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PERHAPS you have old movie reels piled up in your basement.
Perhaps beautiful images of beloved relatives lurk on those reels, along with scratchy renderings of your childhood home. Maybe there's even grainy circa 1974 film of your goofy, plaid-bell-bottomed brother opening Christmas presents and making faces.
You don't know because you've never seen them. Shame on you.
Bring those reels to a workshop Saturday at the Germanna Center for Advanced Technology in Culpeper County and find out what's on that film. Maybe you'll laugh, maybe you'll cry. Don't you owe it to yourself to find out?
Film archivists from the Library of Congress will inspect, repair and talk about home movies, particularly those shot on film.
The inspection will take place from noon to 3 p.m, said Liz Stanley, a film archivist with the national library. Volunteers will check for film damage and make repairs with splicing tape if necessary, she said.
People can then watch their movies from 6 to 9 p.m. on big screens. They'll have projectors for 8 mm, Super 8 mm and 16 mm films, Stanley said.
A national Library of Congress Audio-Visual Conservation Center is scheduled to open in Culpeper in the spring. The center will house the library's entire motion-picture and sound-recording collection.
The center also will have preservation laboratories where deteriorating old films and recordings will be restored.
The workshop is part of a month-long series the college is holding with the library. Other topics include how to watch movies and preserving family treasures.
The workshops are part of the library's effort to reach out to the community, said Kathy Habel, the college's dean of workforce and community education.
"They are very interested in the community of Culpeper and the region, making sure they are a good professional neighbor," she said.
The Culpeper workshop takes place on International Home Movie Day, which was started in 2002. This year, cities across the country and in Canada, England, Japan and Italy will host events.
The heyday of these films was from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Most people no longer have projectors for these films. In many cases, attendees at home movie days haven't seen their films in years, if ever, Stanley said.
Volunteers will talk about the history of home movies and explain how to transfer home movies to video or digital formats and preserve film.
The best way to store films is in a cool, dry place such as a basement, Stanley said. Avoid hot and humid areas, such as attics.
Film archivists are concerned that many people are throwing away their films after transferring contents to video or digital formats. Properly stored film can outlast both DVDs and videotapes, Stanley said.
Film is also less dependent on technology, she said.
"In a pinch, all you really need to see the images on a home movie is the sun," she said. Plus, the quality of the copied version might not be as good.
"The original films are often carefully shot in beautiful, vibrant color, which may not come across in a low-quality video transfer," she said.
Film archivists also want to improve the home movie's reputation. When most people think of home movies, they picture faded and scratched films, she said. However, with a little effort, these movies can be preserved to a nearly perfect state, she said.
Home movies are important to archivists because they provide snapshots of everyday life. That's why the Smithsonian's anthropological department collects these movies, she said.
"Hollywood is great and I love movies as much as the next person, but they aren't a true representation of everyday life."
To reach KIM BAER:
Email: kbaer@freelancestar.com
What: Home Movie Day When: Saturday Where: Germanna Time: Inspection, noon to 3 p.m. Movie viewing, 6 to 9 p.m. Cost: Free Contact: Liz Stanley |
