film artifact

A film artifact is an unwanted film damage that could be a defect or error, such as dust, hair, specks, emulsion scratches, splices, reel-change marks, a hiss, crackle or pop on the soundtrack, mottling of the image, scratches on the negative being printed positive, etc. Film preservation, restoration, and archival efforts help to keep older, decomposing, and endangered films from deteriorating and acquiring artifacts, through painstaking processes (often digital restoration).