When I was a youngster, my family’s idea of a holiday wasn’t to go to a resort or lie on a sunny beach. A holiday was viewed more as an opportunity for adventure and it almost always involved camping. Sometimes, it would be in the Scottish Highlands but, more often than not, it involved a trek by car to Europe. With roof rack in place, stuffed with luggage, we’d set off for Dover and then across to Calais. From there, it could be anywhere. Often it was in France but also Germany, Belgium, Holland or Luxembourg. There’s a logic behind the places we visited: they were places where my grandfather had fought with Montgomery’s 21st Army Group in World War 2.
Sometimes, if my parents couldn’t get the holiday time, it was just me, my brother and grandparents. We’d visit sites of battles and war cemeteries. I remember once, as we drove through the Ardennes, an old German anti-tank gun lay rusting at the side of the road. They were happy times that germinated in me my love of all things historical.
Why do I mention all this? Because there was one other constant when we went on holiday: the presence of a cine-camera. Recording the family adventures was as important as the adventures themselves. It's simply what we did.
It was also as a youngster that I developed a love of watching movies. My dad was a Sci-fi nut so it’s no surprise I fell in love with that genre too, but frankly, any decent movie does me, and some not so good ones too. Developing a taste for bad B movies is like the first time you drink red wine (at least for me). It left me grimacing and wondering what all the fuss was about, but perseverance pays off and now a weekend never goes by without some Malbec, Burgundy or some other full-bodied vino getting tossed down my throat.
I’ve always considered Ed Wood Jnr. akin to a fine Chianti. Ever noticed if you open a bottle and leave it for about half an hour, the room almost smells like flowers?
Ed’s movies are the same. Just let them breathe a little. I once read a statement by somebody (some critic I think) who once said that no matter what time of day you watch an Ed Wood movie, it always feels like you’re watching it at around 0300 am. So very true.
So now I need a link. I’ve set out my childhood memories, the cine camera and my love of movies. Time to pull it all together…
That didn’t really happen until the day my father died. It had been a traumatic time for the family. One day in February 2000, his face began to swell up. A quick visit to the local GP and 24 days later he was dead. Lung cancer. It was as quick as that. When diagnosed, it was thought there would be a few months. He was out of the hospital one weekend and dead the next. In fact, I remember him saying to me around the middle of the week that he wouldn’t see out the weekend. I disagreed, telling him he’d have some months yet. How wrong was I? The sheer speed of events meant that none of us had any time to come to terms with what was happening. I spent most of my free time travelling to and from hospital and, then, when he was back home, travelling back and forth between my own home and that of my parents. In between, it was work. There was nothing else and certainly no time to think or get to grips with the emotional impact.
I got called in to the supervisor’s office on the Friday afternoon and was told to go home. My mum wanted me to come and spend the last few hours with him. The last thing he said to me was ‘look after my dog’. We did. His faithful Border Collie lived another seven years.
It was perhaps a kind of self-healing or an attempt to fill an emotional hole that drove me to search the attic of his home for all those hours of holiday footage, along with a screen and 8mm projector. I felt the need to do something. It was as if all that was left of him was in that attic, trapped on reels of film.
Next, I bought my first ever digital movie camera and then began to learn. The internet became a handy place for information and I began to put together the skills both in transfer and editing. They were rudimentary skills and equipment but they were enough to get me started. The process was simple: project the image and record it on the digital camera. There are much better ways of doing this. One is to use a specialised automated scanner that scans every single frame of a reel of film. This cost £35000 (at the time, I have no idea how much they cost now). Another process is simply called the ‘wet process’. I don’t know much about this and what I do know isn’t worth mentioning.
After a few months, I was ready to show my work. There had been an added bonus in that I also discovered footage of my grandfather (who died in 1977). I had my mother and grandmother in the room as I put the DVDs on. They didn’t have to say anything to me. I could see what it meant to them.
