CULTURE
Home Movies
I sat down the other night to watch home movies with my father, 85, and my
two aunts, who are themselves 87 and 83. In many ways, it was a scene reminiscent
of a bygone era – and in many ways it was not.
In days long past, we would have gathered as a family in the rec room, the kids fidgeting as my father set up the projector and searched for books to prop up the legs so the image would fall roughly in vicinity of the wobbling screen.
But on this night, we watched on my brother-in-law’s widescreen TV skipping from chapter to chapter on a DVD made from 16mm movies my family has been recording since before even I came on the scene.
The sequence began with my aunt’s wedding in 1947 and proceeded through the births of my older sister, brother and cousin until the ultimate moment -- my arrival in 1950, not by stork but carried out of the Maternity Ward door by a nurse in a white tri-cornered hat and deposited in the arms of my mother, who was waiting in our old DeSoto (a car, not a car seat.)
We watched these movies with different eyes. The elders picked out friends and relatives long since deceased. I watched with fascination the hats worn by the women and the assortment of old cars that could be glimpsed in the background.
We watched Christmases in the 50’s and noted ornaments on the tree that still come out every year to hang on our own. We re-played our summers at The Lake – different lakes for different summers – and our Spring Vacations walking around old Civil War battlefields in the East and South. But most of all, we howled with laughter seeing ourselves grow up.
Like most home movies, ours are heavily weighted toward birthday parties – do they still sell those goofy paper hats? – vacations, holidays and any occasion where someone is learning to swim.
I can’t generalize about all home movies, but ours, at least, confirm what Hillary Clinton once professed: it takes a village to raise a child. In our case, it was a village of aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and anyone else who wandered into the frame of my dad’s ever present movie camera.
My interest in home movies began a few years ago when I was helping clean out my father’s closet and came upon some 40 reels of old film stashed in a corner. They were in tins and paper boxes, some lying loose with only a rubber band holding the film to the reel. Some were labeled. Many were not. So I grabbed them all with the promise I would “do something with them.”
It wasn’t until last summer, when Nancy Watrous, director of The Chicago Film Archives, called me to promote a Home Movies Day in Chicago, that I revisited this box of memories. For her show, I projected a batch of films on a white wall and videotaped it for a DVD to play at the event. But I knew I could do better.
As I explored the possibilities, I quickly learned that preserving old home movies is a thriving cottage industry. I found on the internet a company in St. Louis called Home Movie Depot that has made the transfer process as easy as an online Fed Ex order. For 9 cents a foot (roughly $35 for a 5-minute reel), they will take in 8 mm, Super8 mm or 16 mm films by mail, transfer the film through a unique computer-based system to video or DVD, and return both to you within a week.
Although my ultimate goal was to put the films on DVD, I opted to get back my footage as miniDV tape so I could edit it myself using the iMovie and iDVD package on my Macintosh laptop. It was a wise choice since much of the footage was either too bright, too dark or too out-of-focus to use. (Although my father has many skills, looking through the peephole of a camera is not one of them.)
For almost six weeks, editing my home movies became an obsessive hobby. In addition to selecting the best shots and organizing moments into chapters, I also decided to add a music track of popular songs from the era courtesy of the internet’s instantly available library of downloadable iTunes. Thus my first dog-paddle swimming strokes have a whole new meaning when set to Jimmy Cliff’s “You Can Get It If You Really Want”; and our spring vacation trip to Washington now appears scripted to accompany Lee Greenwood’s “Proud To Be An American.”
At Nancy’s suggestion, I also tried to tape record a 2nd DVD sound track (“the director’s commentary”) of my aunts and father commenting on the movies as they watched them. But my mastery of the new technology ran out when I failed to hit the on-switch. So I have that memory too – just not on the DVD.
It is no coincidence that this home movies project is coming to an end just before the Christmas holidays. My home movies run approximately two hours and cover the lives of our extended family from 1947 through 1972. You can watch them alone on your computer or down in the rec room on your brother-in-law’s widescreen TV. Or you can throw the DVD into a box in the closet to be re-discovered by your own children.
But one thing is for sure. If you are a brother or sister, or a cousin, or a cousin of a cousin, you’re in there. And you’ll probably find a copy under the Christmas tree – just below that old ornament you’ll recognize from reel one.
If you want to make a DVD of your own home movies, I shamelessly recommend using Home Movie Depot in St. Louis (866-386-6843) to transfer the film to tape and Global Video in Chicago (312) 475-9200 to make your DVD copies. Mention The Week Behind and you’ll get a $10 discount on your first order. Happy Holidays!