Years ago, I collected the 8 mm home movies from my childhood (roughly 1969-1981) and had them put on a VHS video cassette. (Silly me, I didn't think I needed to keep the 8 mm films, so they no longer exist.)
Last spring, I had the VHS video digitized (at Play It Again Video in Newton, Mass.). It wasn't cheap, but in a way, you can't put a price tag on digitizing your childhood movies so I felt it was worth it!
The video is almost two hours long and is comprised of many, many three minute clips, which I believe was the length of each 8 mm reel. Luckily my dad marked each one with the date and sometimes the subject, and I did have the sense to put them in chronological order before they were combined on the VHS video. I now have an almost two hour video that I can edit in iMovie.
Following is a brief snippet of a 1971 home movie of me and my three younger brothers all sledding on a toboggan with my mother.
Enjoy!
Elizabeth:
ReplyDeleteWhat a truly precious family treasure you have in these home movies. My paternal aunt was the family film producer and this reminds me that I need to contact her soon to inquire where all those reels have gone. Thanks for sharing and reminding!
John, yes do find the family's old home movies and have them digitized. I also got about 18-20 minutes of home movies of my mother and her sisters from the 1950's digitized. One of these days I'll have to share some pieces of that!
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Hi Elizabeth, this was so neat, thanks for sharing! A few years ago I converted my home videos from VHS to digital using a program by Roxio-- was able to hook up a VCR to my computer to create the files, and then burned the files to DVD.
ReplyDeleteGlad you were able to have these precious movies converted, and can't wait to see the other footage from the 50's that you mentioned!
Aren't you glad you converted your files? Make sure your DVDs are still readable! Not sure when I'll get to blog about those older movies, but I'm glad I digitized them!
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