It kind of snowballed a little from there. I began transferring some stuff for other folk. I never charged for my services and just did the work as a favour to them. One thing I hadn’t really bargained on was how time consuming it could be. I didn’t want to say no but was beginning to feel like it was really starting to get out of hand.
By now I’d acquired 9.5mm and 16mm projectors. The 9.5mm was a particular challenge. It dated from around 1930 and needed to be completely rewired. It also needed a light source (the old bulb long gone). This wasn’t a restoration but a complete modernisation. I needed it to work, not look good. The sprung metal drive belt proved impossible to replace so I manufactured a new belt from some O-rings and super glue. For the light source, I used a small halogen bulb. I discovered that if I ever had to pause a piece of film, the heat from the halogen would start to burn the film, so I built it into a swing arm. Each time I had to pause, I’d just swing the bulb away from the footage and therefore prevent damage.
These acquisitions allowed me to work with some really interesting footage. One in particular was some 9.5mm footage of a working farm – complete with horse, cart, hay bails and men working the fields (dressed in hats and waistcoats - looking smarter at work than many of us modern scruffs look today in the latest designer gear).
Then came an opportunity that I didn’t expect.
The other transfer work I had carried out had been mostly for work colleagues and it was one of those colleagues that came to me now. Would I, he asked, help transfer some film to be sold as a DVD in order to raise some money for a local charity? I was never going to refuse.
There was a catch however. The owner of the film refused to let anybody else handle his footage and I would have to go to him. He would handle the film and I could do the digital side. I fully understood. Anybody who has worked with old footage will know how fragile this medium is. I’ve had film literally crumble and slip through my fingertips.
So, off to a small cottage in the Scottish Borders I went to meet this mysterious collector of film. In reality, collector doesn’t do him justice. Custodian is probably a better word.
The Reverend John Jackson was a portly and pleasant old man. His wife, Betty, offered me tea, which I politely refused. I was eager to get started (intensely aware of my need to curb my language whilst in their home…I have a habit of cursing and swearing my way through problems).
John took me to a room in the cottage dedicated to his passion and, as we set up our very different sets of equipment, we chatted. He was a purist, specialising only in 16mm. His passion was documenting everyday life in various parts of Scotland. His father before him was exactly the same and he proceeded to show me his collection of films that covered most of the 20th century. I say collection but, in reality, it was a cinematic archive that needed to be in a museum. I was stunned at the size of the collection and read with ever-increasing fascination the labels on the sides of tins of film reel. Lined along the shelves was a cinematic history of my country!
I suggested to him that he should contact the Scottish Film Archive in order to save his collection for future generations. He scowled at the notion. He was so much of a purist that he couldn’t bear the thought of his work going digital. It seemed so impersonal to him. He was strictly 16mm and nothing else would do. Maybe it was the link between the film that had been both shot and handled by him and his father and the thought of handing it all to some stranger, who would be unaware of the emotional worth of the collection.
Whatever his reason, I simply had to respect it, (although I didn’t agree with it). Even I could see that what he had was bordering on being a national treasure.
It saddened me to think that this incredible archive might be lost once John was gone.
The transfer went well, we said our goodbyes and I set off home to begin rendering and editing. It was around three months before I was finished. The footage was a year in the life of a small Scottish fishing town from around 1950 and I found it fascinating working on it. It was a silent piece and so, after some consultation with the organisers, I added a soundtrack provided by one of their local folk bands. When the work was complete, I made 50 copies on DVD and handed them over. A couple of days later, I received a message of thanks (and a very nice bottle of port). All 50 DVDs had sold on the first day of availability.
I never saw John Jackson again but will return to discuss him later.
