What contribution did you make today, to our wonderful hobby ?

[Steve Klare]

Adventures in "New" Film Gauges

This one was last weekend.

I've been collecting film about 40 years now. I got into Super-8 sound about 18 years ago. I started collecting 16mm...two years ago!

(No point in rushing into these things!)

So, I have a 16mm projector, and by virtue of the fact that the Kodak Presstape splicer I had anyway also does 16, I have a splicer. I have some tapes, and I have some black leader: that's it infrastructure wise! No viewer, no rewinds, and just one spare reel.

I bought a pair of 16mm trailers last week: "Knute Rockne, All American" and "Citizen Kane". I said "I'll transfer one onto the other's reel."

-and then they showed up like this:
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-Ohhh No!

The two trailers were masking taped together on a core.

This was a problem.

Somehow, in a process involving my Pageant, that one empty reel, my take up reel, my son at the throttle, and myself with cores and reels on a pencil we managed to get the trailers off the core, splice a foot of black leader in between, splice leader at head and tail and get the end result onto my now un-spare reel. At one point I had to take one trailer out of the equation and with nothing better to do, rough-spliced it at the head of another film with a little reel-space to spare.

The trailers are beautiful: they have that wonderful, classic look that Black and White often has on 16mm. And you have to believe after all of that, I watched them that night!

It was a little tense, but it felt good once I finished. Maybe what got me through is the inspiration of George Gipp himself: "When things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper." (-although I've always preferred the version from Airplane!)
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**More spare reels are now on order!

[Joseph Banfield]

Even though it was not today but during the corona virus lockdown that I re-recorded the sound on three Betty Boop cartoons. I re-recorded "Betty Boop M.D (1932)", " Betty Boop's museum (1932)" and "Betty Boop in Blunderland (1934). Most, if not all, of those early sound cartoons need a re-record as the sound from the original tracks are often quite muddy sounding. That is where Youtube comes to the rescue as you can find the old cartoons with much better restored soundtracks. Once they are properly synced and re-recorded you end up with a film that becomes very enjoyable to watch again, especially for audience that no longer struggles to hear through the muddy soundtrack! Still have a Popeye cartoon yet left to do from 1942 called "Me musical nephews"!

[Brian Fretwell]

I tend (with normal halogen lamps) to rotate to another projector whenever one lamps fails.

[Chip Gelmini]

I recently removed my GS 1200 projectors from my twin towers and reinstall my original ST 1200 HD's the plan is to use the projectors every three months and swap them during the year so that they don't rot away from lack of use if you have multiple projector is perhaps you might like to consider the same idea

[Joe Caruso]

I have taken my collection, re-organized on film charts, restored and somewhat upgraded the boxes, listed every film code information with exact detail mind you, and this is on-going of course. Shorty

[Dominique De Bast]

I fixed three projectors. First, an Eiki (16 mm, I know, we're in the 8 mm section 😉) : I put the spring correctly back to the moving plastic part (I don't know the name) below the feeding sprocket. I had stupidely disambled a while ago all that area to fix a trouble that appeared to come from another place. Since then, the part related to the spring didn't hold firmly and I had to keep it closed with my finger during each film threading. It's back to normal, now. Then a Silma super 8 : the threading system was locked and I found (with some trials and ertors, like for the Eiki) the way to make it work again. Last, an Eumig standard/regular 8 projector. The film didn't thread properly and the picture was not sharp on both sides. I have no Idea how I fixed that. To be more precise, it seems that it fixed itself just by removing and putting back the gate and by moving the threading part, two "actions" I tried several times before without success but this time, Sainte Pelloche (Sant Stock) was with me 😜

[Brian Fretwell]

I hope you have enough spare lamps (or xenon) at a rated 50hrs per halogen that's almost 4 used up without the 600ft ones!!!

[Carter Bradley]

Thank you for doing the math, Melvin. I guess I had better start my marathon film watching. LOL!

[Melvin England]

Carter, I have just done a small calculation.

Based on 17 minutes per 400' you have 7.47 NONE STOP DAYS of projection to view your collection! At least that takes care of another week of lock-down!

Then there are the 100x 600' ...................!!!!!!


( The calculation.... 633x17 = 10761 minutes, which is 179.35 hours, which is 7.47 days!)

(Sounds like one hell of a collection! RESPECT to you Carter!)

[Carter Bradley]

Today I completed a long overdue project of cataloging my 633 400' sound films so I can easily pull titles when needed. I now have a go-to source of finding prints, and was amazed at how my collection has grown since 1975 when I received my first three sound films for Christmas, Castle Films 200' digests "Doom of Dracula," and "Abbott & Costello meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and the Woody Woodpecker cartoon, "Misguided Missile." An example of my numbering system: On my inventory, I have indicated multiple reel titles, such as the Elvis feature, "Blue Hawaii" as 4249/1 - through 4249/5. I "borrowed" Universal 8's Super 400 series in numbering, so this example reflects that "Blue Hawaii" is housed on five 400' reels, and this title is the 249th in my collection. Given that I own titles with multiple reels, my "Super 8 storage vault," (the hall closet with added shelving and improved ventilation), houses over 800 separate reels in storage cases. Now on to cataloging my over 100 600' sound titles!

[Shane C. Collins]

Yesterday (Mother's Day) I filmed relatives sitting in our yard, etc. I ran a brand new roll of Kodak Ektachrome 100D reversal film. Today I shipped the film to Spectra Film and Video in Ca. So I'd say that was a good contribution to this wonderful hobby. In the near future I plan to send out for service, my Bolex P2 camera to the gentleman in Arizona who services Bolex cameras. Then I'll be able to film with the P2. I'm excited to try a roll of Ektachrome 100D for regular 8 when it's back in stock! And before I forget, last month I helped out a forum member here by sending some Bolex 18-5 projector parts!
PS: Paul your theater signs are awesome! What a nice touch!

[Dominique De Bast]

Today, I sent a GS 800 to Germany to have the three blade shutter replaced by a two/three one. And last week, I got my Beaulieu super 8 camera back from Norway after it had been repaired by Björn Anderssen. I don't know if that counts totally since I don't do that myself but it's a kind of contribution.

[Chip Gelmini]

Who knew that preventative maintenance could be so important, challenging, and fun. We can always learn!

I am proud to know my friends are doing just that who participate in this forum.

[Janice Glesser]

This hobby lends itself to lots of "to-do's." This week the belt broke on my Elmo 100SM (I call this projector my "Mini Elmo"). This was actually the second belt to brake in the last month. My first replacement belt wasn't in good shape to begin with... so I wasn't surprised it broke also. So this time I made up one of my DIY Urethane belts. It's running quiet and smooth as ever now.

[Paul Adsett]

Today I added a couple of touches to my screening room in the form of equipment signs that I downloaded from the web, framed them, and mounted to the entrance way to the room: