Want to learn how to hone your cinematography craft? Want to cut your teeth on some honest to goodness film? Have Spielberg dreams on a dimestore budget? Northwest Film Center is the answer.

I came across the Northwest Film Center several weeks ago while researching film archives across the country. I was truly amazed by their dedication to education in moving image arts (their beautiful prose). Their film school allows local artists, filmmakers, students and hobbyists access to full professional gear at amazing rental prices. Even film editing equipment (real film flatbed editing stations). Want to rent a 16mm film camera or a lighting kit? No problem.

What’s that? You have no idea how to use any of this fancy equipment? That’s where their school of film comes in. Their core class The Art of Filmmaking walks you through cinematic storytelling through the lens of a super-8 camera. How cool is that??? As they say, they use “the Super-8mm format to examine the aesthetic properties of light, movement, and time as they relate to the art of filmmaking.”

Students then edit their film on Final Cut Pro editing stations. There are classes in screenwriting, sound editing, claymation, etc. You name it, they’ve got it – even classes for getting your film into the distribution market.

Additionally, they offer workshops taught by knowledgeable teachers who are successful in the film industry. The legendary George Kuchar was there last week offering critiques of the students’ work. Want to learn stop-motion animation from the Oscar-winning inventor of Claymation? Will Vinton teaches at NW Film Center.

The best part is that anyone can attend classes there. They frequently have special programming for kids and seniors.

Many people don’t realize how much it costs to attend film school; especially classes taught by Gus van Sant, Will Vinton, and George Cuchar. Trust me, Portland has a real gem in this school of film.

On top of all this, they also host five film festivals per year. Their largest event, the Portland International Film Festival, begins runs February 11th through the 27th. Northwest Film Center really is your one stop shop for love of film.

Let’s get another media monkey off your back with a fresh New Year’s Resolution. Do something with your film reels collected around the house. Today I’ll provide you with some links to film reel preservation resources as well as creative ways to use those reels (other than stacking them as a paperweight).

Hopefully you don’t have those reels stored someplace crazy like the attic or basement. Repeat after me, “Cool and dry.” It’s a good rule of thumb for all your media. See my post from October 19th for more info about film reel preservation.

Your first stop in your quest to do something with your film reels is to visit the National Film Preservation Foundation. They have fantastic resources, tips and links for all things related to film reels. Want a detailed explanation of vinegar syndrome or Nitrate degradation? Check their site first.

View Your Film

Your next stop in looking at your film reels is to find them and quickly eyeball the sprockets to see if they’re still intact. Next, you want to find some way to view them. If you happen to live in the Portland, Oregon area you can actually rent projectors to view your film from the Northwest Film Center.

DVD Transfer

If you don’t have access to a film projector you may want to consider having your reels transferred to DVD for convenient viewing purposes. If you decide to go this route, keep in mind, DVDs won’t last forever. So keep the film reels in case you want to have them transferred again in the future to some new emerging viewing medium.

Each time your film reel is run through a projector, it adds to the degradation, so you don’t want to frequently view or transfer them. Another thought, was your Dad or Grandpa a good cinematographer? Or did he capture lots of shots of the floor and lens cap? If your film tends to get a bit boring, you may want to edit it down and add some music.

If you plan on editing your media, skip the DVD and have it transferred right to hard drive or tape (miniDV or HDV). Once your media is compressed onto DVD it is way too compressed to satisfactorily edit. Think early YouTube quality.

Film preservation archives are a very reliable source for getting your media transferred. In Chicago, we have the Chicago Film Archives, which takes great pride in using high-quality telecine equipment for the transfer.

Although there are less expensive options, such as projecting the film on the wall while simultaneously filming with a camcorder, the quality is not as great. Telecine equipment actually scans each frame, so you won’t get the flicker induced by filming at a different frame rate.

Northeast Historic Film in Maine is committed to collecting and preserving film and video related to Northern New England. They are excellent resource in the northeast for having your film expertly repaired.

Tell Your Story

Now that you have your film in a format in which you can use it (hard drive or tape), let’s look at what to do with it. This would be a good time to break out those old photos from around the era as the film reels. You can scan them into .jpg files for inclusion in your story.

