What 16mm Films Did You See Last Night?

[Nick Vermeirsch]

Strange indeed 🤔

[Graham Ritchie]

Ran this one last night I posted it on a Christchurch Facebook page that got a amazing response in particular some who appeared in it. Its great to share some of those old films as it brings back memories to many of those long ago times.

[Graham Ritchie]

Flat version of "The Sound Of Music" three days ago

Screen shots from that night.

[Dominique De Bast]

A very interesting (for me) archives film : La Grande Bretagne et les Etats-Unis de 1896 à 1900 (The Great Britain and the United States from 1896 to 1900). Early films from the United Kingdom (that included Ireland at that time) and the United States (and also Australia). The narration (in French) is instructive and well written.

[Barry Webb]

Hi I've always wanted to know what is a flat prnt. .

[Ed Gordon]

Hi I've always wanted to know what is a flat prnt. .

A simplified way of understanding the distinction between FLAT and SCOPE aspect ratios, has to do with their film projection roots. Historically, FLAT films were projected with spherical lenses while SCOPE films were intended to be projected with an anamorphic lens. While both are technically widescreen formats, SCOPE films could be projected considerably wider, filling an audience’s peripheral vision and making a film even more engrossing and larger-than-life. These aesthetic advantages can only be fully realized, however, with a screen optimized for SCOPE projection.
Digital cinema no longer uses anamorphic lenses except in very specific circumstances, but we still use FLAT and SCOPE terminology to distinguish optimal projection specs for each type of screen. Everything from construction of the theater to masking and automation ultimately get determined by this distinction.

Source: https://simpledcp.com/picking-right-aspect-ratio/

[Dominique De Bast]

A fascinating German documentary from 1933 : Deutschland zwischen gestern und heute (Germany Between Yesterday and Now). After a Google search, I found that my version (about 30 minutrs) is half of the original one. There is no narration or dialogue : only music and some live sound. The film consiste of various scenes of daily live of simple people 90 years ago. I did had the feeling to have taken a time machine. I bought that film in Calella for a song. Great found.

[Steve Klare]

Dominique,

I think I have the exact opposite of your film: Zug der Zeit (Time's Train, 16mm). It was made in Germany not very long after World War II and it's basically encouraging the German People to rise up from their defeat and destruction and build a new, better society (-which they hadn't really started just yet: mainly just trying to keep the lights lit and food in the shops at that point) There are trains, but not so I can watch somebody shovel coal or shunt a siding (-the usual...), the train is symbolic of time passing and the opportunity to get on board and make progress and a future.

Some kind soul about eight CineSeas ago found himself with it and said to himself "Trains...German Language...Steve Klare" and decided it would be better in my collection than his.

My wife is very patient with these. You see: Sie spricht kein Deutsch (-yet our son does to at least an A1 level: I started him out!), but she doesn't mind our little theater going international here and there!

[Dominique De Bast]

Very interesting, Steve. I wish I could speak fluently German. My level is too low to understand a movie.

[Steve Klare]

Understood, Dominique! I am far from fluent myself!

-I must have about 10 German language films and the ones I understand the best are the ones made for American German-Language students! (maybe because I AM one!)

I find with the ones made for native speakers, I go for a while and then struggle to keep up: the problem is not understanding German, but still thinking in English and having to translate everything in my head! I still get the main ideas, which is better than nothing.

I have "Die Kuh": a 16mm German TV show in a can marked "West German Embassy, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada". I got about halfway through this one last time before my German language skills went into overload...maybe it's time to try it again!

My Uncle in Germany is no help! Once he told me (-in really good English...) "What's the big deal? My Granddaughter speaks really great German and she's only five years old!" 😉

If ever (for some reason...) I ever really need to develop a headache, all I need to to is translate something from Spanish to German with no English in between: that should do it!

[Steve Klare]

I bet everybody on this Forum has a couple of "bucket list" prints they'd love to have. I got one of mine a few days ago and we watched it last night.

Bill Mason is one of my favorite filmmakers. His specialty was nature films as seen from a canoe, which is one of those other things I do besides messing around with films and projectors (The sun can't be down ALL the time!). He had a pretty unique eye as a filmmaker: you see, he never had any kind of classroom filmmaking instruction, but went through art school as a painter. It shows in how he handled a camera. He is famous for people with formal film training noticing that he fairly often violated basic rules of filmmaking as traditionally taught, yet somehow made it work very well on screen. He had the freedom of not knowing any better!

Because of Bill Mason, I have been buying National Film Board of Canada titles since the late 1980s, first on VHS, then on DVD and even more recently on 16mm.

