Comments on: Watching Home Movies, L.A., 1959

By: Rick B

Rick B — Sat, 21 May 2011 03:55:39 +0000

it’s amazing in many of your old slides just how many people could be crammed into one room, be it a breakfast nook, around the dining room table, or in this living room. I count 12 people just in this one PART of the room, not counting the photographer. How many more were off camera I wonder?

By: Timothy Hopfauf

Timothy Hopfauf — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:39:32 +0000

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By: Kevin Preston

Kevin Preston — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:53:37 +0000

Jerry, geez, I lived exactly what you described. Wow, perfect.

By: Jerry Foisel

Jerry Foisel — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:46:45 +0000

He wound-up the old Keystone then pulled its trigger while we listened to it click its life away recording ours.
The rolls were only 3 or 4 minutes long unless eventually edited together into reels on the Mansfield Reporter.
I remember the viscous smell of the film that Kodak sent back to us several weeks later. That and the odd rubber band with a handle on it wrapped around the tiny, plastic roll.
Unless it was something really special, we usually just waited for Dad to edit them all together before watching.
At the “Gathering of the Uncles, the projector would be taken out of the back of the den closet.
The screen would be unveiled and locked into place before the projector was carefully leveled with old “Readers Digest” magazines.
My favorite part was watching the elegantly designed, black crinkle paint, projector AUTOMATICALLY THREAD AND FEED ITSELF… RIGHT ONTO ITS TAKE-UP REEL!
Several of us would then call out, “Lights!”
We watched our lives play out on a flickering screen while listening to the loud whir and occassional metallic screech emanate off the amazing Keystone projector.
On the longer, edited rolls, later into the night… there was a dull silence that fell over the numbed families at the end of a reel.
Someone would mumble out, “Lights!”
That’s when the children spread-out on the living room’s harvest-gold shag carpet sprang back to life! They would jump up and start a clumsily synchopated dance, smiling at each other while exciting singing, “Freeze it. Everybody… FREEZE!”
They would stop dead in their tracks upon “FREEZE!” with only their eyes darting back and forth to survey whether the other children had indeed been “frozen”.
The machine would then feed itself once more followed by, “Lights!” The children fell back into the luxurious shag with gaudy pillows or the belly’s of thier cousins to rest their heads upon.
I can still see the parents, uncles, grandparents, and cousins… THE NEXT MOVIE REFLECTED IN THIER CURIOUS EYES.

By: glenn

glenn — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 01:09:46 +0000

This must be a wealthy family, That’s actually the venerable Bell and Howell
16mm sound proector (takes me back to my days on junior high projection crew)
I love 8mm. My father starting shooting it in black and white in the 30s
with a wind up keystone camera, and the results, now transfered
on tape, are wonderful.