Old Super8 home movies

[Graham Ritchie]

Here is a bit of a blast from the past of some film I shot many moons ago, Its got me in it doing a very quick free-flight hopefully the link works

[Ed Gordon]

Here is a bit of a blast from the past of some film I shot many moons ago, Its got me in it doing a very quick free-flight hopefully the link works

Graham, the video plays just fine. The link works, but unless you are a facebook member you only see two thirds of the screen and get nagged by facebook to sign in or create an account every minute or so.

[Graham Ritchie]

Thanks Ed

I was wondering if it worked, wont try linking from Facebook in future.

[Graham Ritchie]

Ed

Its been a while since I put anything up on you-tube so thought I would put the one above there as well .

PS Its silent film

[Ed Gordon]

Graham, Both videos work fine on this forum; The only issue with facebook for non-members is if you attempt to read any posts on facebook. That's were the nagware kicks in.

Back to your S8 movie. Seeing the titles you did with the movable lettering brought back found memories a making 8mm and S8 movies. We can do so much more with today's technology, but it just isn't as fun. Before the advent of CGI we would watch a movie and ask, "how did they do that?". Now we just say, "nice drawing".

[Graham Ritchie]

Ed

One of the things about that film was the use of editing it, in such away that anyone watching it, might think that all we did was play darts all day long. After shooting the darts game I went back to our old clock, and moved the hands to different times, then edited it into the film. I did show the end results to my boss "playing darts" who told me to never show it to the manager...or else

About two years ago that manager, now well and truly retired who I refer to, ran the photographic society at the Ferrymead Heritage Park, which I am a member of as well.

Anyway I took my little ST180 projector down there one day and said, I was not suppose to show you this, but after 40 odd years I am sure is does not matter The thing is, its got him flying Piper Cherokee Arrow DIU in the film with the gear down for others to catch up.

Sadly he passed away late last year, as with my old boss who passed away about 14 years ago. The young kid leaning on the wing watching the darts game, is now a Air New Zealand airline captain. A lot has changed over the years, but having some kind of film record certainly takes you back.

At the moment I have still been sorting out Std8/ Super8 film that was donated to the society. Its quite depressing, as you come across family film that whatever reason, was discarded and donated years ago before I came on the scene. What I am looking for though is historical film of parades, what the city was like that type of thing.

Standard 8 Kodachrome has great color, and when I think that much of this stuff I guess is close to 50- 60 years old some of it states 1965, it looks to me as good as the day it was first shot.

The editor I am using is a dual type, never a fan of cement splicing, I have to admit, that after scraping both parts to be joined the cement splices are holding really well, so have had a rethink of using cement, its not as bad as I thought

Here are a couple of photos of some old Std 8 film.

[Ed Gordon]

Graham, your comments about editing your film reminded me of the impact Alfred Hitchcock had with his masterful edit of the now classic shower scene in Psycho. In researching the particulars on how it was done, I came across this quote:

If you’ve ever made a movie, you realize that professional movie editing, more than any other stage of filmmaking, determines the viewers’ final experience. Marion Crane’s murder is one of the most unforgettable scenes in movie history. Hitchcock impressed audience by killing the lead character just 30 minutes into Psycho.

Psycho is a perfect example of how sound and editing are used to perfection. In terms of film editing, there is a basic idea that shots should join together to offer a sense of continuity with time, graphics, space and rhythm. If you want to talk about sound mixing, there are issues of fidelity, off screen sound and synching sound to a particular scene.

Also, there is the bond between editing and sound. With solid editing, there is an amazing interplay of image and sound. Film editing is more than simply putting shots together; it requires accuracy, instinct and finding the shots’ relation to one another. Psycho was revolutionary because it used unique forms of film editing.

Full article at: https://mymovielab.com/blog/professi...red-hitchcock/

Hitchcock had the advantage of planning every shot ahead of time in collaboration with Saul Bass:

The interesting thing is how Hitchcock’s angles and professional movie editing in Psycho compare to his other works. It is all because the contribution of amazing graphic artist Saul Bass who made almost fifty storyboards for the scene in shower.

With home movies we shoot what we think my be interesting, and then try to create a narrative after the fact. In some ways creating an interesting presentation from a jumble of random shots in more difficult. As Elliott Erwitt said, "To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them."

Your comment, "Its quite depressing, as you come across family film that whatever reason, was discarded and donated years ago before I came on the scene", is something I see in old family photos you see in 2nd hand stores, or a found child's toy buried in a back yard. Everything has a story.

I have read a few negative comments on forums about using cement for film splicing, but I prefer it. It can take more time to do, and it is easy to screw up, but once you get it right, it will last forever. In the process of digitizing old films of mine and friends I have found that cement splices done on films going back to the 1940's are still rock solid, while splices done with tape often jam the machinery up and have to be re-spliced with cement.

[Graham Ritchie]

Last night after cement splicing up a complete reel of Standard 8mm film, I ran it through the old Kodak projector Kodachrome film really looked good. I rewired the projector a while back and fitted a mains fuse which I don't think this projector ever had, although I wonder if the fuse was located in the original plug, anyway its got a fuse in it now I did convert the projector to a 12v 100watt lamp a while back. That has worked out really well.





Those all above photos were taken a few years ago





Bottom photo Royal visit, I think its 1963.

[Graham Ritchie]

Some more, this is a school visit getting involved in learning about Maori culture and a couple of screen shots of a Maori Hangi. The food is prepared and cooked in the ground .

[Janice Glesser]

I am always amazed Graham at how well standard 8 mm film has maintained its color and contrast over the years. It's as beautiful as the day it was shot.

[Paul Adsett]

No exaggeration to say that Kodachrome was the home movie film equivalent of Technicolor, both in terms of color saturation and longevity.

[Graham Ritchie]

Some of the film I had been sorting through included footage of a local school. I did get in contact with them and after a while they responded. After sending a digital footage to them through the internet, they sent a reply thanking me for doing this. That footage is now in the school archive, They might find a use for it one day like a school centenary. I am glad that they have got it, its nice to return stuff, you never know, someone may say at that school one day who may have never seen it, and say ........"that's me in that film long long ago". .

[Graham Ritchie]

PS I did come across a box of single 50ft reels on Super8 a while back donated to the Ferrymead Historical society. I joined them up and put the results onto you-tube. The films had been taken across the road where we now live back of the 1974 games.

The guys down at Ferrymead are more into "still" photography, so they were happy to get me be to sort through the boxes of old cine films so they could get back to talking about the still stuff

[Graham Ritchie]

Slowly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with all this stuff, out of thousands of feet of Super 8 film I have managed to narrow the contents down to 1/600ft and five full 400ft reels of local stuff such as air shows, fairs, parades and the like. I came across some taken at the airport back in the days where the public used to be able to go outside and view the aircraft, one such aircraft was a Mt Cook DC3 before I worked for that company. I will post that stuff to there Facebook page. I am sure it will bring back memories to some of those old timers

My next thing is to get the contents into some exact sort of order on the editor before finally doing cement splicing

Thankfully all those film were well shot and full of nice color, I have not found any faded films, that is, the ones shot through a camera they look as good as the day they were taken.

A few years earlier at Mt Cook I might have had the chance to work on a DC3, that would have been interesting

[Graham Ritchie]

I forgot here is some Standard 8mm, the video quality shown here, is no where as good as watching the actual film going through a projector.