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 nice solid metal LARGE 12" 1200 foot reel from ELMO (Japan)
20th CENTURY FOX - Super 8 Film
Commercial release for the Home Movie market
Catalogue # Not Stated on packaging - in fact packaging is very "generic"
TOWERING INFERNO (1974)
What happens when you design and build the world's tallest tower building but some of the electricals are not up to the required specifications? Burn baby burn!
The reel is housed in an original ELMO Japan (Code 04 2155) generic box
Leader film is fitted as is a leader film clip
12" 1200' Aluminium unbranded reel but I am told by the owner these are ELMO's
I believe this reel will provide 40~45 runtime so it must have been edited from the original 2h 45m
Colour
Sound
COSMETIC CONDITION:
USED
CLEAN
Film stock and the reel is undamaged, straight and true
Labelling (hand written) has been applied to one side of the reel and one side of the outer cardboard box using dynatape.
The cardboard box is also in good condition.
NO unusual smells detected coming off the film i.e no vinegar odours
NO personal names or other writing on the outer cardboard cases or the film reels
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 colour has definitely been affected by Red shift (failure of the Blue dye) but it actually isn't too bad. I can still see other colours such as Greens, light Blues etc
SPECIAL NOTE:
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.
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 is tending to emphasise the Red's in the photographs anyway - in real life the on-screen picture is not as Red as recorded in the photographs.
I was a little confused at the beginning of this film, first the opening credits are on screen then the film does that countdown again (10-9-8 ....) and the title comes up again but the text fonts are different. I think a bit of splicing has been done at the beginning of this reel.
Sound (English dialogue) is good, clean but I felt just slightly muffled, indicating the high frequency range had dropped off a little OR it could be my old ears! Anyway, I could easily understand what was going on, I just had to listen more carefully.
In my opinion, after this very brief test, I am happy that the film is as stated on the outer cardboard cases and the reel and looks to be in good "technical" condition.
As with all of the "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 cardboard ELMO box. This is done in an effort to preserve the current condition as much as possible.
