Bolt Black Ops Drone in the Woodland Run
This is a tricky circuit for drone pilots, see if Scott can handle the narrow gaps amongst the trees and avoid the many hazards with his Bolt Black Ops custom drone.
Table Tennis at 80? No Ping Ponging Problem!
I wanted to show my family that although I'd reached 80 years of age I can still hold my own when it comes to physical activities! Watch me battle my son and granddaughter in this very silly ping pong video complete with frying pans and trick shots.
Gustav Holst meets Thomas Hardy on 16mm
I had occasion to copy three films that were made in the 1970s. One was 16mm the other two were Super 8mm. The interesting thing was that they had a soundtrack that had been recorded separately and mastered onto Audio CD. The films were captured at a frame rate of 24fps for 16mm and 18fps for Super 8mm. This odd frame rate was used to stop frame jitter. I then had to match the sound to the pictures. This was done by adjusting the speed of ...
8mm Film of 1950s South Africa
More 8mm films from the 50s. This time from a gentleman who grew up in 1950s South Africa, where his family ran a gold and diamond mine. Mostly shot in black and white but also some in colour, all with captions in French, explaining the footage. Scenes of weighing and bagging up the gold, him as a young boy trying to lift a small bag of gold, sorting and counting the diamonds, someone being carried through the forest on a litter by the ...
The CFMC Archives
As a member of The Colchester Film Makers Club, I am currently archiving all members’ old films to hard drive. The early material is actually film but members have now graduated to the digital era, filming in HD and Blu-ray, with some stunning results I must say. One of the original members of CFMC, a gentleman in his 80s and a prolific film maker has documented the development of Colchester over the years. His films include The Building of ...
20th Century Glamour
Last month I had a bunch of 16mm films to transfer to DVD. They were a mix of 50, 100, & 400ft reels, also some on hubs, which had to be put onto reels first to be transferred. The earliest was dated 1934, the latest in the late 1960s, all in very good condition and mostly family holidays. There was also brief footage of the 1937 Coronation and the Wimbledon Men's final with the men playing in long white trousers! The films were a mixture ...
Bowled Over
In 1965 I went with a tenpin bowling team to a tournament in Paris. We hadn't been bowling very long so we didn't do very well but we saw some great teams performing!... all captured on 8mm film... silent of course. About that time I had written and recorded a bowling song 'Lets go Bowling'. I've since transferred the film to Video and edited it to the record. I started with 9.5mm film in the 50's, the only other option was 16mm, very ...
Unseen Hitler footage from 1932
I spend most of my time transferring peoples home movies and video tapes to DVD but occasionally something special turns up! One morning a gentleman called and said he needed a 16mm film put on to DVD urgently... today ...now! I said no problem bring it round. He arrived with the film... not on a reel... as a pancake! (un-spooled coiled film) First job, put it on a reel... not easy as I don't have facilities for film pancakes. If you let ...
The Early Years
In the 70s when the first portable video machines became available I made a couple of promos for local groups. There were no editing devices at that time, so I had to edit in camera. To show the finished result I had to let the group take the portable, complete with a small monitor, around to promote themselves. People were very impressed with the concept, even if they didn't like the group. It did however get one group a recording contract, The ...
New Tricks for Old Dogs
Welcome to my first Blog. I've been toying with the idea of blogging for some time and now I've finally done it with a subject that I really enjoy, and hopefully my articles will have something to offer you. Now that my new Telecine Guy web site is up and running, I can devote some time to getting some of my cine tales and information from the last 40 years into this space for the like-minded to enjoy. So that's the first Blog entry ...