July 30th, 2007

Today is not really a transgender entry, but one I really want to put out.  A while ago, my Grandmother who is 99 voiced a desire to see her old home movies that were taken between the 1930's & 1950s.  Being the 'techno geek' of the family I volunteered to transfer them from 8mm film to digital files.  I did look up how they process is done, and literally filming the movie with another camera is how it's frequently done.  So I tried with my cassette cam corder, but had trouble adjusting the frame rate to match the original.  I also know it's a pain to go from cassette to digital after that, so I went out and spent $300 on a DVD camcorder so I'd already have it digitized once I got the settings right.  Well, I had no luck synchronizing the frame rates and wasn't sure how well it was going to turn out.  I'd look at some other places to do it professionally, but for the amount of film we had, it was going to cost a fortune. 

My mother actually sent me an article she'd come across that reviewed several places who performed this service, and one of them was much cheaper than the others.  So to make my life alot easier and relieve my conscience, I sent them all in to be transferred.  As I mentioned, Grandma is 99 and I'd have felt absolutely terrible if something happened before she got to see them.  So I spent $365 on transfering the films over, and they came out very well.  Sure, some films the lighting was dim or bright, but I'm sure that's how the original film was too.

Of course, I have to make it more complicated than that, and thought it'd be even cooler to record my Grandma narrating the movies, and then combine the audio to make a documentary of sorts.  So I took even more time to make sure I had software that did this and knew how to make it work.  (editing software, $99, but I did already own it).

Finally, I felt comfortable with how it all should go, and today I got out to see my Grandmother and we watched all the films.  I took notes on what she said for who the people were, where it was and what the event may have been.  As for my 'documentary' project that will take some time as we need to nail down more whose being shown and add some background and write up a script.  I figure my Mom will be able to help with that, so now I'm looking forward to working on this project with my Mother & Grandmother.  Instead of just going through the usual visits like we have for decades, we can actually be doing something together, and I'm excited about that.

HOWEVER, the main thing for me today was just watching the films with my Grandmother & seeing all the people who were in her life then and imagining how it all must have been.  As I got in my car to leave, I got a bit teary eyed and thought of those credit card commercials and thought "Getting to watch your Grandmothers 70 year old movies with her - PRICELESS!!"

I still get choked up just typing this.