Projector Repairs

Well, it's June, which means we're only 10 days away from our Saskatchewan One Take Super 8 Events. While our films are still at the lab (after being held up by Fed-Ex in tornado weather in Memphis - just glad they didn't make it to OZ), it was time to tackle a long overdue project that was making me a little bit stressed.

Both of the One Take Super  8 Event projectors were due for major maintenance having serviced many events in many locations over many years. They've been jostled in cars, buses, airplanes. Crossed borders and time zones and finally were showing their age.

A couple years back I had a friend order some replacement belts off Ebay, fingers crossed that it would solve the problem (both projectors would no longer play films at speed), but when I opened up the backs of the ST-1200 and ST-600 today I really had no idea what I was doing. Thank goodness for the internet which provided me with a fantastic pdf of the original ST-1200 manual on how to replace parts, which I have now permanently saved to my hard drive for future reference. As you can see in the photo one belt (from the ST-600) was snapped and beginning to disintegrate, turning sort of jelly like. I'm glad I got it out before it got all over the inside of the project. Voila! 18fps perfection. Onto the ST-1200 which was a bit more intricate to remove the belt (turns out it was just stretched too much so wouldn't run off the motor). Thanks to the manual schematics telling me which screws to remove to get access to the belt drive, within minutes a new belt was in and VOILA again, 2 projectors running smooth as can be. If I was more tech savvy, there would be play by play pictures and videos demonstrating the process for others to reference. But I'm just not built that way.

Now just the decision, which one will make the trek to 2 cities to show at the inaugural event in Saskatoon, and the 11th Annual in Regina. (Just a hint, likely the brighter projector I have a spare bulb for :) Hope it can make the trip, but glad that I might get another 30 years use out of these 2 tanks. Elmo sure knew what they were doing when they produced these models. No cell phone will ever work this long.

Montreal pics

The pics do a good job of showing what a

night we had with Double Negative in Montreal. I'm particularly fond of the bikes piled against the fence (That's how we love people coming to our shows!) Daichi Saito's face is hidden while cleaning the projector, but his Elmo was a standout, handling 800 ft reels with no problem, and a super bright xenon lens. The big screen was perfect for the space, but almost too big, as we just fit it under the ceiling. Clearly, we didn't take any pics while the films were playing, but there wasn't a square inch of floor space empty. Luckily we found a way to raise the projector high enough so no one's head would block the light.

Days of Yore

Found this link to the NFB that showcases the origniators of travelling picture shows across Canada. After being across the country by plane, train, and car, with projectors and film reels in hand, I have a lot more respect for what these pioneers were trying to accomplish. I wonder how many spare bulbs they carried with them when travelling across the bumpy washboard gravel roads of Saskatchewan.

Here's a great gallery to check out to see how most people came in contact with original Canadian movies, in the days before multiplexes, TV, and Youtube (and our very own OTS8).

If you're longing for some super 8 movies during your summer vacations, the OTS8 2008 Regina DVD is ready for purchase. If you're in Regina, you can buy them at the filmpool for $15. Or if you want, drop us a line at onetakesuper8event(at)yahoo.com, and we'll get you copy. The collection of 30 films are all on one DVD featuring great work from last November's event. The cases are beautifully screenprinted by Stacey Case (merchguy), DVD design by Terryll Loffler, and transfers done by Frame Discreet. It's as good of collection of small gauge film you'll find, and will tide you over until the next travelling super 8 projector comes through your town.