HISTORY:
My "world" is 'the arts' and more specifically, music, artwork and hand crafted/decorated chinaware's.
I am not a film enthusiast but an associate has asked me to find new owners for THEIR large collection of photographic and film items ... this is one of those items.
While the world of 8mm/Super 8mm is not my area of expertise, I am doing my best to establish the condition of each item that I am listing.
I tend to be quite detailed in my item descriptions, please READ all the details to decide if this item may interest you.
Now, on with the description ...
Film stock is on a POSSO Grey plastic 10" 800 foot reel, stored in a POSSO library case (drop down front door) with very basic labelling on the library case and none on the reel.
UNIVERSAL 8 FILMS - Super 8 Film
20th Century Film release for the Home Movie entertainment market
Catalogue # Not Stated on packaging, just quick mention of Ken Films and lots of information about the film
STAR WARS (1977)
This looks to be selected scenes from the first Star Wars movie, not full length but longer than the 400' reels I have found and advertised previously
The reel is housed in an original POSSO (France) heavy duty plastic case, Brown drop down door.
White leader film has been fitted, but unfortunately there is no film clip fitted.
10" 800' Light Grey POSSO reel
I believe this reel will provide around 35 minutes runtime, I only "test viewed" the first 10 minutes or so (there is only so much Star Wars I can handle! and that heavy breathing Darth Vader ... Oh my goodness!) so I have not run the entire reel through the projector. I have masses of film to still work through and if I watched every single film entirely, sorting through all this film would take me forever!
Colour
Sound
COSMETIC CONDITION:
USED
CLEAN
Film stock and the reel is undamaged, straight and true
Labelling has been applied to one side of the POSSO library case only (Red dynatape) - no identification on the reel itself.
NO unusual smells detected coming off the film.
NO personal names or other writing on the library case or the film reel
TESTING:
Test projector is the ELMO 1200 that I have on hand at the moment.
Film looks to be clean and in good condition, sprocket holes are not damaged.
I ran the film through the projector for the first 10 minutes or so, to observe the picture and sound.
The film begins with the Universal 8 screen then a 10-9-8 etc countdown then it does the same again so I am thinking this must have been two 400' reels originally. Not a lot of intro in at the beginning of the film with simple credits to the most obvious actors and then into the restaurant opening scene.
The colour is actually pretty good, Oh yes the Pink/Red hue is definitely present but at least there are signs of Blues, Greens etc in various scenes that I watched - in my opinion, a reasonable colour film compared to others I have watched lately.
The sound is clean, not noisy or muffled - easy to follow the dialogue.
SPECIAL NOTES:
I always include a couple of "off screen" snapshots ... now my digital camera is antiquated and it's limitations are definitely showing up in these sample photographs. The photographs do not do the film justice but my aim is to show that I have confirmed the reel contents and make a quick judgement about the condition of the film. In all cases, the actual picture is far better than my rather crude screen shots.
I take the screen shot in very low light levels, the camera flash is turned off (otherwise the picture is flooded with White) and the camera shutter speed is very slow.
This means I have trouble getting sharp photographs, especially when there is movement on the screen and I have noticed that after viewing quite a few films now, that my poor OLD digital camera (it doesn't even have a White balance control) is tending to emphasise the Red's in the photographs anyway - in reality the on-screen picture is not as Red as recorded in the photographs.
In my opinion, after this relatively brief test viewing, I am happy that the film is as stated on the outer POSSO library case (CLASH OF THE TITANS) and it looks to be in pretty good "technical" condition.
As with all of the larger diameter "open reel" film I am finding when I sort through the boxes, I am adding a couple of satchels of Silica Gel (for moisture absorption) and sealing the reel within clear plastic. I then also seal the outer library case. This is done in an effort to preserve the current condition as much as possible (these steps were suggested to me by a film enthusiast)
