4 ms·
he stole a complete workprint of the film from the archives of its production studio in 1980 – and has been screening it for guests in his apartment ever since.
by ilamont 1y ago
he stole a complete workprint of the film from the archives of its production studio in 1980 – and has been screening it for guests in his apartment ever since.
Former 35mm projectionist here. I suspect there are a lot of old stashes like this. In our booth we had a gigantic reel of old 1960s and 1970s horror film trailers that previous projectionists had spliced together until there was no more space on the reel. We were not supposed to save trailers, but no one checked what we did with them after removing them from the film reels at the end of the run and returning those prints to the distributor.
On a quiet summer night, after the last showing had ended and the customers had left, we employees would sometimes lock the doors, get some snacks, and watch these old treasures from previous decades spool by.
The trailer reel included several versions of The Shining trailer, including one that had a slow-motion scene of blood pouring from the elevator that was waaaay longer than the clip in the movie (possibly from one of the alternate cameras, see https://geektyrant.com/news/the-story-behind-the-infamous-blood-gushing-elevator-scene-from-stanley-kubricks-the-shining https://geektyrant.com/news/the-story-behind-the-infamous-bl...). The reel also had some long-forgotten stinkers, including for the 1966 British horror film Psychopath which I only remember because the trailer featured an unusual song structured like a nursery rhyme that I can still partially recall.
A corporate chain took over (Lowes) and sometime in the early 1990s the theater was closed. The space is now a Staples. This illicit reel, if it wasn't thrown out during the closure, is probably in someone's basement. The only way to know the contents is to play it, which is hard to do as not many traditional 35mm projectors are still around or available for screening a 50-year-old reel that might be brittle, gunky, or otherwise damage the machine.
I've heard of similar stashes. For instance, around the same time, I had friends who worked in a photo shop. They had several binders of, um, special photos that they had copied from customers' negatives during the on-site development process.
I visited this basement lair once, which was dominated by a modern color processing machine. I remember flipping through one of the binders. It was very, very strange stuff, like something out of Blue Velvet.
- dylan604 1y agoWere these old prints with an optical track, or was there a corresponding mag reel? Listening to optical audio is a bit of retro nostalgia in and of itself.
- ilamont 1y agoOptical. AFAIK all commercial 35mm film prints used optical at that time (1960s-1980s). I've used 16mm film with audio on separate magnetic tape, but my god was that a pain to deal with.
- dylan604 1y agoThat's what I assumed. One of the post facilities I worked in had multiple mag followers where the audio was recorded in 2 channel pairs before ultimately getting mixed down to the final mix that would be used to make that optical track on a release print. At some point, for the lulz, someone laid down a 5.1 mix to 3 separate 35mm mags just to playback in the theater. These would all sync to the projector, and would make all sorts of clunks and loud noises when they'd all start playing. these were all kept in sync with quartz crystals. it was the most steampunk thing I had ever seen. Mind you, this was in the early/mid 90s just after the first NLEs were coming out. So my mind was totally blown in how it used to be done.
- ilamont 1y ago> it was the most steampunk thing I had ever seen. Was it a Steenbeck? That's what I used when I was working on a documentary I shot on 16mm film. As I said earlier, it was a PITA. Here's one in action: https://youtu.be/Iiw86naTOPw?si=eu5wcZXWh5oPIqKu https://youtu.be/Iiw86naTOPw?si=eu5wcZXWh5oPIqKu More details here, including about the company's bankruptcy last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steenbeck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steenbeck
- dylan604 1y agoNot a Steenbeck. We had a couple of flatbeds similar for editing actual film, but these followers were different. Here's a link to a random site returned from searching for 35mm mag follower[0]. These are probably different to the specific ones I had seen, but close enough for discussion. I remember the first time seeing a mag reel as it looked just like cassette tape, but with sprocket holes[1]. I was also surprised when it was only 2 channels for that full width of mag. I remember something being able to be swapped out and I was thinking it was to allow for a different mag head to allow for more tracks, but I think it was for switching to 16mm since the tracks would be in a different location. (I've had plenty to drink and have slept many times since then) [0] https://www.next-archive.com/product/mb51-mwa-albrecht-16mm-175mm-35mm-magnetic-tape-sound-follower/ https://www.next-archive.com/product/mb51-mwa-albrecht-16mm-... [1] https://hollywoodfilmsupplies.com/film-supplies/kodak-35mm-mag-audio-fullcoat https://hollywoodfilmsupplies.com/film-supplies/kodak-35mm-m...
- JKCalhoun 1y agoYeah, worked at a one-hour photo store when I was a teen. "Put the screen down" was the signal that some "amateur stuff" was about to come down the print out-feed (a kind of curtain/cover would hide the prints coming out from the general public). (Kind of wild that people's photos coming out of the machine was something of a feature the store made readily visible to the passersby in the mall where the One House Photo was located. Privacy, what?) And though I wasn't one of the techs that made the prints, I do seem to recall they would spin off dupes for their own private collection(s).
- Mistletoe 1y agoYes I think I remember a time when you could see the Walmart photo center one hour prints just spool off the line and collect in a holder. Times were so different back then.
- euroderf 1y agoWhen I saw a machine doing this - dropping the prints in full view of passers-by - I mentioned it to friends - be careful what you photograph.
- cafard 1y agoThis sounds a bit like Cinema Paradiso.
- ilamont 1y agoNow that you mention it, it does!
- _m_p 1y agoIn this vein, people might be interested in reading about the Dawson City Film Find! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_Film_Find https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_Film_Find > In 1929, Clifford Thomson, then employed by the Canadian Bank of Commerce and also treasurer of the hockey association, solved the problem of the library's stock of film and the inadequate ice rink. Thomson took 500,000 feet of film and stacked the reels in the pool, covered the reels with boards and leveled the rink with a layer of earth. The DAAA continued to receive new nitrate films which would later fuel the destruction of the entire complex in a fire in 1951. The films stored under the ice rink were preserved by permafrost and were later uncovered in 1978 when a new recreation center was being built.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]