Here is an example of storytelling with your film reel. Make sure you click on the link below, after viewing the movie. The storytelling included with the film (and the followup which you can also view on Vimeo) is priceless. Considering that he received over 100 comments and tons of inbound links, I’d say this story and film really touched a nerve.

Home Movies At DisneyLand – 1956 from Jeff Altman on Vimeo.

I give up – I just want to get rid of these things!

Wait, don’t fret. Absolutely do not throw out your film reels. First check with family members to see if someone else wants them. Then, check back at the National Film Preservation Foundation for their Archive Community. They have a very detailed regional listing of historical societies and other archives who may be interested in a donation of your media.

Places like the Wolfson Archives at Miami Dade College, Chicago Film Archives, and Northeast Historic Film accept film donations that provide a historical look at their region. They don’t accept everything, so please don’t leave your reels at their door. Contact them directly to find out if your media would qualify as a donation.

Whatever you decide to do with your film reels, don’t let it sit on the shelf and degrade. At the very least, have it transferred, break out the popcorn, invite Grandma over for movie night and watch it. Your best option, however, is to transfer it to a hard drive and compile a family history project using both your reels and old photos.

Chicago Home Movie Day 2009 provided me with the perfect opportunity to interview Chicago Film Archives Executive Director, Nancy Watrous. She gave me some great tips on home movie preservation. Two words for you: dry and cool.

It’s imperative you keep your film reels and tapes dry and cool. Dry, meaning not in a basement where they could either be flooded or prone to condensation. Cool, meaning not in an attic.

Ideally your media would be stored at 30% relative humidity with almost no fluctuation in temperature, but that’s not realistic in a home setting. Cool and dry is good enough for general preservation (as opposed to historic archival).

Ok, so you’ve heard that before. Have you ever thought it might be a good idea to seal your tapes or film reels in a ziploc or rubbermaid container, to better preserve them? Think again, they might get condensation in a sealed environment.

Storing them in a plastic container is fine, but they need some airflow to prevent condensation. So perhaps leave the lid slightly askew.

What about stacking your reels or storing them vertically? It’s actually better to stack them horizontally as they could get warped when stored vertically.

What about securing your film to the reel with a rubber band? Bad idea. It will cause a crease in the film itself, causing it to bounce a bit as it’s being played back on a film projector.

Speaking of projectors, how can you even tell if your film reel is in good enough shape to be run through a projector. A quick check is to see if the sprockets (holes) on the film are intact. The projector needs to grab those sprockets. If the sprockets are torn, the film cannot be projected without repair.

Where do you get projectors nowadays? Well, ebay is a good start. What you want to look for is a projector that allows you to manually load the film. An autoload projector may get jammed, or worse, damage your film.

What is the best way to prevent your film reels or videotapes from fading or deteriorating any further? Of course, keep them cool and dry. But also, try not to view them from the original source.

Even film, when run through a projector, will begin to deteriorate from usage. Nancy recommended transfer to DVD for convenient viewing.

What about those old super8 tapes? Same thing. Transfer to DVD as soon as possible to prevent further wear and tear. Professional transfer services, such as those offered by Chicago Film Archives, perform a frame-by-frame transfer using telecine equipment.

This is important because the frame rate of 16mm film and current video, such as HDV, is not the same. Uncorrected, inconsistent frame rates will produce flickering in the final movie.

There are a couple of drawbacks with direct transfer to DVD, however. One is that your original silent film may remain a silent film. Some services do offer a music soundtrack, but make certain it is a licensed soundtrack.

Many places advertise that you can use your own music, or they will buy something from iTunes for you. That is still not legal. This will limit where you can play your movie. Forget funeral homes. They know better.

Another drawback is that your two hours of old movies, including excellent footage of the floor or lens cap, are now two hours of DVD. This would be much more enjoyable to view if edited down to a palatable 20 or 30 minutes.

An excellent option is to have your footage transferred to hard drive so that you may edit in the future at your leisure. If it’s for your own personal viewing, you may add your own songs to your footage on your own computer.

