Vintage Vibes - Digitizing Super 8 Film at Vitale Digital Media Lab
Explore the magic of Super 8 film at Vitale Digital Media Lab. Learn how we digitized old movie reels, bringing Philadelphia's past to life and offering Penn Library users the chance to revive their own memories.
Bringing more analog equipment into the lab was an objective I’ve had since starting work in the Vitale Digital Media Lab last June. I'd recently become the owner of a Canon 20XL Super 8 camera, and I knew of a few students who expressed interest in experimenting with film in their own projects, which prompted us to order a Super-8 camera and an film digitizer for users of the media lab (the Canon 310XL and the Kodak REELS Super 8 Digitizer). Upon receiving the digitizer, I brought in a old film reel that I purchased at an antique shop in Collingswood to test it out. It was a 3-minute highlights reel of the Sci-Fi Western film Moon Zero Two, distributed by Warner Brothers in 1969. Loading the film into the digitizer was a learning curve, but soon I was watching the Kodak REELS record each individual frame. It took roughly 10 minutes to finish the entire thing.
Long-time media lab user George Mostoller came to the lab one day in search for some help digitizing a Super 8 reel that he’d recently discovered in the new home he and his wife moved into.
“Last April we purchased a South Philly row home from some elderly neighbors who were moving to New Jersey. They were downsizing and left a lot of stuff behind saying we could have it and do whatever we wanted with it. This reel of film was found in a dresser drawer; I doubt they even had a way to watch it anymore.” (George Mostoller)
Putting it into the digitizer, I quickly noticed that the film wasn’t in pristine condition, and it had a significant number of scratches, tears, and sometimes even burns that would disrupt the machine and make it freeze on a single frame. Though I was able to let the film scanner run unwatched while it digitized the Warner Brothers reel, George’s reel proved to be more of a challenge. Every 20 frames or so, the film would tangle and the burns on the reel would freeze the motor (which, admittedly, looked like something out of a found footage horror movie, and I think that’s neat). A more hands-on approach was needed for this reel, which took longer, but it ended up being a lot of fun.
The final 30-minute reel provided us a looking glass into life in 1970s Philadelphia. It was a beautifully shot amalgamation of clips from weddings, the docks, and Old City.
“As a longtime resident of Philadelphia, I find this look into the past fascinating. One doesn’t notice the changes as they happen slowly over time, but looking at this is a window into the Philadelphia of several decades ago – the same, but different in so many ways.” (George Mostoller)
You can view the result of George’s found film here:
The Kodak REELS Digitizer can convert 8mm or Super 8 film to 1080p HD video by saving it directly to an SD card. It’s open for any Penn staff, student, and faculty member to use here in the Vitale Digital Media Lab. Come in and bring your memories back to life!
Date
July 15, 2024