A long time ago, I received a gift from my mother that sort of changed the course of my life.
She’d purchased a Super 8mm camera along with a projector. They were both made by GAF, which was a well-known brand in home movies.
She’d also picked out, or perhaps they were suggested by the salesman, several movies to watch: The French Connection, Abbott and Costello, and Herbie the Love Bug, with the projector and a pull-down screen that had a sandy, sparkly textured surface. I understood it was to illuminate better and to eliminate shiny spots. It was so long ago… I could be wrong.
I was a young child who had no idea how to make a movie, let alone how to use all the wonder brand-new equipment, and neither did my mother. As always, she’d left it up to me to…figure it out. And I did.
Looking back on some of the footage, which survived Hurricane Katrina, I can now see where my lack of education in filmmaking is evident. And I don’t mean in my compositions, I think I did well with that and my lighting. It’s not knowing how to clean my gate or having my lens properly polished.
But, hey, I still get nostalgic when I look at this clip. No editing or separate sound recording. This is right out of the can.
Creole Gaudet
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