What do you do with your home movies? We’re gathering feedback from our readers in order to provide you with the most up-to-date and useful information for your home movie needs. Take the home movie survey here.

Basically, there are two routes for preservation of your home movie footage – stabilization and restoration. Stabilization means trying to stabilize the amount of deterioration. Keep it cool and dry. Restoration means you pay an archival service a phenomenal amount of money to restore your footage.

Sharing your video masterpiece is always a tradeoff between file size, video quality, and ease of sharing. The absolute easiest thing would be to save your video with no compression and email it.

You would have a 10 GB, that’s giga with a “G”, file, that no one could watch. In fact, when you tried to send it, your computer would either laugh at you or choke, sputter and die.

So we’ve established that uncompressed video, while retaining excellent clarity, cannot be emailed.

Once you introduce compression, you have to make sure the person on the receiving end has the same compression codec. If you used Quicktime, they have to have Quicktime. You use Flash, they have to have Flash. And it must be the same version. Or at least as current.

Someone who has Flash 8, cannot open your Flash 10 video. No problem, you say, I’ll just include a link in my email so they can download the latest version.

Ever try convincing someone that it’s perfectly fine (and free) and advisable, in fact, to download the latest version of Quicktime or Flash? Good luck.

Let’s say you do convince them. You’ll most likely have to talk them through the installation process.

Ever have someone tell you they could hear the audio on your movie, but not view the video? Their software was not up-to-date. “But I’ve got it right here on my hard drive.” They say. It’s entirely likely that, although they downloaded it, they never actually installed it.

But wait, there’s more. To make it small enough to email, most programs will compress your video down to 160×120, way too small to view any captions. Let’s get out those magnifying glasses right now.

Here’s a screen capture of a 160×120 movie:

Can you imagine watching an entire movie this tiny?

 If you squint really hard you can almost read the caption.

This problem emailing movies is not a Mac vs. PC issue; it’s plain old operator error. The worst part is yet to come. Most people will never actually tell you that they weren’t able to view it. They simply don’t respond to the email. So you never know that they didn’t see your movie.

Have I convinced you yet, that it is neither simple nor convenient to email a video?

Well, apparently the folks at YouTube read the my-photo-video.com post from June about video sharing services. They now offer you the ability to limit viewing of your video to 25 people, without those people having to own YouTube accounts.

Hallelujah. They will give you a unique URL that you can paste into an email to your friends. And they’ll encode the video in such a way that everyone can view it.

Here’s that same movie at full resolution, using YouTube’s encoding.

The quality on YouTube may not be as good as you’ll see on your flat screen at home, but it’s a lot better and easier than what you can email. At least you know your friends and family will be able to watch it. So, let’s agree to leave video sharing to YouTube. We’ll just stick their link in our email.

Today, we’re going to learn about handles. No idea what I’m talking about? Well you’ve probably actually learned it the hard way. Trust me, read on.

Ever have this happen to you? You shot the perfect scene of your kid riding a bike for the first time. Including his little sister making fun of him in the background.

Don’t worry, he landed on the grass. No brain damage was incurred in the writing of this blog.

Let’s say you decide to edit a movie of his big accomplishment. You import the clip into your movie editing software, add some fades at the beginning and end, and upload it to YouTube.

Now let’s say you shot the same scene, but he was so quick getting going, that you turned the camera on right as he began pedaling on his own.

Notice how the very first frame of the movie begins with him just pedaling away from Dad?

You get the video onto your computer, add a couple of transitions, and lose the very beginning of the scene.

Ah, now you know why you need handles. Now that you added the fades, you lose the effect of him pedaling away.

What? Handles are that little bit of video at the beginning and end of each scene that your software program uses to create transitions.

Your software will use approximately a half second at the start and end of each clip for each transition.

If you turned on the camera right as he starts pedaling and then tried to apply a cross-dissolve or fade to the clip, you’ll have a little problem. Your program will start the dissolve or fade from the first frame, so you won’t see the footage until about a half-second later, thus missing him first pedaling.

If you have a cushion of about a second before the start of your scene, and at the end, your program will use that footage as the handle. So, when the clip fully fades in, you will see him pedaling.

