When I was growing up in Ballard (a suburb of Seattle) in the 1970’s we had no DVR, no VCR, no Internet, no Streaming, we barely had cable (and that was the neighbor’s family). We had two TV’s. A color one in the living room (probably 19”) and I had a black & white one in the 10” range.
A Super 8mm Projector. Seriously.
If we wanted to see a movie in our house we had
only one option: a movie projector. A Kodak store on Market Street had an
8mm/Super 8mm projector you could rent and a handful of films you could
watch. Most were cartoons or short
nature films produced by Disney. If you
were lucky you could possibly get a silent film (well, they were ALL silent
films) – maybe even one feature length.
I distinctly remember a lazy afternoon watching the silent full length
feature film “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” starring Lon Cheney at my friend
Schroeder’s house.
Heck, watch for free, it's in the Public Domain:
I think you could probably rent a screen, too,
but typically we would use a sheet or a wall to project onto. And, trust me, nothing is as funny was
watching a film backwards – at least to an 8 year-old boy.
When “Episode 4” came out in 1977 I wasn’t even
13 yet but I had a paper route and some “walking around money.” When other kids were spending their hard
earned cash on candy and pop, I was spending my money on my own phone or cable
with all the movie channels. I was
probably the only 13 year-old kid getting bills from Viacom.
My first phone. I thought this was cool.
Still, though, this was 1977 and the VCR hadn’t
hit yet and I was head over heels infatuated with all things “Star Wars” and
films. When I got enough money saved up,
I bought my OWN 8mm projector and screen and started purchasing 8mm films from
a Blackhawk movie catalogue.
Blackhawk Films
I started collecting these great old silent
films and thoroughly enjoyed sharing them with friends and family.
Then, when I least expected it, I saw in the
back of one my “Star Wars” magazines they were selling a 11 minute long Super
8mm film of “Star Wars.” I was in
heaven. FINALLY I would be able to watch
11 minutes of “Star Wars” at home!
11 minutes of Heaven
I’m sure it took a couple weeks to get the one
reel film and in those weeks I imagined what those 11 minutes would look like: First the opening shot and part of the
battle, then the Space Port and blasting off, a couple minutes of helping the
Princess escape from the Death Star and then a couple minutes of them blowing
the living hell out of the Death Star.
Yes, it was only 11 minutes and, sure, it would be in black-and-white
but it would be STAR WARS in my hands that I could watch over and over and over
again.
When the film finally arrived, I couldn’t wait
to relive those magical moments and after putting the screen up and slapping
the reel on and smelling the familiar smell of burning dust off the projector bulb,
the film began. And it was two
scenes. Scene one being the scene where
Obi-Wan (Ben) Kenobi tells Luke about the Force and seeing the hologram of
Princess Leia and then the other scene being the end of the escape from the
Death Star and the battle against the Tie-Fighters. That.
Was. It. In black-and-white and subtitled.
Suffice it to say, my little 13 year old heart
was broken. They had 11 WHOLE MINUTES
(note, they took up 30 seconds with credits including telling me that John
Williams did the music score of a silent
version of the film)!!
Heck, you can watch it here:
Oh well.
It wouldn’t be the first time film broke my heart and, well, it wouldn’t
be the last…
Around the same time, the toy company Fisher
Price came out with a toy film viewer.
Imagine a gun shaped thing you put up to your eye and then cram a large
plastic cartridge into it. Then, by
turning the crank, you could watch a short minute long film. Cartoons mostly. You could crank it forward really fast,
backward fast, slow it down frame-by-frame, or turn it at what would be a “normal”
pace. The artistry of Mickey being
competent or Donald throwing a conniption fit slowed down to the very beautiful
frame itself.
Film gun! Or is it more like a phaser?
I soon learned that if you actually opened one
of these cartridges, the film was Super 8mm film stock. I could, if I wanted, remove the film, put it
on a reel and show it on a screen and not have to stick a plastic gun to my
eye.
It's what's inside that counts.
And then, at the same Jafco store (started in
the Seattle area, bought out by a company called “Best” – went out of business
in the late 1990’s) where I bought the projector and screen I came across
Kenner’s version of the film viewer and cartridges but these were “Star Wars!” Finally, I could watch Star Wars in color in
the palm of my hand. And though there
were only four cartridges it still was SOMETHING to satiate my desire for watching
the film…again.
They had a Jafco in Lynnwood.
Soon, though, the wheels started to turn. On one hand I had an 11 minute
black-and-white disappointing version and, on the other hand, I had four (or
five) cartridges of color film stock.
What to do…what to do…what to do.
Oh, yeah, that's right. A "color show." None of that black-and-white bullsh*t.
Oh, well, cartridges be damned – I broke open
those puppies and pulled out the Super 8mm color “Star Wars” film footage.
These cartridges met a quick and painful death.
Using my 8mm film editing machine, I began to
splice in the color film footage in the chronological order as they were in the
film. Bit-by-bit, frame-by-frame, and
using scotch tape, I turned my 11 minute black-and-white subtitled disappointment
into a mix of color and black-and-white subtitled Frankenstein freak hybrid of
a film now going from 11 minutes to a whopping 14 minutes. But…but…but with more footage AND COLOR!
Splicy Cutty Viewy Thingy
Then came the BIG question: Do I substitute the black-and-white footage
for color footage? You see, a cartridge
contained footage from the scenes of them escaping the Death Star. I mean it’s one thing to have short color
footage and then long, boring, black-and-white footage and then short color
footage and long, pointless black-and-white footage but would I be
ballsy/stupid enough to actually find the exact frames of black-and-white
footage and remove them and insert the color footage instead? And the answer to that question was: YES. I
would be stupid/ballsy enough to do that.
When I finally viewed the finish film it was
pretty much perfect except for one glitch that kind of repeated something in
black-and-white. I would get it 3 stars
out of 4.
There’s something you intrinsically learn when
working with your hands on film footage.
You notice things. Especially if
you’re going frame-by-frame, 18 frames per second. You notice the turn of a head, or the framing
of the scene. You notice the beats when
you turn a black-and-white Tie-Fighter explosion into a color explosion. You notice the intricacies of a shot, or
movement (or lack of movement of the camera).
You get a feel for the rhythm or pacing of the scene.