Paddle to the Sea is a fairly early Bill Mason title (He is still "Wiliam Mason" in the credits.). It is based on a children's book by an author with the really interesting name "Holling Holling" (-middle name "Clancy", in case you were at all concerned...I sure was!). The story presents the geography of the Great Lakes by showing a boy carving an Indian in a canoe and then putting him in a stream north of Lake Superior, with the goal the Atlantic Ocean over a thousand miles away. "Paddle" has some amazing adventures all the way down to the Atlantic Ocean at the end of the film. He gets frozen in ice all winter, washed through the spillways on several dams, nearly burned up in a forest fire, run over by several Great Lakes freighters and just when you thought he'd been through enough, washed over Niagara Falls! People keep finding him, but because "Put me back in the water." is carved in the bottom of his hull, they keep letting him continue his journey. At the end, he is picked up by a lighthouse keeper who decides even though he has made it to the ocean, there is still a big world out there and sends him on his way once again: who knows where he will go! (Just this once, there was NO sequel!)

This is a beautiful film. There are really awesome nature shots including animals, landscapes and night-time scenes. It isn't very often somebody puts a 16mm camera in a waterproof case and sends it over Niagara Falls, either! Back in its day, it was the top-requested title at the NFB for quite some years. This particular one is also a wonderful print too: an occasional thin line here and there that quickly goes away, other than that, sharp, bright and colorful.

I'm very pleased to have this one. I was actually pretty severely sniped for a slightly faded one on e-Bay within the last 6 months, which I'm removing from "one that got away" and now re-filing under "count your blessings"!

It also says a lot that I've had this title on a very nice DVD for a couple of years which projects beautifully, but the experience of threading this one up on a real film projector makes the extra money and space this 16mm print consumes well worth it! Both will get their chances on screen: Projectionists Prerogative!
.

(Bonus points for the original NFB reel and can!)

[Steve Klare]

Tonight another Bill Mason NFB film: In Search of the Bowhead Whale

Bill Mason joins a crew of biologists and divers to search for the bowhead whale, which was made rare by industrialized hunting earlier in the 20th Century. They filmed the whale in Artic waters both from a helicopter and under sea ice using blimped 16mm cameras (-and dry suits!). They also recorded the Bowhead's song for the very first time utilizing hydrophones. Before then, nobody was sure they could sing.

As a cameraman, Bill Mason often did something kind of unusual: he made himself the star of the movie. In several of his films, he appears on screen with a really impressive 16mm camera with a telephoto lens that must have cost enough to buy a pretty decent car! (-the tools of the wildlife cinematographer), and this is one of the first of these. He also narrates and directs.

I guess after being Oscar Nominated for Paddle to the Sea and sitting next to Natalie Wood at the Academy Awards, he developed a taste for stardom! (Typical of Bill Mason, he drove out to Los Angeles with a canoe on his car!)

The Print? Wellll...it's one of those only a mother could love! It's what's often described as having "some color left" and it's a veteran school library print: plenty of mileage in terms of lines and scattered gouges and the occasional wonky splice. With a cyan filter and some allowances made, I still enjoyed it. (It has some beautiful sequences.)

-still: not one I'd invite people over to see!

(At the very least, it's found a place where it will be appreciated.)

[Graham Ritchie]

Gave the old B/H a run last week with a couple of different titles, one being about "Studebakers" the other a French film, a X library print, cant remember how I came across it, the title is "White Mane" winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1953. Albert Lamorisse who made White Mane would later go on to make "The Red Balloon" 1956. I remember Derann selling that title new but never got around to getting it, it like so many

The 16mm print of "White Mane" has seen better days, there is one scene that I don't like, and that's where both horses are fighting each other, it gets a bit much, so decided to remove it, not something I would usually do, but it makes the film a bit easier to watch, in fact I think its better without it. I will have to get through more 16mm shorts that I have not watched in a while. One interesting 16mm film is from NASA on the box of Apollo 9, the color on the leader looks fine, so that's one to look at soon

A couple of screen shots the Studebaker ones are from a earlier screening, White Mane last week.





White Mane

[Graham Ritchie]

For those not familiar with both the "The Red Balloon" and "White Mane", this trailer might help. To date I have never come across a 16mm print of "The Red Balloon" but it was released on Super8 for quite a while as a 600 footer. My guess is, and with a bit of luck those Super 8 prints will still have good color.

[Evan Samaras]

If you can stand some fade, I found and brought this dystopian classic all the way back from Spain, in my backpack!