Handles also come into play with how you use your tapes. When using a new tape, you want to have the camera record for just a few seconds before recording your desired footage. As you near the end of the tape, record for a couple of seconds at the end of your last scene before stopping the tape.

This will ensure you have handles at the start and end of your tapes, as well as between scenes. Some video editing software needs a couple of seconds to read the metadata off videotapes (mini-DV, HDV, super8, VHS-C) prior to actually capturing the video.

Ever lived through this situation? You captured the perfect video. Your daughter’s recital. Your trip to Cancun. Whatever.

You’re so excited that you rush home and show the video to your mom, friends, whomever. You either connect the camera to the tv or make everyone squint and watch it on the camera’s LCD.

You rewind the tape to the part you want to view, put the camera in VCR or play mode, and press play. No problem.

Now you want to use the camera again. You put it in camera or record mode and press record.

No problem, right? Wrong. Didn’t we leave out a step? What about the part where we fast forward the tape to the end of the existing footage before pressing record again?

Without fast forwarding, you are about to record over your existing footage!

Another problem, even if you do fast forward, is something called a timecode break. Digital8, miniDV, and HDV tapes are all digital media. The tapes contain metadata to tell the computer how far into the tape you are located.

This is super handy when you go to capture your footage to computer. You can log the footage to a database on your computer (the subject of a future post) without actually taking up any hard drive space. Then when you want to use the footage in a project, you tell your movie editing software which tape and timecode and it will recapture it for you.

Well that sounds like you only need timecode if you’re a professional editor. Nope, many consumer editing programs will only capture the footage if the timecode metadata is present and intact.

The timecode is in the form hours:minutes:seconds;frames. It looks something like this: 01:01:36;20. That means you are one hour, one minute, 36 seconds, 20 frames into the tape. Digital8, miniDV, and HDV tapes can hold approximately one hour of footage.

The timecode should start at 00:00:00;00 and proceed to approximately 01:02:00:00. This means the end of the tape should be at about 1 hour, 2 minutes of footage.

If you get a break in the code, from things like rewinding and restarting the tape, the code will start over from 00:00:00;00 someplace in the middle of the tape. So, you’ll have two spots on the tape which say 00:00:01;00 etc. Not good. Your computer will have a hard time capturing the tape.

Speaking of how much footage will fit on a tape, you never want to squeeze more video on a tape than what will fit at best quality. If your camera has a setting allowing you to put two hours of video on a one hour tape, don’t do it! Again, your computer may have trouble capturing the video.

Another consideration when videotaping is how your computer will ingest, or capture, the footage. Your computer is going to want to read metadata off the tape prior to capture.

So, you’ll want to have a few seconds of filler material at the start and end of every tape.

You’ll also want that filler material (technical term=handles), if possible, at the start and end of every scene. This will give you some wiggle room when you go to edit the footage.

It’s really not something you need to think about much. Have the camera recording for a second before letting people know to start the action. Keep it recording for a second after the action is done. That’s all.

Now let’s address the issue of how to prevent mystery tapes. You know, that box of unlabeled tapes. You’ll save yourself a lot of time in the future if you label tapes accurately as you use them. At the very least, put the year on them.

If you already have unlabeled tapes, the only recourse is to violate my first rule and play the tapes back a bit on the camera, so you know what’s on them. You can then label and store them. Since they’re already fully used, you shouldn’t run the risk of taping over them. Just make sure to take them out of the camera when you’re done!

Lastly, how do we solve the problem of filming the floor? Simple – set the alarm on your camera. Most cameras have an option for a beep when record is turned on or off. That should at least give you a head’s up that you pressed the button when you are done recording.

If you have a hard drive or flash camera, showing people the footage right on the camera or tv is fine. Each movie clip is a unique file, so you won’t overwrite your footage or mess up the timecode when you press record again.

Ever converted your old home movies to DVD? Have you actually watched the entire length of the DVD? And, last question, did you watch it at normal playback speed?

Your Dad captured your first trip to the ocean on video. All two hours of your trip is on that DVD. Someplace in the middle, you’re not sure where, is a hilarious scene of your first attempt on a surfboard.

