8mm Forum: Other Peoples Old Home Movies

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Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on April 28, 2005, 11:39 AM:

Several weeks ago, Hilda, an elderly and recently widowed friend of my parents asked me if I would like to have a look through her late husband Dons’ cine equipment to see if there was anything I could use. I jumped at the chance, especially as she was not asking for any money for any of it but wanting to get it cleared out.

It turned out that her husband, who had known my Dad since their time in Egypt during WWII, had been a keen 8mm home cine photographer from the early fifties through until the eighties and even early nineties. His collection of home made movies is huge and he had clearly put a lot of effort into producing them, writing story boards, creating captions and animated titles and editing them in a thoroughly organised manner. Along with all the completed films is a carefully catalogued and organised collection of odd ends, out takes and unused subjects.

As it happened, there was very little that I could have made use of as he was never a package movie collector and I already have ample editing and film making equipment. He did however have a nicely kept, late model Eumig Dual gauge sound projector. Despite Hildas’ protestations I told her that I couldn’t possibly take it as I would be leaving her with fifty years worth of memories on film and no way to watch them. To cut a long story short, I found myself offering to transfer the films to video for her… fifty years worth of film… what have I done… [Confused]

Cut to this weekend, onto my third box now, the little Elmo SP Hi-Deluxe has been working like a Trojan and with the help of a neat little rear projection screen I picked up form a car boot sale several years ago and a borrowed camcorder, I am getting through the mountain of films and what an interesting project it has turned out to be [Smile]

.

In truth the majority of the films are of limited interest to an outsider but there are some real gems. One in particular stands out as a nicely made short subject filmed in 1958 of a National Defence Volunteer Groups exercise. It is basically a role-play exercise which includes evacuating a damaged building, presumably following a nuclear strike as there are various signs warning of the danger of radiation etc. The action moves on to a simulated road crash where there are two crash victims in need of first aid, rescue and transport to hospital. The cars, uniforms, ambulances and scenery all add to this wonderful little snap shot of life in 1958 under the shadow of the Cold War.

One surprise I had was that a film dated 1968 opened with a shot of my Father walking towards the camera and turned out to be a memento of a holiday that my Parents and Don and Hilda had shared in Devon nearly forty years ago. I hadn’t ever seen any cine of my parents in their younger days and my Father had always said that he didn’t remember ever being filmed by Don so this was a bit of a bonus.

Of general interest are many short films from the fifties and sixties taken in and around London. Again, the fashions, the cars and the street scenes make these fascinating to look at, I even found one film that showed a street scene from the fifties taken just a few roads away from where I now live. I have since walked along that street, strangely, apart from the fact that there are now cars every where, including in what the film showed to have been peoples neatly tended front gardens, little else has changed.

There are still plenty more films to go through and many hours of videoing to do, I shall report back if anything interesting comes to light!

Mike [Cool]

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on April 28, 2005, 12:37 PM:

Good Work Mike!,

You're saving something that was very precious to this gentleman and giving his widow a little of him to hold on to as well.

There are too many people out there that have been twisted into this idea that somehow film is no good and video is better and more permanent, and a lot of bad things are happening as a result. My Aunt visited a few years ago and presented me a whole bag of empty 8mm reels and cans. It seems she'd decided to transfer all of her films to video, and then she dilligently unspooled every last foot of the film into the garbage. In the best case scenario it's 100 feet deep in the Staten Island landfill now.

The shame of it is she's a world traveller and the cans were marked with descriptions of places on every continent.

She sacrificed the option of projection for convenience. If she'd preserved the film after transfer she could have both!

(Wish she'd told me she was going to do this!)

Posted by Alan Rik (Member # 73) on April 28, 2005, 01:33 PM:

Mr. Peckham,
there will be a place for you at the Pearly Gates afterall! [Smile]

That is really great that you are doing that for the lady. I transferred some films of myself when I was in my filmmaking mode (14-18 yrs old!) to video so I wouldn't ruin the originals. The Kodachrome 40 still looks fantastic and there is just a look about FILM that is truly timeless. So much better than any video footage I have ever shot. They are snapshots of a moment, just everything that I have ever loved about the moving image seems right with film.

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on April 28, 2005, 07:38 PM:

*sniffle* Beautiful, Mike. Thanks so much for sharing this story.
And, boy, I agree with Alan's sentiments - just last night my wife had me show her some home movies that my parents shot some 30 years ago. And seeing these for the first time on a really large screen and a quality projector - not the plain-jane silent unit my parents used to have - really made an impact on me. Stunning detail and rich, deep colors (with no fading!) - I didn't feel like I was just watching a film - I was watching a window into the past, with a presence to it that made me think it had all been filmed only last week. Man. [Smile]

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