My dad was an avid amateur photographer, I suppose due to his background in art — he was a “fine” artist, commercial artist, sign painter and interior decorator.
He did it all.
Equipment for the amateur was rather limited, but he had assembled his gear and never passed up an opportunity to record an event, either photographically or with his movie camera. Let me say this: Things have changed over the past 70 years.
His movie camera was a rather formidable piece of equipment. It was a heavy, black box, about half the size of a shoe box. It had a tiny lens in front, and a folding, flip-up viewfinder. Spring motor driven, it had to be wound up every few minutes.
It was of the 16mm variety, and used film reels that held 100 feet of color film — film that would deliver only about four minutes of finished product.
Did I mention that it was expensive? Four minutes of finished 16mm movie film, including the processing (developing in a film lab), would set Dad back around $20! (Read as nearly $200 in today’s money).
He would splice the reels together, placing it on 400-foot reels to project.
Home movie nights were pretty special. We kids would find a spot on the floor to sit, and Dad had purchased a few reels of cartoons (black and white) to keep us kids hooked before we watched the home movies. Then he’d show the latest homemade entertainment.
By the time I bought my first movie camera — a small 8mm job that also had a spring motor that I had to wind up before I could begin filming.
I had taken movies of our honeymoon trip to Yellowstone National Park, and as it was in Dad’s era, the film had to be sent to a lab to be processed, so by the time it was mailed halfway across the country, processed, then mailed back, one would almost forget it had been sent in the first place.
So, a couple of weeks after our honeymoon, a package arrived in the mail with a couple of reels of finished movies.
There was only one problem; one reel belonged to another family, taken on a trip to the newly opened Disneyland.
We were not amused, and I’m sure the folks that settled in to view their kids at Disneyland may have been a bit disappointed to see images of me attempting to feed myself to the bears.
By the time the late 1970s rolled around, I’d bought and replaced several movie cameras, and they had advanced to the point that they had zoom lenses and battery drives. They were still of the silent variety, and a 50-foot, 3-1/2 minute film was the rule.
I wanted more.
In 1978, home video equipment had been introduced, and I was first in line.
Imagine, sound, color, and up to two hours on a blank tape. It sounded great, but when I bought my first set up it was a “bargain” at $750 for the camera alone, then another $300 for a portable video recorder. The camera connected to the recorder with a cable about 25 feet long and the recorder weighed 16 pounds, including the 5-pound battery.
They called it “portable.”
Over the years, I have bought, sold, traded and gotten rid of a bunch of video gear, and in recent weeks (after selling what I thought was going to be my last video camera) I relented and bought another.
It is a marvel — weighs about 6 ounces and delivers amazing quality “movies.”
A few years ago, I transferred my old 8mm home movies onto DVDs, and when the family was gathered around the TV I put one of the disks on to play. After only about five minutes of the old, flickery images were shown, our son-in-law Jeff piped up and said: “Where’s the sound?”
I’m surprised he didn’t ask: “Where’s the 3-D?”
Such is life.
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What a Life: Movie-making used to be a reel challenge - Loveland Reporter-Herald
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