At first, I thought this would be easy peasy. Just snag a projector and watch it, with an ultimate goal of digitizing it. But the more the process has unfolded, the more it is like a treasure hunt with this end goal of having a good quality representation of this era of life in my family.
8MM film, while all the rage in the 50s and 60s, is not used any more. It hasn't been used since about then. So the equipment and supplies are tough to come by and the knowledge of how to use and maintain them properly is sparse. The particular films I'm working with don't appear to have been kept very well... although, to be fair, it doesn't seem like proper film storage supplies are plentiful and at the time, I doubt anyone thought someone would be struggling to watch them 60 years later. So the films themselves need some maintenance before they can really be watched - including cleaning, lubricating (who knew film needed lubrication!?) and potentially repair.
My goal is to digitize the film. To put it into a format that could be stored as data, uploaded to youtube or burned to DVD. There are services who do that. They charge a few cents per the foot of film. A few rolls of film would cost about $100 to digitize. But who am I to do it the easy way. And also, with 50 rolls of film, that's a little out of my price range. So, my first order of business was to get something to watch them on.
Ebay and Craigslist both have 8MM film projector listings. I found mine (a Brownie) locally on Craigslist. Still with the original box, excellent condition, for $50. Ironically, as I was going through the film canisters, I found a leaflet advertisement from the 50s for the brownie projector that advertised the price as $62 which, is the equivalent of $600 in 2013 prices. Youch!
Once I got the projector in my hands, I realized that the lenses probably would need to be cleaned, the bulb replaced - and before I got the film anywhere near it, the film... needed to be cleaned. Film cleaning. It's a thing.
How to Clean 8MM Film
Every single forum post by everyone with any film experience says something completely different about film cleaning. Everyone has their pet method or product that has worked for them for x number of years. I needed something accessible that would get the job done. I'm working with Kodak film, so I turned to Kodak, who recommends :... isopropyl alcohol that has a purity of 98 percent or higher as a good, general-purpose cleaning solvent for photographic materials. Isopropyl alcohol (also known as 2-propanol or isopropanol) has several benefits. It is available in small volumes at a reasonable price; it has been successful in cleaning tar, streaks, processing scum, and opaque from photographic products; and it had no detrimental effect on the image stability of the emulsions we tested.I picked up a bottle of the requisite alcohol and then, I was left with needing actual demonstrations. And I needed two.. one to clean the canisters and the outside of the film and one on how to clean the actual film frames. Ask and ye shall receive. Mostly from the gods of youtube.
Use only isopropyl alcohol that has a purity of 98 percent or higher. Alcohol with a lower purity, such as rubbing alcohol, will cause streaking and take longer to dry. Also, the higher water content of rubbing alcohol may cause the emulsion of the photographic materials to swell, resulting in physical damage and possible deterioration of image-forming dyes.
To use isopropyl alcohol:
- Make sure your work area is well ventilated, with sufficient positive air flow.
- Use only a soft, lint-free cleaning applicator (e.g., a cotton swab, cloth, or glove).
- Slightly moisten the cleaning applicator and re-moisten it as needed. Do not saturate the applicator with alcohol. Too much alcohol can produce streaks and result in a longer drying time. (If streaks form, you can usually remove them by wiping the area with a fresh, dry cloth.)
- Clean a small area at a time.
- Repeat the application if necessary to remove foreign matter such as china marker, crayon, or other wax-based markers.
First, I set about cleaning the outside of the canisters of some build up deposits and dirt. I used alcohol, a microfiber cloth and this method. Times fifty reels. Joyous times.
I used this video to get the basic gist of how to clean the actual film inside the canister :
I modified it slightly. Using the brownie, I set up the film on the two spindles but did not feed it through the viewer. Instead, I fed it through my fingers with a cloth on a slow forward.
But before I ran anything through anything, I read up on splicing because I was pretty sure I'd need to do some repairs in the process. I found the kodak splicer in this video for $20 on ebay and KODAK 8mm PRESSTAPE (formerly splice tape)(affiliate link)
on amazon so that I could do this :
on amazon so that I could do this : It's here that I need to tell you that I lost my nerve. Here, I was looking at family history gold. The only video record of my uncles and mother growing up. The only video record of my grandparents during that time. My grandfather died before I could meet him. Here I would be able to see him moving about through life. What a gift!
It chronicled 20 years of a period of time that I'd never see if I screwed it up. The stakes felt too high. So, after doing some cleaning of the most egregious of the dirt, I found a local shop that could put the films onto CD for me. From there, I was able to rip the CDS and stitch the movies together into chronological order. I made DVDs for everyone in the family. I think I remember it costing somewhere in the neighborhood of a few hundred dollars to get all 50 reels done.
So, maybe not the authoritative guide to cleaning and splicing and reconstructing old film, but all of this should get you headed in the right direction. And if you, like me, are not a film expert, and you've got history gold in your hands, it could be worth looking up an expert.
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