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Author
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Topic: Citizen Melvin Edits Citizen Kane !
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Melvin England
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 707
From: Hull, East Yorkshire, UK
Registered: Feb 2016
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posted June 04, 2018 03:46 PM
It must be about 4 years ago now, that I manage to secure a copy of this classic film on super 8 from Ebay.
To be very fair to the seller, who is still selling today,he DID point out in his product description that several scenes were out of sequence and that it was a very well used copy. However, bearing in mind how frequently this title doesn't appear for sale, I threw caution to the wind and won it for less than £50 !
It has taken me all this time to get around to viewing it and re-editing it into the correct sequences. I found myself with a couple of days spare a few days ago and started the task..... and this is the method I used.....
It came on 3x very full 800' spools. So the first thing I did was to make a very rough video copy of each reel by simply pointing the camera at the screen. Each reel was then transferred to the computer.Then comes the clever bit.
I got a copy of the film on dvd, put it in the computer video player and when it came onto the screen, reduced the size to about a third of the entire screen. Then, on a separate part of the screen, I brought up the rough video copy. Bearing in mind that synchronization wasn't an issue in this excercise, I ran both the dvd and rough copy together on the screen, making written notes of the scenes as I went along. Whenever the two copies went off in different directions, I would stop the dvd, make a note of the total running time at that point, then run the rough copy to get the new scene description, fast forward the dvd until I found the corresponding scene and marked the beginning and end running times. And so it went on until I had a written editing sheet that went something like this....
Scene A - (description blah di blah!) 0 minutes to 16'52"
Scene B - (Blah di blah) 25'19" to 33' 42"
Scene C - (Blah Di Blah) 16'53" to 22'00"
Scene D - (Blah Di Blah) 22'01" to 25'18"
.... and so on..
The use of the timings were two fold as you will see...
After the editing sheet for reel 1 was done it was back to the 8mm film and projector to run it through again. The timings would be a rough guide as to when the wrong scene change would take place. In the first example,Scene A, I knew all was well for 16 minutes and that there would be a splice in a few seconds. Sure enough, there it was. Running the film so the splice had gone through the projector and just before reaching the take up spool I would stop the projector, unsplice the film, take the reel off, put a sticker on the side of the reel with the running times on it, then place another spool on the take up arm, re attach the remaining film to it, and run the projector until the end of the next wrong scene change, and repeat the process.
The net result is that the film will end up on many spools, BUT because all the spools were labelled with the dvd running time, you then re splice the sequences back onto the larger spool in the running time order, (starting with the largest time and work BACK to zero... because the film starts at zero on the supply spool)you then have the film running in the correct order.
I found it best to edit each 800' spool as a separate job. In this way, although you are using quite a few spools to store the sequences, you do not have masses of film on masses of spools!
In this case, however, there were sequences that needed to fit on reels 2 and 3 and vice versa, so sometimes one was left with almost 800' on a spool... and a bit left over... which would have to keep until the next spool was edited. That is just the nature of the beast!
Anyway, I now have a copy of Citizen Kane running in the correct sequence. Unfortunately, the process did bring up a couple of disappointments. Firstly, the scene timings proved that several times the last few seconds of a scene, or the last 10 seconds of the last scene and the first 10 seconds of the present scene were missing altogether. I estimate perhaps 2 minutes in total. Secondly, although the sound was very good almost throughout the entire film and it slid through the projector as if it had been made yesterday, I can honestly say that it is one of the most scratched super 8 film I have ever seen. All those tramlines! Blackpool Transport would have been proud! It is still watchable,though. Such is life! You pays your money and takes your chance! This time,though, I was warned!
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"My name is for my friends!"
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Melvin England
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 707
From: Hull, East Yorkshire, UK
Registered: Feb 2016
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posted June 05, 2018 04:08 AM
No Bill, I didn't. I should have done,though. As I say, it was about 4 years ago when I won the item on Ebay, and at the time,I was just in awe of the fact that this title would now be on my shelf.The condition was not (but maybe should have been)of concern. I knew I would sort it out eventually. Nowadays,I have a little more time to attend to matters like this then I did before, which is the reason it has taken me so long to get around to sequencing/editing it properly.
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"My name is for my friends!"
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