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Author
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Topic: Of High School, Tape Splices and Ektachrome
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted November 17, 2013 08:12 PM
If been on a project these last few months of taking films I made the first few years I was in Super-8 (1978+) and bringing them up to standards to start showing them again. This means going through and remaking splices, adding black leader at the heads and tails, putting them in cardboard storage boxes hoping to avoid vinegar syndrome and labeling them too.
There is one I made in my senior year in High School in my Electronics class (4 hours a day five days a week: we were close.). I promised the guys I would show it in class the last day, so to speed up editing I tape spliced the whole thing. At the time I told myself "I'll resplice with cement one of these days". I'm 51 now and 33 years out of high school: "one of these days" turned out to be yesterday.
This was actually kind of an experiment in the long term durability of cement spices and Ektachrome film.
The tape splices held up better than I had any expectation. There was no spreading at all. The only thing is these were done on the tape splicer of a Baia editor, which cuts the film on a double curve. They were taped on only one side and in a number of cases that leading point on the downstream piece of film caught on something and snapped off. If they were cut straight and taped double sided, I might not have respliced at all.
These were filmed on the old Ektachrome 160G film, and I was concerned about fading. Nothing to worry about: the color is just as good as ever, despite not being kept in archival conditions by any stretch (just normal room temperatures). Following the end of Kodachrome, I've been concerned how my new films on 64T and 100D will hold up. If these look as good when I'm 84 as this one does at 51, all I hope is I'm still capable of enjoying them!
The movie itself? -bunch of young guys headed off to college, just being high school kids in those great last few days. Some graduated from college, some didn't. Most got married, a few of them a couple of times. Hairlines are certainly further up and waste lines more ...abundant in many cases. If mine are any indication, joints are certainly less willing at times. One healthy looking young guy's daughter came to the 30th reunion in his place because he passed away a few years before.
For myself, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. I'm pleased to say everything I'd hoped for turned out OK, and even more I hadn't even considered yet.
Those were bright, optimistic days: and I have the film to prove it too!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Bill Brandenstein
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1632
From: California
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted May 30, 2018 07:31 PM
For all of the box warnings that color dyes may, in time, change, the Kodak stocks have indeed done remarkably well. I always thought the 160 looked fuzzy and way to grainy, but I think the aperture on my cheap camera couldn't cope with sunlight and that stock. And, of course, most of it was NOT in sunlight.
My quandary is that all of my editing was done with Kodak Presstapes, which are durable enough to probably survive something nuclear, since they're 6 miserable frames long. (Yep, cockroaches and Presstapes will be all that's left after a nuke. Picture that.) So if I were to redo splices, it would clean up those horrendous 1/3 second messes. The problem is getting them off of the film. That adhesive tears off its plastic base and is as indestructible as an adhesive can be. Pretty impressive after 40 years, honestly.
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted May 31, 2018 11:42 AM
Steve ...
You're post warms the heart!
When i was in high school, I took the "media" class and luckily, Dale Klitz, (the teacher, who was actually rarely in the class), had an "inside guy" with the local movie theater, and brought in lots of old 16Mm trailers as well as a few 35MM ones, and i would spend many a happy time splicing these trailers onto reels together, with a was allowed to bring home!
The class was "officially" designed to keep the 16MM projectors working, (this was back in the early 80's when they were still using 16MM), but we pretty much goofed off in the class, but boy! It WAS FUN!!!'
Bless you, Mr. Klitz! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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