The favours continued for a while until one day I was asked if I could transfer some family footage. Despite becoming a bit tired of all this work, I agreed to do it. I was horror-struck when I was then handed a box containing 21 reels of film. I had booked a week off work but had no particular plans. It took me most of that week to transfer the footage and another couple of months to render and edit it all. By the end I’d had enough. The next time I was asked, I said that my camera was faulty. When would I be getting a new one? I replied that it wouldn’t be getting replaced. Sometimes you can do too many favours and people forget (don’t care or don’t realise) how much work and time it takes to transfer 21 reels. I suspect this particular incident fell into the ‘don’t care’ category. It was simply a thoughtless and ridiculous amount to hand anybody. It’s not as if most people even thought about offering to reimburse me in some way. I would probably have said no to any offer of payment but at least I would have felt the work I was putting in was appreciated.
And that moment of frustration ended my time in film transfer. I have no desire whatsoever to start doing it again. I don’t regret the time I spent doing this but it’s frustrating when people just start using you and don’t even give a thought to the amount of work you end up doing for them.
Too much of a good thing? Maybe. Or maybe it’s a harsh lesson for me that perhaps I should have charged folk for my services whether I felt guilty or not. I’m cynical enough to know that it would certainly have cut down the workload significantly. The simple truth is that I didn't feel skilled enough to charge people for my work. I think that maybe there's a lesson there for any of us doing something they think is worthwhile. Don't sell yourself short. I may not have had the skills I wanted but I had more skills than those people I ended up doing the transfers for.
Reverend John Jackson died a couple of years after I met him. I didn’t find out about this until 2010. There was a large article about him in the Scotsman newspaper. It seems he relented in his final days and bequeathed his collection to the Scottish Film archive where it has been digitally stored. The collection has been described as one of the most significant ever attained by the Archive. I’m glad that he did this because he has provided important visual historical evidence of our times for future generations. A fine legacy for a life well lived.
Here is a link to the original newspaper article.
www.scotsman.com
Sometimes, if my parents couldn’t get the holiday time, it was just me, my brother and grandparents. We’d visit sites of battles and war cemeteries. I remember once, as we drove through the Ardennes, an old German anti-tank gun lay rusting at the side of the road. They were happy times that germinated in me my love of all things historical.
Why do I mention all this? Because there was one other constant when we went on holiday: the presence of a cine-camera. Recording the family adventures was as important as the adventures themselves. It's simply what we did.
It was also as a youngster that I developed a love of watching movies. My dad was a Sci-fi nut so it’s no surprise I fell in love with that genre too, but frankly, any decent movie does me, and some not so good ones too. Developing a taste for bad B movies is like the first time you drink red wine (at least for me). It left me grimacing and wondering what all the fuss was about, but perseverance pays off and now a weekend never goes by without some Malbec, Burgundy or some other full-bodied vino getting tossed down my throat.
I’ve always considered Ed Wood Jnr. akin to a fine Chianti. Ever noticed if you open a bottle and leave it for about half an hour, the room almost smells like flowers?
Ed’s movies are the same. Just let them breathe a little. I once read a statement by somebody (some critic I think) who once said that no matter what time of day you watch an Ed Wood movie, it always feels like you’re watching it at around 0300 am. So very true.
So now I need a link. I’ve set out my childhood memories, the cine camera and my love of movies. Time to pull it all together…
That didn’t really happen until the day my father died. It had been a traumatic time for the family. One day in February 2000, his face began to swell up. A quick visit to the local GP and 24 days later he was dead. Lung cancer. It was as quick as that. When diagnosed, it was thought there would be a few months. He was out of the hospital one weekend and dead the next. In fact, I remember him saying to me around the middle of the week that he wouldn’t see out the weekend. I disagreed, telling him he’d have some months yet. How wrong was I? The sheer speed of events meant that none of us had any time to come to terms with what was happening. I spent most of my free time travelling to and from hospital and, then, when he was back home, travelling back and forth between my own home and that of my parents. In between, it was work. There was nothing else and certainly no time to think or get to grips with the emotional impact.
