The Ruins (1970) Reel 2 of 3 Pre-Harry Potter Wizard Battles

[ofmay]

To set the mode for this one should see "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" first (Silent version)

[ofmay]

Peter did you edit as we went? Or was it after it was all shot that you put it all together?

[dizozza]

edited as we went, "in the camera," except for when you see visible signs of scotch tape over the frames... it's a series of 5 25 foot 16mm roles that we had to turned over, filming on half of each side. The developers split it and sent it back to us in a 50 foot 8mm role with a cement splice in the middle.

[ofmay]

Did you have Pink Floyd in mind from the start?

[dizozza]

Good point. Absolutely, the stomping footsteps in the beginning of the film walking along the tracks for Astronomy Domine, You walking up the sand hill at the end for the extended "oh-ing" of "Saucerful of Secrets." these are all off the pink floyd ummagumma album, prior to people playing "dark side of the moon" to a silent wizard of oz...

[ofmay]

WOW so obvious but I just got that it was 16mm film cut in half. So was the shift to Super8 dictated by a shift in the hole configuration for 16mm film?

[dizozza]

Super 8mm film was my first experience with companies strategically making their products obsolete so that consumers had to purchase an entirely new system (rather than improve upon what they already had...)

Prior to planned consumer obsolescence, the film stock was cut from whatever was standard at the time...

[dizozza]

I think 16mm was clipped out of 35mm (it didn't use the 35mm film sprockets) and then split in half. There was also a 9 1/2mm home movie format, but in the US I think 16mm was the home movie format. As we saw from the film venture following The Ruins (Angels: Tour of the Vultures), 16mm film frames were pretty readable to they eye, and hence more editable. They have about 1/4 the film information of a 35mm film frame.

[dizozza]

8mm has 1/4 the film information of 16mm. Where are we at? 1/32nd of the film detail quality of The Great Train Robbery?

Super 8mm increased the frame size and reduced the space for sprockets.

[ofmay]

I wonder if the change in sprocket hole size vs frame also happen with 16mm. Were they still splitting 16mm to get super 8?

[ofmay]

This film it one of the top icons of you childhood. Working on this with Peter and my travels to Italy two years latter were both huge for me. It is in part why I have so much fun on Yiu Tube. Clay your work brings this back to me very clearly.

[dizozza]

If you watched this then you just did. This middle 10 minutes is the space time hypotaneus of 10 hours.

[clayLavl]

love the music. who is the composer?

[dizozza]

please go back to 1968... I think Ed knows...

[ofmay]

The Pink Floyd "Dark side of the Moon"?

[dizozza]

ummagumma

[ofmay]

I recognized some of it from "Live at Pompeii".