Christmas Movies

[Graham Ritchie]

So what will you be watching or Christmas films that you like during this up and coming ho ho ho season? there is a lot I can think of on Super 8, 16mm, 35mm, DVD, Blu-ray I thought I would start this topic of, on anything you like.

Last night it was the 16mm print of "A Train For Christmas" always a favorite of mine On the DVD side of things watched "Christmas With The Kranks" we ran the 35mm print at the cinema and always liked it, plus another Tim Allen film this time on blu-ray with "The Santa Clause" I will mention more later on Super 8 but got to go I will leave you with some brilliant stills taken lately

[Osi Osgood]

Is it just the blu-ray or the screenshots, as it seems to have a very bluish/purple accent to the color, and we watched it on "The Wonderful World of Disney" a week ago, and it didn't look like that, ( otherwise I would have griped about it ). As for us, we have a wonderful set up of films for a number of nights. Yearly showing, day 1: Mickey's Christmas Carol, The Snowman, Prince and the Pauper. Day 2. A Christmas Carol. Day 3. Back to cartoons. A Walt Disney Christmas 400ft, The Littlest Angel ( Blackhawk LPP ). How the Animals Discovered Christmas ( Blackhawk not LPP ), Moles Christmas, Goodwill To Men, MGM The Littlest Angel Columbia Films.

[Steve Klare]

I have personally invoked "A Train for Christmas" as a "Christmas Film" in December when it is a "Railroad (-or 'Railway') movie" the other 11 months!

We are doing a show next weekend for guests which will start with the 16mm Silent Night from Castle Films, progress through Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper Caper and The Small One in Super-8 and feature White Christmas from projected video.

We have a 16mm favorite: Christmas in Germany: A Story of Giving, which is set in and around the Christmas Market in Nuremburg. It is a reminder of a very special Christmas we spent in Germany among our family there five years ago now.

-If by the time Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are done, if people are still up for it, this could be the encore.
.

[Chip Gelmini]

Last night I ran It's a Wonderful Life full length. Plus Disney cartoon the night before Christmas Also some general trailers about four of them.

Although I was alone, it was a nice presentation for me to enjoy.

[Graham Ritchie]

Osi

There does appear to be a difference between what a blu-ray image and film look like, have a look at this from the internet, you can see the first part has quite a bit of blue, the second part which is the trailer its gone. I find that when I take a screen shot from the VP, there seems to be a tendency towards the blue, and yet if I use the same camera on actual film, its not there. I have no idea why that is, I see the same kind of blue look appearing on some of the latest Super8 releases that have originated from a digital source.

[Eivind Mork]

There are a few I need to see every year on Super 8: Mickey's Christmas Carol, Pluto's Christmas Tree, Toy Tinkers, The Night Before Christmas (Tom & Jerry). New of the year is Scrooge (1951) and Christmas Trailers #3 (Dorun) which I have saved until the holidays.

As for digital media I see The Shop Around the Corner every year, often Love Actually and The Holiday with my wife, and always National Lampoons Christmas Vacation with my wife and son.

[Osi Osgood]

I forgot"The Small One" 600ft Derann Disney, and I bet there might be a few others in my collection that I forgot.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

What about screening „Big Business“ as a perfect example for „Weihnachten, das Fest der Hie… äh… Liebe“

[Graham Ritchie]

This is one film from 4 years ago that might just get a repeat screening in the coming weeks, I will have to make the effort and put it together first

[Steve Klare]

Graham,

We always big-screen Polar Express this time of the year! Even ignoring the train, the music alone is worth the price of admission!

That sequence out on the frozen lake is fanciful, but maybe not as much as people might expect!

Maybe a century ago a plow train was out on one of the 2-foot gauge lines up in western Maine when the Engineer found himself bogged down pretty thoroughly: no amount of steam in the cylinders moved the train very far either forward or back. They figured they'd dig out fore and aft and give the engine a little room to build up momentum to burst through the snow pack: maybe be home in time for dinner that night.

The problem came when they dug down to where the rails should have been and found they simply weren't! They walked back up their wake and found track several hundred feet behind them! They were way out in a meadow on frozen ground!

The difference in that case is they didn't re-rail the train with creative applications of throttle and brakes. No: -it came down to many cold, annoyed men working with block and tackle for quite a few days!

Who knows? -if they didn't need that equipment as much as they did, it might still be there!
.

-Merry Christmas!

[Kim Trampus]

Graham, I don't know how you get away with posting movie clips on YouTube. I have tried to post short clips when I have a film for sale to show the color and contrast of a print and mine always get taken down for copyright infringement.

[Ed Gordon]

This is one film from 4 years ago that might just get a repeat screening in the coming weeks, I will have to make the effort and put it together first

Graham, I have the bluray of Polar Express in 3D. The train on the lake scene in 3D is pretty cool. The 3D version shows up on Ebay often for around $10.

Graham, I don't know how you get away with posting movie clips on YouTube. I have tried to post short clips when I have a film for sale to show the color and contrast of a print and mine always get taken down for copyright infringement.

Kim, I once tried to post a 15 minute clip from a movie on Youtube and got a copyright violation notice the minute I uploaded it. I took it down immediately. I find that if you should, 1) avoid posting anything with music. Youtube has a database of music they compare your post to and will warn you about copyright infringement, and 2) keep you posts short (10 minutes or less seems to get through). The rules are clear as mud, and that is the way Youtube likes it in order to discourage blatant copyright violations, and finally, 3) Make your post "private" (private posts never show up in search, or play automatically). Private posts requires the users to know the URL for the video. If you post a video of a film you are selling and it is short without and sound, it will probably work just fine.

[Graham Ritchie]

Music is the big one you have to be careful with, I have moved away more and more from anything with music that has copyright, as Ed says above, you-tube has a vast library of copyright free music you can download, providing you mention the artist name and title. In saying that its really for you-tube, if you post the same video elsewhere you might/might not run into problems again with copyright.

With that above video the music at the start is from the you-tube audio library, however the extracts of film shown are copyright as stated in the above video when I up-loaded it..... "Copyright-protected content found. The owner allows the content to be used on You Tube".....so far I have only one video totally blocked due to copyright and as such I removed it. Only one other up-load has some restrictions on it in certain countries, but in general it seems to be OK.

All the videos I have up-loaded are set for "public" and a number have copyright content, but have been allowed by the copyright holder. It just depends on them, some are fine some are not. When you think about it, there is a huge amount of copyright material on you-tube as it is, without there OK you-tube would be a very quiet place indeed. I sometimes think it can also be good advertising for them as well, just depends how they look at it. It might be the fact I am not using any of there content to make money out of it, but more to do with demonstrating projectors and the like, I guess.

The last video I posted I used the audio library, works well, so as Ed said above keep it short, try to keep copyright music out of it as much as possible and "hope" for the best....

PS. Ed I have it on 3D and hope to watch it soon

[Graham Ritchie]

When I up-loaded this short video of a Disney Super8 film I set it "not" for kids, later you-tube changed it themselves, to "for" kids that surprised me. Instead of pulling the plug on the Disney content for copyright they did this instead, they must have thought it was better shown for a kids audience which I would have thought would have more restrictions placed on it, not so, anyway I better get back to Christmas movies

[Douglas Meltzer]

In addition to many of the already mentioned Super 8 releases, The Blu-ray of The Man Who Invented Christmas will get a screening. This 2017 film of how Charles Dickens came to write A Christmas Carol is one of my all time favorites.