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Topic: The Kodak Challenge
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted April 17, 2010 12:47 PM
The Kodak Moviedeck, 1978 (Much maligned, not really that bad!)
This is my very first movie projector, a Kodak Moviedeck 447 which was the Big Christmas Present from Mom and Dad in 1978. It is also the only one I'll ever have that arrived brand new.
From when I started making and buying films that summer until then I had been watching them on a hand cranked editor. This was a big step up!
It's also kind of a symbol of the identity crisis of Super-8 film at that moment. Early VCRs were in the stores and a vertical box with two reels poking out the top was starting to seem un-cool, so Kodak decided to "modernize" and came up with this armless wonder. The take-up reel is built into the bottom, the supply reel lays flat on a spindle up on the flight deck. It is capable of rewinding back through the projection path (an idea that terrifies me now...), and automatically starting rewind when the tail is anchored on the supply reel. Setup is nothing more than placing, plugging and aiming.
It both tries and succeeds in being very "unfilmy". It looks like so much a slide projector when I've set it up people have said "I thought we were going to see movies!"
This series has a reputation as film eaters, but at least in this particular case that isn't true. I used this machine 24 years before I got my first sound projector and it still shares with a Eumig I later bought the distinction of being my only machines never to injure a film.
It also has what has to be the best autothread in the business. With a good leader it's pretty much 100%.
The film path is astounding: zigs and zags and bends and corners. If you open it up the design is actually pretty clever and a lot simpler than you’d ever guess. The build quality is excellent, and the machine is very quiet, especially once that cover is closed.
The Elmo in the background is not by accident. This machine stepped down from the first string years ago due to its 400 foot capacity, 50 Watt lamp (80W optional with reduced hours), no sound, second rate optics, the annoying thing of having the lamp lit when threading and the fact that it IS so...unfilmy. (It's never been just about the movies, am I right?)
The biggest gripe of all is the gate is pretty deeply imbedded inside and to “clean” it you need to pop out the lens and twiddle a paintbrush through the opening. This is like brushing your teeth through your ears!
Because of its pull out screen, it often serves as a viewer for reels back from the lab, or on the table while I'm editing films. Those few big show outings are Regular 8's in front of a crowd.
So I'm in no hurry to buy another one, but because of what it represents to me you'll never catch me selling this one either.
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted November 26, 2010 11:17 PM
Could it be....?
-that the classic Kodak projector isn't a Pageant or a Moviedeck, or an "Ektasound Ultra-400 Moviechrome" or any movie projector at all, but the humble Kodak slide projector?
-back in the day they were everywhere!
If there is anything that got a harsher rap than "home movies" in times past, it was the dreaded "slide show". In the wrong hands, it was just a means of force-feeding bad pictures to an audience: poor photography, poor editing, no context and of course the dreaded empty slots and slides upside down, flipped mirror image and sideways.
-not to say that in the right hands and with the right story to tell it couldn't be a masterful medium...it's just that those stories and hands proved unfortunately...few.
-Just like "home movies"!
Legally, this is my Kodak 650H. Morally, it’s my Dad's and will remain so even if it becomes my son's some day.
There was a time which feels like about four days ago when it shared a dining room table not too far away from here with my movie projector.
Now it's often on my own dining room table with several of my movie projectors, recalling days when Dad would pick up film for both of us when he was out at the camera shop, and often we’d both have something to show.
-back in the '70s it was an "arrangement", today it's an honor.
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Claus Harding
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1149
From: Washington DC
Registered: Oct 2006
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posted November 27, 2010 11:37 AM
My two Kodak 16mm machines:
The 16mm Kodascope 'B' from 1928:
Autoload, no less, thanks to the somewhat Frankensteinian arms in the back. They clamp around the spindle, and release with a touch when the film has arrived.
Here's the 16mm Kodascope EE series 2 from (I believe) 1938:
I can just imagine Saturday night...a rental from the Kodascope library, and dad threading the machine, wife and kids waiting with excitement.
The projector runs pretty much like the day it was made. As long as it gets a bit of oil now and again, it soldiers on, 72 years later, with a terrific lens and great picture stability.
It also has variable speed which can go quite low and still be watchable.
The little Kodak oil bottles are so charming:
Wartime(?) film box (note the line about 'material shortages' on the back.)
Finally, a Kodak Brownie II standard-8:
Pretty little thing, but she lost her front lens element somewhere along the way, so for display only.
I love the color-coded rangefinder with "Wide" "Medium" and "CU" indicated.
Fun thread, keep 'em coming...
Claus.
[ November 27, 2010, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Claus Harding ]
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"Why are there shots of deserts in a scene that's supposed to take place in Belgium during the winter?" (Review of 'Battle of the Bulge'.)
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted November 30, 2010 12:52 PM
Slides can be wonderful with that huge frame and "zero blade shutter" in the aperture. They are at their best when they are of an interesting subject and an interesting speaker is holding the remote.
Not to get too far off topic, but my wife inherited a Revere slide projector and a ton of slides from her parents. Since those slides are in the linear style slide magazines they can't easily be shown using Dad's Carousel machine.
We decided we wanted to show our son that we were kids once too, so I've been bringing the Revere back to life.
This machine has actual wood in it's base (-all the better to IGNITE you with, my dear!) and a metal chassis without a third prong on the plug. (!!!)
Underwriters Laboratory never met this Puppy either...
Last weekend I cleaned all the dust out of the interior, moved all the combustibles out of the blast zone, plugged it in, made sure I wasn't touching ground anywhere, closed my eyes tightly and turned on the power switch.
(It's OK)
-back to Kodak...I sure wish they were in carousels! I don't like using appliances that were designed with the Hindenberg!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted November 22, 2018 11:59 AM
The Kodak Pageant
If you grew up in North America and were born anywhere prior to about 1970, the odds pretty decent that when you were a kid and somebody said “Movie Projector”, this is the image that flashed in your mind. Most families didn’t have home movies, so it was unusual to see an 8 or Super-8 machine even back then. The ones at the cinema were in the booth and usually went unseen. The Pageant on the other hand was everywhere. At basically every school there was an “AV” room with a small herd of Pageants. No matter what type of teacher someone might be, they became very experienced running films on these: it was an essential job skill.
To me, seeing one of these still brings a burst of happy endorphins. When I was in elementary school through undergraduate, that sight meant there would be no lecture, no illegible scrawl in my notebook to decode later, probably no homework either.
–all that and I got to see a film too!
There came a time when VCRs started to show up at schools. It made perfect sense: they were cheap and easy. You could have one in every room and the AV room became available for the new computer labs that were happening just around the same time. I’m sure some of the teachers missed their Pageant days, but probably not all of them.
Unemployed Kodak Pageants are waiting for good homes all over North America. I "adopted" this one late last year. It’s my very first 16mm machine and it came even after my video projector showed up. It’s still stenciled for a college in Wisconsin and it’s got a number: just one of maybe many.
Right now, a 10 foot, ¼” monaural male to male cable is on order: it’s the first step towards this thing connecting into my sound system and fully joining the show!
It's part of the joy of this hobby: even before you think you've reached some dead end, there is usually a turn you can take a and start something new.
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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