bunnyman14 t1_iuhw01n wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:40 PM

Reply to comment by xmsxms in Got this piece of Toy Story Film Strip for my birthday yesterday by RareSun_

If there were only one movie reel, then there'd only be one cinema able to play the movie at one single time. The most likely thing is that this was from one of the copy reels that are given to cinemas, while the original "master" reel is somewhere in a vault. If this were actually from the master reel, these few inches of film would be unaffordable to anyone who isn't a millionaire.

Since movie reels weren't exactly mass-produced endlessly, there is scarcity. Therefore, this product has value.

beaushaw t1_iui4m3o wrote on October 31, 2022 at 2:43 PM

> Since movie reels weren't exactly mass-produced endlessly, there is scarcity. Therefore, this product has value.

Toy Story is 81 minutes or 4,860 seconds long. Each second of movie is 24 frames so each print of Toy Story has 116,640 frames. This piece is 5 frames, so each print can make 23,328 if these.

I might be able to find out how many prints of Toy Story were made, but I can't be bothered, I am guessing around 7,000.

A rough estimate, this is a one of 163,296,000. Not that rare.

bunnyman14 t1_iui9e3a wrote on October 31, 2022 at 3:16 PM

First off, nobody said there'd be math!

Second, that's a number below infinity and is therefore, by definition, scarce. That's not enough for everyone on the planet. I wasn't saying that the copied frames were rare, I'm saying that strips like these from the master copy would be expensive, as there'd be only 23,328 of those in the world. If you're the kind of person who wants a specific frame or set of frames, then there's literally only 1 strip for you. That is, if someone doesn't already have it.

beaushaw t1_iuie0ud wrote on October 31, 2022 at 3:48 PM

By your definition nothing in the universe is scarce.

That said I think these are great for a couple bucks, they are also a great way to get rid of old prints. They made thousands of these prints and only need to save a handful for history. Cutting them up and selling them is brilliant.