So you suffer through the whole DVD. It’s boring, so you watch your precious memories in high-speed. Take your pick, 2x or 4x speed, your memories go whizzing by.

Why bother? Wouldn’t it make more sense to edit it them down to a manageable length before watching them with family?

You want them to re-live the memories, not be bored by them.

Especially if it was a transfer from 16 mm film reels rather than VHS. Those reels most likely didn’t have any sound. If you were lucky, your transfer service included some beautiful royalty-free music, if not, you received two hours of video with no sound at all.

The music might sound like elevator music, and perhaps didn’t exactly go with the mood of the video, but it was better than nothing. You only fell asleep after the first 15 minutes.

What you really want to do is edit these home movies down to a watchable length, add some titles and captions, perhaps add some photos. Then you can share it with family at normal speed.

If your video is transferred to DVD, you can edit it directly from the DVD format (MPEG-2 files). However, it will be of very poor quality. You’ll need this software to get the files into a format which can be edited.

Your best bet when getting video converted is to have it transferred to an external hard drive. You can then either edit it down yourself or have it professionally edited.

Once you have a hard drive edition of your film, you can begin the editing process! Remember to keep the overall movie length under 30 minutes. The yawning begins at about that point.

We’ve probably all used YouTube at one time or another. My only problem with YouTube is the lack of privacy. I enjoy sending out video invitations for our annual Halloween party, but don’t want to invite 15,000,000 people.

Sure YouTube is free, but have you ever attempted to make a video private? It’s nearly impossible to figure out and then even if you do, it’s hard to get people to actually view it that way.

Here’s the scenario:

Your uncle shot your wedding video and your friends sent you all their photos from the event. You just had your DIY wedding video edited and want to share it with your family and friends – and only them. The example below is hosted on YouTube for bandwidth considerations.

Here’s a rundown of some companies, other than YouTube, that allow free online video sharing with the following criterion:

1. Free – really free
2. Ability to easily set the videos for private viewing only 
3. No software to download – there were other websites out there which met the first two criterion, but then required unique software to upload video (something I try to avoid whenever possible).
4. No need for your guests to sign up with the service in order to view your videos – think how annoying Snapfish is for doing that.

Photobucket allows up to 1GB of storage for free. This can be photos or video. Video must  be less than 5 minutes and 100 MB.

Your account will be public by default, but this can easily be changed in your account settings. You assign a password for your guests. They can then view your videos without needing a Photobucket account.

Flickr limits your video files to 90 seconds in length, 150 MB. You can upload 2 per month with a free account.

Motionbox allows 750 MB of video storage for free. Your file size is limited to 300MB with the free account. Movies are easily shared with your family and friends. No additional software is needed to upload video, although it is available.

Our sample video is 45 seconds; 87 MB. If you had a 10 minute video, you would most likely be limited to using YouTube and navigating their clear-as-mud privacy settings.

Any longer than 10 minutes and you’ll have problems finding a site to host it. Although, any longer than 10 minutes, you’ll also have issues getting anyone other than your mother to watch the whole thing.

If you don’t care about your videos being private, YouTube is by far the simplest option. If you don’t mind downloading software, your options for private video sharing go up, but not significantly.

If you know of another alternative which meets the above 4 criterion please post it to our comments.

So you’ve got a camcorder which records to SD (flash memory) card. You downloaded your video footage to the computer to edit someday… who knows when?

You want to use the memory card again, what do you do with the footage that’s already on it?

If you delete it, the only copy of your once-in-a-lifetime Tahitian vacation is on your hard drive, which could – should we dare say it – crash.

These are big files. It’s not like backing up your photos – a few Gb. These video files might be anywhere from 5 – 20 Gb per file. What the heck do you do with that? The original video footage files are too big to fit on a single DVD.

What you need is a plan. An archival plan for your video files so that you know they’re safe from hard drive failure or accidental erasure of your card.

Back in the days (last year) of tape, you always had that tape to go back to, if you experienced a failure of your hard drive. You could always recapture the video footage to your hard drive.

But now you have this teeny little card, which you erase and reuse to get more video footage.

