In-Depth Article on Blackhawk Films from Super 8 Filmaker magazine (1974)

[Walter Stanton]

Great article outlining how they make & restore their prints, including reconstructing title cards from silent films. Wasn't sure the best way to post this, so I just scanned each page as an image. The link to the album of images is here: https://postimg.cc/gallery/Px2Yr7Y

(ps--if anyone has a better way to post this kind of content, please let me know!)

[Joseph Banfield]

Thanks for posting that and it was a great read!

[Walter Stanton]

My favorite part of the article was the section outlining the restoration of title cards

[David Kilderry]

A very interesting read Walter, thank you for posting this. Amazing that many of the Blackhawk prints came from 35mm originals that they sourced themselves from other collectors as well as studios. I used to deal with David Shepard directly in later times and we traded and swapped a few prints over the years. 700 titles was a big number and in the next 5 years the Blackhawk catalog grew even larger. I've never counted them all up, but in 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm I'd have at least a couple of hundred of their titles.

[Joe Caruso]

Excellent essay, would liked to have met Walter Wind, since he and I are mutual colleagues in the Blackhawk collecting field.Of particular importance in the article was the liquid dispersion procedure, which have these prints a lasting lubricant... Cheers on a top-notch job, Shorty

[Osi Osgood]

The care that Blackhawk took with many of they're releases was years ahead of restoration processes today that are taken as common place. Even when it came to " paper prints", copying very early "films" that were used in Nickelodians and such and then, when they'd find a better negative, they'd release a new run of prints of any given title. Major kudos to Blackhawk Films!

[Mike Newell]

Great article Walter. Blackhawk in name at least still exists as they were behind the recent Laurel & Hardy Blu Ray Year 1 1927 releases and they supplied a lot of the material to be remastered.

Originally, you had to buy it thru them but I noticed Two European releases have been released. Think they are identical.

[Brian Harrington]

The explanation of how they made prints is so much clearer than how Blackhawk explained it in one of their mid-70s catalogs. It does explain why their 16mm prints of a given title are so much better than the same title in Super 8 -- the latter is so many more generations removed.

I'd never buy those Blu-rays because:
1. I don't have a player, and
2. My Super 8 and 8mm prints look fantastic! I have a handful in 16mm, too.

Also -- the Blackhawk L&H silents in 8mm and Super 8 look better than their talkies. They don't look nearly as "dupey" even though the talkies still look very good compared to other companies Super 8 releases (not talking L&H here), topped only by Columbia's Stooges "unedited" shorts which project like 16mm originals! I'd love to read a step-by-step explanation on how Columbia pulled it off!