Updating The Blogamathingy

Very little super 8 film can be found within our video below. There might be a tiny section of Kodachrome 40 in here, but mostly we'll be looking at old VHS tapes from the mid to late 80s. I have stacks of old cartridges piled up somewhere, but dang if I can find anything since the 'big move' in 2003. They'll probably turn up eventually; I just haven't got the time to search all my storage areas for them right now. Heck, I don't even have the time to update this blogamathingy on a regular basis.

Well, at least I didn't have to roam too far to collect the scenes for this episode. Even though many years and seasons separate each portion, they were all conveniently gathered onto one tape; as if I'd planned to compile them into a single presentation at one point. Maybe they were meant to be included on an England bound video a few decades ago that was never sent. I wouldn't doubt it. But who knows, who cares. I just know I don't have the time to think about it right now.

Road To Lillooet

A quick but short video entry here - while we wait for more classic movie films to be processed down at the local drug store on Elm Street.

I had not personally seen this particular bit of VHS tape in many years. It only briefly captures the horror and anguish of driving the 70 miles of unpaved roadway that runs from Lillooet to Gun Lake. Actually, this is just a small portion of the returning part of that trek, but might give the viewer an idea of what the other 69 miles are like.

The 'forever captured' afternoon we see here, hails from August in the summer of 1984 when Sandy and I drove up to Gun Lake to blow a week's vacation with Kim and Doug at her grandfather's cabin.

Unfit For Public Consumption

We've reached the end of another 400' roll of super 8 film from the distant 1970s and there's precious little meat left to chew on at this stage. I dunno - have we already seen most of the bits and pieces from the attached video in our previous 100 blog postings? It's possible; I've long ago stopped checking.

After this entry, we might have to begin running some of the secondary footage that wasn't deemed quite good enough for public consumption during our first year of operation. Perhaps, if you've been with us from the very start, you've already come to the conclusion that all the crummy stuff was being uploaded FIRST - and the better films had yet to make their initial appearance on this blog. Well, you'd be wrong on that assumption, Einstein.

A few scenes within this video were altered or exchanged on 21/2/09.

Expect The Unexpected

I always expect to find the unexpected when compiling these short video chapters from my long forgotten youth of the 1970s. I'm always hoping to find a tiny snippet or two that will provide visual proof of something I've completely forgotten about; completely lost the memory cells for. A discovery of that unscripted style HAS actually happened on previous occasions with these blog film reels, but unfortunately it didn't happen anywhere in the selection we have on our plate today.

The scenes here with Sandy and me strolling around the downtown core, were shot in 1984 with the full intention of being mailed across the pond to Jonny in England as some sorta documentary gift. If anything has surprised me during today's video, it's the discovery that these city scenes are still in my possession and that they never managed to make the trip to Cornwall as was planned. I can only hope that a promise to the man was never made in the first place; telling him that they were coming when they obviously never would be.

It's always nice to flash back and see the cosy old neighborhood in its heyday, or the niece and nephew as little kids again or my Blazer buddies enjoying the prime of their lives with, as yet, no knowledge of the brick wall they would soon be running into at full speed in the not too distant future.

Darkness And Regret

You may THINK that you've seen some of these film clips in previous posts over the last 12 months on this blogger stage, but in most cases, you'd be horribly mistaken. What we have here is another episode of 'clean out the reject drawer' in which all the unused or redundant or uninteresting clips can finally get their public airing before having to live out the rest of their lives in the darkness and regret of the storage room. And since that's pretty much what we've been shooting for all along with this blog nonsense (darkness and regret) our trolley bus is totally on schedule and paying its own fare.

I plan to revisit a few of the captured moments seen on this video in more depth at a later time. For instance, the masterpiece I shot of George and Don driving their 'Great White Tongue' down to Kerrisdale Cameras in a long series of four frames per second, contains a treasure trove of single images that zip across the screen much too fast for the human eye to fully appreciate. A sample of that goldmine is included in the image of George that headlines this post. That jitterbug sequence, and others like it, is really no less than a photo album containing hundreds of vintage pictures of our little corner of Blazerville and the people that populated it back in the mid 70s.

IMPULSE! The Story Of Cardboard Inserts

Now, if you're talking about stupid movies (as we were in our last blog entry) this stupid movie right here probably takes the cake. "IMPULSE - The True Story Of Cardboard Inserts And Their Place In Today's Modern World" (extended title). I'm not going to try and explain any of this to you. People either 'get it' or they don't, and there's no mushy middle ground here like there always was when you watched Siskel and Ebert on PBS. This movie best reflects the true spirit of our blog's title (NRP) and it's quite possible that your thoughts on cardboard inserts, and their place in society, will never be the same again.

Back in the Spring of 1975, Belkin's Packaging would pay their warehouse employees 5 dollars and 10 cents an hour to stand at a long bench and assemble these cardboard panels into the protective box lining shape which would then be used to safely separate six bottles of wine or tomato ketchup or maple syrup or whatever, for shipping/receiving/transporting across the country or around the world. I'm not sure exactly how I came to be in ownership of these otherwise useless (or so it seemed) panels of corrugated cardboard - each with either two or three 'slices' needed for interlocking stability - but ownership of them I would eventually claim, and a home movie with them I would eventually make.

Get Lost!

Here's a stupid movie if ever there was one. This is from the 'no plot/no idea/no purpose' school of filmmaking and is a good example of the results you should expect when working on pure impulse and zero inspiration.

When I joined four members of 'THE GANG' for a little Sunday hike around Alice Lake back in the Spring of '75, I had no intention of using the location to make another dramatic movie. I had grabbed my camera and two rolls of super 8 film that morning with no ambitions other than to be a tourist in search of scenic views. However, I very quickly ditched that plan due to boredom and decided instead to force some semblance of a 3 act mini play into the mix; creating suspense and tension; joy and sorrow; albeit with an unenthusiastic cast.

An interesting side note here is that, while everyone involved in this movie/hike seemed to be snapping their own still pictures at every opportunity (except maybe Doug) I have still never, in the almost 35 years since, seen a single snapshot from any of them from that day. I would certainly have used any decent images of theirs (if they even exist) to accompany this otherwise dull blog submission, but all I can offer up is the movie footage, in the guise of a drama, obtained by my Nikon R10 during the course of that lakeside stroll.

The ending of this otherwise forgettable cinematic offering, if you can call it an ending, is still one of the most widely discussed and over analyzed 12 seconds in home movie making history, and even today newcomers to this film, intent on trying to understand it, are stumped into an open mouthed silence.