From high def to 8mm
Instead of buying an HD-DVD player, I just got a Bell & Howell 8mm projector in the mail today. The lamp still works, and the gears seem fine. The take-up reel isn't winding, so I suspect a belt is loose inside. I think I'll spend the weekend fixing it up so that it purrs.
My old projector was stolen when we were moving a few years ago. It was something I bought with money I'd saved up when I was ten. It took me more than a year to save up for a camera, a projector, and some film. I had become obsessed with the idea of making my own movies when I flipped through the Sears catalog in the third grade and saw that they sold Super8 cameras and gear. It hadn't occurred to me that you could just BUY the stuff you needed to make movies! I had assumed that that stuff came with the job when you were hired by Paramount or MGM. It was a big moment for me when I realized that a kid like me might be able to make my OWN TV and movies. I stopped buying Star Wars figures and began to read up on my options.
The projector I got today is almost identical to the one I bought from a Goodwill as a child. I showed it to Finn and he was confused. Nothing about it was familiar to him! Film doesn't exist in his world. It is a word that means 'longer DVD with black bars on the top and bottom'. The projector needed a new bolt and washer for the take-up arm. I showed Finn how nuts and bolts work, then showed him how the machine opened up and adjusted for film projection. Then I showed him how to thread the projector. My 32 year-old hands recalled my ten years old fingers running along the aluminum and bakelite parts. It was magical to me back then, and it retained enough of the old magic to impress my own son two decades later. I couldn't run film through it since the take-up reel isn't working, but soon I can show Finn my childhood efforts to make my own LEGO and Star Wars space operas.
I wonder if I'll ever be able to communicate to him how far those childhood efforts have taken me. Things I learned fighting film as a child are skills I used today making animated menus for a Warner DVD. I think anyone interested in animation or filmmaking should have to run through the gauntlet of physical film. The limitations make you honest somehow.
My old projector was stolen when we were moving a few years ago. It was something I bought with money I'd saved up when I was ten. It took me more than a year to save up for a camera, a projector, and some film. I had become obsessed with the idea of making my own movies when I flipped through the Sears catalog in the third grade and saw that they sold Super8 cameras and gear. It hadn't occurred to me that you could just BUY the stuff you needed to make movies! I had assumed that that stuff came with the job when you were hired by Paramount or MGM. It was a big moment for me when I realized that a kid like me might be able to make my OWN TV and movies. I stopped buying Star Wars figures and began to read up on my options.
The projector I got today is almost identical to the one I bought from a Goodwill as a child. I showed it to Finn and he was confused. Nothing about it was familiar to him! Film doesn't exist in his world. It is a word that means 'longer DVD with black bars on the top and bottom'. The projector needed a new bolt and washer for the take-up arm. I showed Finn how nuts and bolts work, then showed him how the machine opened up and adjusted for film projection. Then I showed him how to thread the projector. My 32 year-old hands recalled my ten years old fingers running along the aluminum and bakelite parts. It was magical to me back then, and it retained enough of the old magic to impress my own son two decades later. I couldn't run film through it since the take-up reel isn't working, but soon I can show Finn my childhood efforts to make my own LEGO and Star Wars space operas.
I wonder if I'll ever be able to communicate to him how far those childhood efforts have taken me. Things I learned fighting film as a child are skills I used today making animated menus for a Warner DVD. I think anyone interested in animation or filmmaking should have to run through the gauntlet of physical film. The limitations make you honest somehow.