Re: searching for new directions

From: Freya (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Jul 08 2006 - 06:18:16 PDT


Hiya!
  Didn't read your whole posting (it's very long and I
have a ton of things to sort out right now) but I'm in
a bit of a similar situation myself!

  I'm presently studying at a university here in
England and I asked if they had a film projector. At
first they looked very dubious, and they said, oh you
mean for old slide film. However when I said that no I
meant movie or cine film, they looked at me like I was
completely crazy. I said I'd like to use a super 8
projector but that any old 16mm projector would do.
"God we threw out all those years ago!" came the
reply. They said there might be a slide projector
somewhere, maybe in another building but definitely no
film projectors.

  I did hear rumour of a 16mm projector elsewhere in
the university. I managed to get a fair ways to
tracking it down, however when I spoke to someone
about the possibility of using it, I was told that
there was no way I could possibly be allowed to use
it. They also told me off for even thinking of using
film and that I shouldn't be using that out of date
stuff and that I would be just wasting everyones time
as well as my own. The felow was quite angry with me.

  Sometimes I get ridiculed for having an old cine
camera and people gather around to laugh at it etc.
All the other students shoot video if anything of
course.

  Eventually I did meet a few other people interested
in film. One of them wanted to scan a slide they had
into a computer but the slide scanner had broken down
and there were no plans to replace it as nobody shot
film much anymore. I knew of an place where there was
a brand new slide scanner. It was in an old hidden
away place called "the slide library". Unfortunately
we weren't allowed to use it. It turned out it had
never been used in fact. Shortly after it was bought
they realised that nobody could use it because of "the
copyright".

  I have lots of stories like this. In fact the only
reason I knew about the slide library myself was that
I had got lost and found it by accident and then one
day when I had some slides developed I went it to use
the carousel slide viewer. The lady who worked there
was quite shocked as nobody had ever asked to see any
slides since she started working there 3 or 4 years
ago. It took us about 20 minutes to work out how to
operate the slide carouself. The lady told me she was
quite worried about what would happen if they stopped
making ribbons for her electric typewriter, as all the
slide cards have to be typed by hand on specially
coloured paper.

  All I can suggest to your friend is to find the few
other people who are into film, or alternatively, just
use video like everyone else does. After all, if it's
causing her that much trouble, then theres no point
being stupid about it!

love

Freya

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