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Author
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Topic: Yesterday on super 8
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Mike Peckham
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1461
From: West Sussex, UK.
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted November 19, 2007 06:28 AM
The weekend just gone was one of those awful British weekends that thankfully we haven’t had too many of recently, it was raining almost non-stop and when it wasn’t the air was heavy with damp and the sky was grey and foreboding. It was windy too with icy gusts coming in off the sea making being outside thoroughly unpleasant, the only place to be was shut up in doors protected from the elements.
In other words, Sunday afternoon was the perfect time to set up the projector and settle down to a cine session. Unusually, I was on my own yesterday afternoon so my viewing was entirely of my choice, I decided to work my way through some digests and had a thoroughly good time. I started off with Universals 2 x 400ft “Ffolkes North Sea Highjack”, I have never seen this film in its entirety and am not sure that I would want to, but the 40 minute version is well edited and very fast moving, if a little cheesy.
Staying with Universals for the moment I then watched their 2x 400ft cut down of “The Jerk”. I love this film, I’ve always been a Steve Martin fan and The Jerk for me is a great example of his early work. Incidentally, both these prints are in great condition with fine sound and good colours. The Jerk is definitely the nicer print as it is far sharper than Ffolkes but both have stood up well.
Next was “Star Trek, The Motion Picture”, this was the 3 x 400ft Marketing release which again has stood up well to the test of time both in content and the physical condition of the film itself. The colours remain vivid and the condensed version of this film runs really well, making sense and retaining many of the state of the art special effects, which I guess must have seemed all the more impressive on its original release – somehow those rather more crude effects seem all the more believable than today’s CGI, or is that just me showing my age…
My final choice of film (that took me nicely up to Antiques Road show) was MGMs 2 x 400ft edition of Fame. This is such a great film; it has a real “feel good” factor to it and always makes me smile. It’s basically the musical numbers strung together with enough of the story line to introduce the characters and make sense of the goings on. I particularly like the canteen jam session, the street dancing to the theme tune (move your f***ing parade), and the fantastic finale; Dance The Body Electric. Again this is a great print, the colour jumped off the screen and the sound is booming.
All in all it was a great way to spend a wet and windy afternoon in Worthing and a great case for the old digests – they make watching a number of films in one sitting possible.
Just hoping that next Sunday afternoon is another wet and windy one…
Mike
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Auntie Em must have stopped wondering where I am by now...
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Mike Peckham
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1461
From: West Sussex, UK.
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted December 03, 2007 06:06 AM
This Saturday was another great opportunity for a Super 8 Film Show, and this time to an ever changing bunch of children – possibly the most appreciative audience!
Friends of mine were once again staging their annual Craft Fayre/Open House. As they had in the past, they asked me if I would put on a film show for the young ones, this turns out to be quite a lucrative move for the hosts, as with the kiddies captivated in the sitting room cinema, the parents tend to relax whilst being fed mince pies, tea and mulled wine, and consequently spend more money on all the odd looking craft products.
For the day, and as the Fayre had a Christmas theme to it, I put together a Christmas reel comprising Peace On Earth, The Madagascar Penguins Christmas Caper, and of course the old favourite Snowman. This lasted for about 50minutes and proved a great success although I’m not convinced that Peace on Earth is universally popular among young children as the message is quite dark.
I also took along a number of short subjects and The Lion King full feature; the latter was very much the hit of the day both with the children who were captivated by it and the parents who enjoyed the 90 minutes of freedom. The film ended with a round of applause!
As ever the GS 1200 attracted a lot of attention, during the day several of the little people got to “help” me thread it up and rewind the films, it also intrigued a number of the Dads who found themselves drawn to its alluring ways; the gentle purr, the smell of the warm mechanism and the bewitching light being all too irresistible…
In all the show lasted for nearly 6 hours as there was a constant change over in people all through out the day and the old GS performed faultlessly, in fact I feel it probably did it some good getting to be used for so long in one sitting – a little like taking the car on a long trip.
Hopefully I’ll be doing it all again next year…
Mike ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Auntie Em must have stopped wondering where I am by now...
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I never liked those long winters ideal for watching films though, back in 1972 I attended a Datsun course in Worthing, first time south of the border, what I remember most about Worthing was a pub that the only two of us from Scotland went to every night, "young and stupid in those days" met this elderly couple on the dart board and they both cleaned us out, nice people though, by the end of the course we were totally broke. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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