Notes from May 2007

Portland projector guys

I posted an Elmo CL-16 I acquired through a junk haul on a local forum as a give away item, and was contacted by exactly one person. That person is Rob who does some projection at the Hollywood Theater. It just so happens that Rob works on CL-16 amongst other projectors. I also discovered he has an Eiki 5020, an early model intermittent pedestal projector. Rob appears to be part of what I would consider a loose-knit group of projector guys and film collectors who reside here in Portland. Not certain if there is a high concentration here, or if the scene is typical of scenes elsewhere. In the last few years I have met probably a dozen people who have film collections and home theaters, and one fellow, Jack, who repairs Auricon sound amplifiers. Jack even visited the old Bach-Auricon factory just before it was demolished to recover parts sitting dormant in the building where the factory once resided. All of this seems to give new meaning to the expression "Film Underground".

May 28, 2007  –  permalink

Film Action loan of MTM recorders

The local non-profit Film Action Oregon has been kind enough to loan me (and the projects of 40 Frames) several MTM recorders. These machines were once in use at the old Teknifilm Labs (Portland’s full service film lab that died in July of 1998), after-which they were used by a local sound editor on several big budget features before they landed at Film Action last year. I’d been looking all over the country for recorders like these, so I was fortunate to find several sitting in my own backyard. These model R106-UV recorders have AC drive motors instead of the late-model DC servo. Apparently, Frank Hood, the original founder of Teknifilm, added the selsyn drives for running multiple machines in interlock. Wayne, one of the last people to operate these machines at Teknifilm and a sound engineer at Sonic Arts, has agreed to lend some assistance in getting the system up and running.

May 04, 2007  –  permalink