I got called in to the supervisor’s office on the Friday afternoon and was told to go home. My mum wanted me to come and spend the last few hours with him. The last thing he said to me was ‘look after my dog’. We did. His faithful Border Collie lived another seven years.
It was perhaps a kind of self-healing or an attempt to fill an emotional hole that drove me to search the attic of his home for all those hours of holiday footage, along with a screen and 8mm projector. I felt the need to do something. It was as if all that was left of him was in that attic, trapped on reels of film.
Next, I bought my first ever digital movie camera and then began to learn. The internet became a handy place for information and I began to put together the skills both in transfer and editing. They were rudimentary skills and equipment but they were enough to get me started. The process was simple: project the image and record it on the digital camera. There are much better ways of doing this. One is to use a specialised automated scanner that scans every single frame of a reel of film. This cost £35000 (at the time, I have no idea how much they cost now). Another process is simply called the ‘wet process’. I don’t know much about this and what I do know isn’t worth mentioning.
After a few months, I was ready to show my work. There had been an added bonus in that I also discovered footage of my grandfather (who died in 1977). I had my mother and grandmother in the room as I put the DVDs on. They didn’t have to say anything to me. I could see what it meant to them.
It kind of snowballed a little from there. I began transferring some stuff for other folk. I never charged for my services and just did the work as a favour to them. One thing I hadn’t really bargained on was how time consuming it could be. I didn’t want to say no but was beginning to feel like it was really starting to get out of hand.
By now I’d acquired 9.5mm and 16mm projectors. The 9.5mm was a particular challenge. It dated from around 1930 and needed to be completely rewired. It also needed a light source (the old bulb long gone). This wasn’t a restoration but a complete modernisation. I needed it to work, not look good. The sprung metal drive belt proved impossible to replace so I manufactured a new belt from some O-rings and super glue. For the light source, I used a small halogen bulb. I discovered that if I ever had to pause a piece of film, the heat from the halogen would start to burn the film, so I built it into a swing arm. Each time I had to pause, I’d just swing the bulb away from the footage and therefore prevent damage.
These acquisitions allowed me to work with some really interesting footage. One in particular was some 9.5mm footage of a working farm – complete with horse, cart, hay bails and men working the fields (dressed in hats and waistcoats - looking smarter at work than many of us modern scruffs look today in the latest designer gear).
Then came an opportunity that I didn’t expect.
The other transfer work I had carried out had been mostly for work colleagues and it was one of those colleagues that came to me now. Would I, he asked, help transfer some film to be sold as a DVD in order to raise some money for a local charity? I was never going to refuse.
There was a catch however. The owner of the film refused to let anybody else handle his footage and I would have to go to him. He would handle the film and I could do the digital side. I fully understood. Anybody who has worked with old footage will know how fragile this medium is. I’ve had film literally crumble and slip through my fingertips.
So, off to a small cottage in the Scottish Borders I went to meet this mysterious collector of film. In reality, collector doesn’t do him justice. Custodian is probably a better word.
The Reverend John Jackson was a portly and pleasant old man. His wife, Betty, offered me tea, which I politely refused. I was eager to get started (intensely aware of my need to curb my language whilst in their home…I have a habit of cursing and swearing my way through problems).
John took me to a room in the cottage dedicated to his passion and, as we set up our very different sets of equipment, we chatted. He was a purist, specialising only in 16mm. His passion was documenting everyday life in various parts of Scotland. His father before him was exactly the same and he proceeded to show me his collection of films that covered most of the 20th century. I say collection but, in reality, it was a cinematic archive that needed to be in a museum. I was stunned at the size of the collection and read with ever-increasing fascination the labels on the sides of tins of film reel. Lined along the shelves was a cinematic history of my country!
I suggested to him that he should contact the Scottish Film Archive in order to save his collection for future generations. He scowled at the notion. He was so much of a purist that he couldn’t bear the thought of his work going digital. It seemed so impersonal to him. He was strictly 16mm and nothing else would do. Maybe it was the link between the film that had been both shot and handled by him and his father and the thought of handing it all to some stranger, who would be unaware of the emotional worth of the collection.
