Burlington College hosts Home Movie Day

Print More
MP3

(Host) Old home movies are increasingly valuable to historians and film experts.

Despite their choppy black and white images, they’re a rich source of family memories. But they’re a decades-old medium disappearing in today’s digital age.

On Saturday at Burlington College, some people will be trying to change that as part of the worldwide “Home Movie Day.”

VPR’s John Van Hoesen has more.

(the whir of a projector)

(Mary Jacobs) “Mom was always baking and we always loved to get the bowl left…bowl of cake mix and the frosting. Now this is funny. Dad, who was a military officer who had all these kids and it must have been a mother’s day that he put on the apron and pretended to be mom and helping out with the laundry. Now this must be…like seeing these cars – these are quite the antique now .”

(Van Hoesen) Mary Jacobs is getting a glimpse into her childhood through her father’s old home movies. Growing up in Jericho, she was the sixth of nine children and there are a lot of memories here.

She’s among the many people who want to save the personal history in these films. So she’s here at Burlington College, where they’re getting ready for “Home Movie Day.”

It’s an international event begun by film archivists who want to save the many reels of home movies that were shot during the 20th century.

The movements are jerky and fast. Scenes are short. Transitions are abrupt. But as the light flickers on Mary Jacobs, she has an instant soundtrack.

(Jacobs) “They’re building this big sand castle, falling inside it and everyone’s throwing mud trying to save it from the waves…the boys in the go carts and probably Dad’s in there too. Notice they all have the same haircut. Mom was very proficient with the clippers.

(Van Hoesen) Happily, the condition of the film is good. Joe Bookchin, the director of film and video production at Burlington College, is at the projector and takes a look.

(Bookchin) “It looks the same way when it was first projected. The image quality is sort of amazing. The blacks are very black and the whites are white and there’s a bunch of tonality in between the image. It looks very three-dimensional. The film is able to retain so much information even though it’s over like 50 years old.”

(Van Hoesen) One of the main ideas is to physically preserve the reels. Another is making sure they’re not thrown away. For the families, faded memories are revived. And Barry Snyder, the chairman of cinema studies at the college, says there’s an important historical record at stake.

(Snyder) “I think people associate home movies with the 40s and 50s. And there’s an innocence about that time. People weren’t aware of cameras as they are now. So cameras had the ability to capture life in the raw in a way I think we’ll never be able to return to.”

(Van Hoesen) Sometimes a film canister can be full of surprises. Here’s one that the Jacobs family has brought in. The old metal is tarnished and in black marker there’s a handwritten, but promising, index on the cover . We’re in Guam; it’s 1958.

(Jacobs) “We’re taking a look at some celebrity arriving. We’re getting off a B-52 bomber…And Bob Hope…and this looks like Marilyn Monroe, or it’s a Marilyn Monroe lookalike. (laughs) This was the whole era when the big film Hollywood film stars would go around the world to visit the troops. It is Marilyn Monroe. So this was the Bob Hope tour.”

(Van Hoesen) For Mary Jacobs, just watching the movies has brought back a flood of memories and raised some new information.

As time passes, she sometimes wonders .

(Jacobs) “How am I going to remember the smile or the eyes? So to see it captured even though its very old footage, it’s a treasure to have.”

(Van Hoesen) So here in Vermont and around the world, some people will show up with movies that they’ve never seen before. They’ll screen them on an old projector. It’s history, and the archivists hope they’ll preserve it.

For Vermont Public Radio, I’m John Van Hoesen.

Note: Here are some links for more information on this and other Home Movie Day events around the world.

Burlington College Home Movie Day information
Official Home Movie Day web site
HomeMovie.com

Comments are closed.