Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Running 70+ Year old 16mm at a Wedding

This is topic Running 70+ Year old 16mm at a Wedding in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 10-24-2005, 07:52 AM:

Saturday was a big day for me. Not only did I get to see the wedding of 2 good friends, but I got to participate by running a load of OLD home movies after their reception!

I got the movies about 2 weeks before the wedding. You would not believe how chewed some of them are. Some of them are in glorious B/W, high silver, and most are in beautiful Kodachrome. The other color films were Ansco, and they were darker, and greenish. Nobody complained.
I inspected every inch of all film that made it onto the final 3500' of film. Lots of home movies. Lots of bad scratches and lines looking at this stuff on my viewer. Treated them with FilmGuard after all repairs were done. Films were rewound at least 5 times during the treatments.

The projector is an Eiki 2000A xenon with 1 1/2" Simpson lens. I used this machine because I can switch from sound to silent speed by just moving a belt. Didn't worry about sound, as none of the films had it.

When the films hit the 12' screen that was rented for the occasion, everyone was watching and commenting. All of the films looked great with the FG treatment, and both families got together watching. I had a list of how the films were to be tied together before I started, and so the films went from the oldest to the newest. Someone back in the B/W films had a knack for showmanship with handmade titles, and humerous comments about the people on screen. Hats off to the filmmakers!

The show went without a hitch. I didn't pre-screen the films either. At the reel change, no, I didnt have 2 xenons, the bride and groom got up and talked about their families until I was ready.

I met the grooms 92 year old grandmother. Then I got to see her in the movies. WHAT A LOOKER in the 1950's! She has Alzheimers, but she came around for awhile seeing herself on the screen. She spoke of things that happened at the filming event, and her sons all but cried, as they remembered it all, too.

FilmGuard was the big hit of the day. Most of the films looked brand new, and even with the Eiki, the image was steady at silent speed using my 3-bladed shutter, installed in the projector for this occasion. Most of the films were well-focused, too, unlike MY home movies. I could have taken credit for the FilmGuard, but I declined. [evil]

Over the course of the day, I drank a few Vodka drinks. Kinda lost count, but they were tasty. [bruce]

Just wanted to tell you how much fun I have running film.

Bruce

Posted by Floyd Justin Newton (Member # 1316) on 10-24-2005, 09:50 AM:

Bruce--

Glad to hear your presentation went well. FILMGUARD SAVED THE
DAY, eh? Just another instance of how good this stuff is! [Wink]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-24-2005, 01:28 PM:

True, FG does help any kind of film. Did the same with my father's and mine b/w 8mm collection, in as well as me and my friend's 8mm/16mm collection.

On the 16mm, took these to work, put the reels on the Kelmar bench, soaked up a roll for the Kelmar cleaner, held the unit on the bench while the bench rewound the film through the Kelmar.

-Monte

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-27-2005, 10:11 AM:

Just think how much LESS fun this would have been if all you had to do was start a video tape! When and if ever film is gone, so will the innate thrill this medium gives us. There is just something about film that we connect to. And the proof is in the pudding -- has anyone ever heard anyone talk passionately about restoring old video tape!

Posted by Floyd Justin Newton (Member # 1316) on 10-27-2005, 12:10 PM:

Frank--

RIGHT ON!!

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-27-2005, 12:58 PM:

Frank, you need to head on over to Yahoo groups, do a search on any group using the keyword "video" and it's amazing on how many out there are into video tape restoration.

-Monte