Whatever his reason, I simply had to respect it, (although I didn’t agree with it). Even I could see that what he had was bordering on being a national treasure.
It saddened me to think that this incredible archive might be lost once John was gone.
The transfer went well, we said our goodbyes and I set off home to begin rendering and editing. It was around three months before I was finished. The footage was a year in the life of a small Scottish fishing town from around 1950 and I found it fascinating working on it. It was a silent piece and so, after some consultation with the organisers, I added a soundtrack provided by one of their local folk bands. When the work was complete, I made 50 copies on DVD and handed them over. A couple of days later, I received a message of thanks (and a very nice bottle of port). All 50 DVDs had sold on the first day of availability.
I never saw John Jackson again but will return to discuss him later.
The favours continued for a while until one day I was asked if I could transfer some family footage. Despite becoming a bit tired of all this work, I agreed to do it. I was horror-struck when I was then handed a box containing 21 reels of film. I had booked a week off work but had no particular plans. It took me most of that week to transfer the footage and another couple of months to render and edit it all. By the end I’d had enough. The next time I was asked, I said that my camera was faulty. When would I be getting a new one? I replied that it wouldn’t be getting replaced. Sometimes you can do too many favours and people forget (don’t care or don’t realise) how much work and time it takes to transfer 21 reels. I suspect this particular incident fell into the ‘don’t care’ category. It was simply a thoughtless and ridiculous amount to hand anybody. It’s not as if most people even thought about offering to reimburse me in some way. I would probably have said no to any offer of payment but at least I would have felt the work I was putting in was appreciated.
And that moment of frustration ended my time in film transfer. I have no desire whatsoever to start doing it again. I don’t regret the time I spent doing this but it’s frustrating when people just start using you and don’t even give a thought to the amount of work you end up doing for them.
Too much of a good thing? Maybe. Or maybe it’s a harsh lesson for me that perhaps I should have charged folk for my services whether I felt guilty or not. I’m cynical enough to know that it would certainly have cut down the workload significantly. The simple truth is that I didn't feel skilled enough to charge people for my work. I think that maybe there's a lesson there for any of us doing something they think is worthwhile. Don't sell yourself short. I may not have had the skills I wanted but I had more skills than those people I ended up doing the transfers for.
Epilogue
The work colleague who first approached me to do the charity DVD died in a motorbike accident on August 29th 2009. I remember the date quite clearly because the day he died was a Saturday and I was at the Belgian Grand Prix watching the qualifying. I always felt there was a terrible irony about his death. Details are sketchy. It happened on a lonely country road in the Scottish Borders and it appears that he was attempting to pass a tractor/trailer that was turning into a field. The tractor driver had no idea he was there or even that his trailer had caught him trying to overtake as the long trailer swung out whilst turning. He was crushed as the wheels of the trailer ran over his chest. I say a terrible irony because, of all the people I worked with, he was easily the most safety conscious at work. I can only imagine that he was impatient to get home and took a chance that ended in tragedy.Reverend John Jackson died a couple of years after I met him. I didn’t find out about this until 2010. There was a large article about him in the Scotsman newspaper. It seems he relented in his final days and bequeathed his collection to the Scottish Film archive where it has been digitally stored. The collection has been described as one of the most significant ever attained by the Archive. I’m glad that he did this because he has provided important visual historical evidence of our times for future generations. A fine legacy for a life well lived.
Here is a link to the original newspaper article.
Reel genius: how home movies shot by a Kirk minister gave a wonderful insight into 20th century Scottish life
A collection of home movies shot by a Kirk minister gives an invaluable glimpse into the lives of Scots through a large part of the 20th century. Now the historic footage is being shown to the public for the first time.
www.scotsman.com