There are 3 archival options to keep you safe:

• Buy a memory card for every movie. 
• Back up all your video files to recordable DVDs.
• Buy an external hard drive. 

The problem with buying more memory cards is that you are now losing the cost savings you earned when you switched from tape to flash memory. You’re still buying one for every movie. 

If you decide to go this route and buy more cards, I’ve found them to be quite affordable here.

You'll need tons of dvd's to backup original video footage

Backing your video files up to data DVD is probably the least efficient method. Note, I said data DVD, not just DVD. If you simply burn a DVD of your footage, you’ll compress it, which will greatly reduce the quality when you go to edit.

You need to get software which enables you to transfer the uncompressed video footage to DVD or Blu-Ray disc. This involves spanning the video file across several discs, which is possible with this program.

external hard drives are your best option

Archival of your video footage to external hard drive is the most cost efficient and safest method. You can get a 500 GB hard drive for well under $100 and store several hours of footage.

Most professional filmmakers take a triple threat approach. 

1. Copy original files from flash memory card to a backup hard drive.
2. Capture video files to your editing hard drive, this can be a second internal hard drive. It’s good practice not to edit right from your startup disk as it really taxes the drive.
3. Copy original files to another external drive and store in a locked, fireproof safe. Most of us won’t take this last step.

A plain English translation of the video archival backup plan:

1. Download the video files to your computer, preferably to either a second internal hard drive or external hard drive. You will edit from these files.
2. Connect your designated backup drive to your computer (not the one used in step 1). Download those same video files right from the flash memory card to your backup drive.
3. Reformat the card and it’s ready to use again.

Another thing to consider when looking at external hard drives: connection method. 

USB2.0, although somewhat fast, parses the video files into bundles, not streams, which does not allow for efficient editing. Your computer will need to recreate the video files into continuous streams for editing. Firewire 800 or eSATA are your best bets.

Do you own a camcorder which records to mini DVD?  They do offer some benefits, but man those drawbacks are some doozies.

Here’s the benefits:

• You can easily find a particular point in your movie without scrolling through a lot of tape 
• They’re affordable 
• You can show your home movie right in your DVD player without having to edit

Aaah, but there’s the rub.  Playing it back in your DVD player without editing. Let’s examine that.

Is your DVD player of choice actually your laptop, with a slot loading drive? (Not the one that looks like a cupholder). Stop! You’ll destroy your DVD drive if you place a mini disc in it.

Now let’s look at the convenience of not editing your movie. Well sure, it’s convenient; it’s also, most likely, boring.  

Picture “America’s Funniest Home Videos” without the sound effects and each shaky clip is actually a half hour long, 15 minutes of which includes footage of the lens cap, wall, floor, and an extreme closeup of a child’s tonsils.

Geek alert: the rest of the post is rather technical.

There are currently two common formats of DVD compression, MPEG-2 and AVCHD.  MPEG-2 is standard definition, while AVCHD is high definition. Both of these are a beast to edit, but for different reasons.

Good luck editing your DVD footage on your computer

MPEG-2 is the compression of most movies that you play in your DVD player. This compression is what enables the computer to take a really huge movie file and fit it on a disc.  It does not lend itself well to decent quality for editing.

If you pop one of these discs into your computer, you will not see any files to edit, at least nothing with a .mov or .avi after its name.  You will see VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders.

Inside the VIDEO_TS folder you’ll see a bunch of unfamiliar files with endings like .vob, .ifo, and .bup.  Inside the AUDIO_TS folder you’ll find absolutely nothing.

You’ll need a program like this free one to turn the files into a .mov or .avi file for editing in iMovie, Moviemaker, or some equivalent editing software.

Most likely, you won’t like the quality of what you wind up with.  Much of the detail in your movie was lost when it was initially compressed onto a DVD.

AVCHD is high definition recording.  Lot’s of detail, right? Well, it depends on your camera.

And again, good luck editing it.  Many consumer video editing programs cannot edit this format unless you first convert the files to something they can read. And even then, you need a very fast computer to do it without banging your head on a wall repeatedly.

And, another note. I hope you’re not trying to record the entire dance recital on DVD.  Recording time is generally limited to around 22 minutes.