate fire is like nothing you have ever seen.

  • Because it's almost like a controlled explosion.

  • It burns with a bright orange-yellow flame

  • and it looks like a rocket engine.

  • We have negatives in our vaults

  • that are over a hundred years old.

  • Things come in to us

  • that have been in barns and warehouses

  • and people's attics and basements.

  • And I've been able to be involved

  • in the restoration of several films that

  • otherwise, in the outside world,

  • would have no monetary value.

  • But their historical value is immense.

  • My interest has always been in early film.

  • And I am getting a chance to work with

  • one of the largest and most unique collections

  • of early film in the world.

  • I think I'm here for a reason.

  • I think my purpose

  • is to make sure that we remember.

  • To know what we had

  • and what we looked like and what we did.

  • And film is one of the absolute best ways of doing that.

  • (upbeat music)

  • (electronic music)

(orchestral music)

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