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Author
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Topic: The Value of Reel Film Collecting
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 14, 2014 04:41 PM
In the current issue of Home Cinema one of the staff writers states that his book cases are filled up with DVD's and he wants to sell them all off to buy blu rays of all his favourite titles. He is lamenting the fact that he suddenly realizes that his vast DVD collection is virtually worthless and that penny's on the dollar is the best he can hope for in terms of recovering his investment. When I read this I thought of how totally different the situation is for 'reel' film collections, where more often than not, for good titles and top quality prints, you can recover the original cost (or more) of the film, and the cost of second hand films continues to rise. I am not saying that people should buy films for investment purposes, but it is nice to know that our collections have 'reel' value compared with the digital equivalents.
And I have news for that writer. His blu ray collection is also about to nose dive in value with the advent of Ultra High Definition optical discs.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Dino Everette
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1535
From: Long Beach, CA USA
Registered: Dec 2008
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posted August 15, 2014 12:58 AM
That is a symptom of the new "Apple" way of life...Businesses now thrive on constantly reselling us the same things over and over again..Remember when we just had a phone to make calls? We had the same phone for years and years, and the calls were always clear and perfect.. Now we have to buy a new phone every 2 years...Same things with movies..The DVD's looked great on our standard def TV's, but now we have HD TV's, we need HD versions of the movies to get the "full" experience of the quality of our TV so we buy BluRays...OOPS, now the TV's are jumping up to 4K, so we are going to need higher quality versions of these same movies to get the "full" experience of 4K in the home....Products are designed to be obsolete in a few years now, and are actually engineered to fail..I have a computer that I use for digital transfers and have never connected to the Internet, or added any additional programs...It is 4 years old and still runs lightning fast, mainly because I have never added any of the "critical updates" that actually slowly kill your computers.....
Film is a terrible business model, because the films that are projected properly will last essentially forever, and so will most of the equipment...The fact that you can stick a roll of brand new celluloid film into a 100 year old camera or projector is bad business..Things need to break and become obsolete...Look at cars, they are practically made of plastic now..A super safe shell so we won't die surrounded by stuff that will easily break so we'll have to keep repairing it...We are a disposable society now that favors ease over quality..I feel very happy to have films to watch, I only wish I had not swallowed the CD/ipod koolaid and kept all of my old vinyl records.
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"You're too Far Out Miss Lawrence"
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 15, 2014 11:19 AM
I have replaced just a few of my DVD's with Blu Ray's, usually titles, such as CinemaScope westerns, where the better picture quality can really increase the viewing experience. I don't see much point in replacing 4:3 black and white titles from the 1930's and 40's with blu ray, although if there were classic films that I did not already have I would probably do so.
As far as 4K goes, I doubt very much If I will spring for it. I have been down the VHS,DVD, and blu ray path, and that is quite enough. I am very happy with my present Film and digital collection and equipment.
A couple of weeks ago I saw the new Sanyo curved 4K television. The picture detail was amazing, but it did not look real at all, and the curved screen made room reflections even worse.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted August 15, 2014 12:42 PM
One would think that I would be the last one to trumpet digital media, but I must applaud what has been done with Blu-ray copies of restored films, which really do, in nearly every case, offer better "resolution" than we can get on super 8 ...
(though I'm not letting go my film collection, of course!)
I was just reviewing the difference between the KINO Blu-ray of the classic Orson Welles film "The Stranger" with other versions on Blu-ray, the difference is quite striking, and I will most happily get that KINO Blu-ray of the film ...
but the person was right, these Blu-ray collection are "adequate" but worth little these days ...
... while, in many regards, our cine collection either retain they're value, (depending on the films you have in your collection, of course), or even gain more value, as we have all seen in the case of prints such as STAR WARS, ALIEN ect ect
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Joe Caruso
Film God
Posts: 4105
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 15, 2014 01:50 PM
Keep everything, store it, lock it away with proper air control and forget about selling or trading it at present - The same idea held when cassettes were sidetracked to 8-track cartridges, the old 78's were passe, even LPs to a fault, same with comic book formats, gum cards, toys, packaging, boxes, monster items and boomer 60's in general - I was one of the early wise fools, kept 90% of the material, locked away - That's why I largely retired, was there, did it, have it, it still be - Shorty
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Timothy Ramzyk
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 220
From: Milwaukee,WI,USA
Registered: Nov 2006
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posted August 19, 2014 03:15 PM
I hate to admit it here, but the minute my color films from the 80's began to warm was when DVD showed up, and decent video projectors geared to home use began to emerge. For me it's always been about an ideal presentation of the film, not the medium, so selling my color films when the selling was good was what financed my first digital projector.
Films being worth a great deal was always a double-edged sword. Sure, you get some of that investment back, but it costs dearly to collect in the first place.
It's also a true that technical dissatisfaction and double-dipping exists within single formats. I sold my Niles Cinema Super 8 print of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD favor of a Red Fox upgrade. The Niles print sold for about $35 less than I originally paid, the Red Fox print about cost about $35 more to buy. So there we go, I shelled out an extra $70 to get a better print.
I'm 47, and hoping that I'll be able to keep my current collection of disks afloat until I expire. Even if it means squirreling away machines or ripping titles to a different form of storage. If not, there's always been financial disappointment in collecting things as ephemeral as movies.
I didn't like seeing my $4000 video projector was fetching $750 when I was done with it, and I didn't like seeing my $250 print of Poltergeist turn red. However, I had a lot of fun out of both while they lasted.
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 19, 2014 10:56 PM
Andrew, when you screen your Armchair Odeons DVD, which you are about to get from Keith Wilton, you will know for sure what that certain something is. I have just had three very pleasurable evenings screening all my Armchair Odeons and the series never ceases to amaze me. The dedication and ingenuity of the 'reel' home cinema enthusiasts is incredible, and Keith has captured all of it on these wonderful and totally professional videos, which are without doubt a legacy series of cinema in the home.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Timothy Ramzyk
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 220
From: Milwaukee,WI,USA
Registered: Nov 2006
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posted August 20, 2014 12:49 AM
Dominique said he not a tech guy, but if you think about it, showing film-on-film is rather tech-lovers format. That is if you were like me with the synchronized projectors and whatnot.
I amazed that people in these parts actually re-dub audio, that's certainly quite a slight of hand.
It's too bad that just as formats hit their peak in excellence, they invariably stop being produced. I think for in recent years most movies that were shot on film, were edited digitally, then returned to film for theaters still showing film. It made me wonder if you had the right setup, why super 8 couldn't be stuck from an HD digital record just as 35mm now can be?
I do get the film thing though, I still have "Super 8 horror" as part of my Amazon searches, just for old times sake. I even worked in a film-lab way back in the early 90s. The only good thing I can say about less film being processed is that it was a highly chemical process, which left lots of acid and heavy-metal tainted waste to dispose of, and that was just in the developing. Though I'm disks must surely have a wealth of nasty byproducts.
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