8mm Forum: "FOUL", I SAY!!!

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Topic: "FOUL", I SAY!!!

Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted January 13, 2011 01:55 PM

I was watching a show about the Library of Congress on the History Channel. They described one of the Library departments as:

"A repository for audio and video images. We have original negatives for every culturally significant movie ever made stored here"

Those Sir, are not "video images"!

A curator of cultural artifacts needs to understand the media as well as the message. Otherwise they could just transcribe the Magna Carta or the Declaration of independence into Word files, and toss away those musty old papers!

This Rant ends here: Thank You for your kind attention!"

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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

posted January 13, 2011 05:03 PM

Unbelievable....the creeping illness of digital seems to rot everyone's brains, even those of the folks who preserve the negatives.

Claus.

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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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Tony Stucchio
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 625
From: New Jersey
Registered: Dec 2005

posted January 13, 2011 05:50 PM

It's like the people who, when they see your film collection, ask if you've considered having them copied to DVD.

What would you rather have -- The Mona Lisa, or a high-definition, 5 gazillion-pixel image of it that will fit in your wallet?

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Bill Phelps
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1482
From: USA
Registered: Jan 2009

posted January 13, 2011 05:55 PM

I'll take the Mona Lisa.

Bill [Smile]

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Bill Brandenstein
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1632
From: California
Registered: Aug 2007

posted January 13, 2011 06:25 PM

Yeah, and people watch what I'm doing or see a stack of my films and refer to them as "tapes."

What is the world coming to!

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Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted January 13, 2011 08:50 PM

By virtue of our 8 year old, we do a lot of stuff with the Cub Scouts.

At Christmas I show a couple of films for the boys. Last year one of the Moms asked in all seriousness: "Are you having them transferred before they deteriorate?"

It'a like "FILM!!...must....tranfer!!"

I'm imagining myself with about 50 DVD's

"Steve, what is that?"

"Well..It was my film collection before we homogenized it."

What's troubling to me about calling all of motion picture history "video" is it's forgetting a great technology, the people that developed it and the people that made magic with it.

-As much as I love photography, an oil painting is still a painting and it's insulting to the artist and the artform to call it a "photo". This is the same thing.

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...

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Guy Taylor, Jr.
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 606
From: Galveston, Texas, U.S.A.
Registered: Mar 2007

posted January 14, 2011 08:57 AM

George Eastman is probably rolling over in his grave.

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Guy Taylor

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David Erskine
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 230
From: Letchworth Garden City, Herts
Registered: Aug 2008

posted January 14, 2011 02:21 PM

Guy - do you mean "Pinwheel" Eastman???
Cheers, David E

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I've NEVER let failure go to MY head!

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Dave Schmidt
Junior
Posts: 19
From: Andersonville,TN
Registered: Oct 2010

posted January 17, 2011 07:27 PM

Not to step on anyone's toes,,or diss the quality of film - but I do digitize a lot of film - all old family heirlooms that would probably get melted into obscurity if they weren't cleaned and digitized. We are a society that demands immediate sate at the cost of quality (mp3,,uggg). What I digitize does not match the quality of the original, does not compete with the sound of a finely tuned projector,,and does not match the fun evening of watching true home movies. Understanding that there is millions of feet of home video, that will probably never be viewed again unless it is digitized,,,I admit to committing film sinnery. [Eek!]

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Bill Phelps
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1482
From: USA
Registered: Jan 2009

posted January 17, 2011 08:00 PM

Well, I too convert film over so I can give copies to family and to do some editing. I still cut the film together on an editor most of the time. I think it is more of a case of people thinking the film HAS TO be converted because it's going to turn into dust! Well I know people that transfered their 8mm home movies to VHS back in the 80's and threw the film away! Now the tapes are junk and they don't have anything.

There are merits to digital conversion but good heavens...keep the original! Nothing compares to the original up on the big screen!

Bill [Smile]

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Dave Schmidt
Junior
Posts: 19
From: Andersonville,TN
Registered: Oct 2010

posted January 17, 2011 09:18 PM

Must agree. VHS tape has degraded significantly when compared to film. I transfer a lot of VHS to dvd and find a significant amount with what I call white mold, generally on the edge of the tape which tends to warp. Makes tracking a neverending problem. Anybody know how to clean VHS? My apologies for getting off subject.

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Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted January 17, 2011 09:30 PM

There's nothing wrong with transferring film over to digital. There are a lot of benefits from being able to do it and as a matter of fact I do it myself.

My basic gripe is when people become so video fixated that the existence of motion pictures on film is basically erased from memory. More than a few times I've heard people talk about "Video shot during the depression", for example, when they really mean 16mm film.

Of course, we should accept that not everybody is technically inclined, so this is nothing to get in a fistfight over...it's just that when a curator of one of the major media libraries of the world starts thinking film and video are interchangeable ideas, it's gone too far.

What if you went to an aircraft museum and heard the director call a helicopter an "airplane"?

-What's the big deal?

They do the same thing!

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...

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Dave Schmidt
Junior
Posts: 19
From: Andersonville,TN
Registered: Oct 2010

posted January 17, 2011 09:57 PM

When you show your films to the Boy Scouts, my guess is that the kids are thrilled and full of questions. When my grandkids come over (all under 10), it's easy for mom to plop in a DVD to show the latest hollywood drivel. It usually captures their attention for 1/2 hour at the most. But when Grandpa pulls out the screen and fires up the old Keystone and puts in a silent "Shirley Temple",,the kids are enthralled. Questions galore,,,just ain't nothing like the smell of an old projector filling the room.

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Graham Ritchie
Film God

Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006

posted January 18, 2011 03:05 AM

A few years ago we got a new cinema manager who upon watching me running a 35mm print from one screen to another down the roof refered to it as video tape [Roll Eyes]

so as you see, all those years I have been getting it wrong its not 35mm film but 35mm video tape being projected on a video projector [Smile]

....well I soon corrected her with that video tape thing. The word "film" seems to have been forgotton which is a shame. I remember someone here refering to it as "film tape" I think thats what he said.... whatever that is. [Big Grin]

I hope to transfer our home movies soon onto DVD so our grown up children can watch them, however the last few weeks I have been sitting next to our Elmo ST180 projector and projecting those old films around 3000ft of the stuff taken over the last 35 years for everyone to watch and they still look good like they were shot just yesterday....Kodak... nothing can beat it and sitting there with a projector running watching all those old silent films... although the depressing part for me was what happened to all those years? [Eek!]

Graham.

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