Late in 2000, I invested in a handful of short 16mm sound films with the intention of having them transferred to videotape. But it took two tries to get it done right. First I took them to a local dealer who said he wasn't sure if he had the right equipment to do the job. But he gave it a shot and charged me about $27. I wound up paying for a hack job involving screening the films on a wall and aiming a camcorder at the picture.The end result can be seen in the first still on the left. Notice how Gandy Goose appears trapped in a shrunken picture area with a thick black frame around him. Note too that details in the shot aren't too visible, that there's a greenish-yellow tint to the scene, and it looks like Gandy is almost dancing in the dark.
After I got my money back from those amateurs, I took the footage to another studio that does professional-type work they can take pride in. The cost was almost three times as much as the first job, but the results were worth it. Look how much more room Gandy's got to move around in, how much more you can see, and how brighter everything looks. The downside for me was discovering that filling a whole two-hour tape with stuff like this is waaaaaaay too expensive for me to do in one fell swoop, so I'm adding newly-acquired film gradually. But for you who can afford to do this regularly and all at once, remember the moral of this story: choose your transfer service carefully...or else your "goose" will be cooked.
Gandy Goose ©1940 by Terrytoons, division of Viacom International, not used by permission
