Good news! My Super Vox motor has been sent away for re-winding and will soon be ready! Bad news: it's going to cost a bit more than the £70 originally suggested, nearer £160 actually. Damn! The thing is I'm an unwaged ex-student with two Master's degrees looking for a good job in a market that is never exactly buoyant at the best of times and because of the recession is currently flat as a pancake. I'm holding down two volunteer jobs to try and get the 10 billion years of experience all the jobs that do come up seem to require and as a result I'm not exactly rolling in it. And I'm trying to save up a not inconsiderable sum for a 17.5mm projector and all this extra expenditure really isn't helping!
And what the f**k is with these glass negs, they've cleaned and scanned OK but looking at them now they look and feel like they're coated in oil, don't know what the hell is going on. Is one supposed to use distilled water? Nobody ever taught me this sh*t! I get so annoyed that there is so little information out there when one tries to fill in the gaps in one's knowledge of this sort of thing. I did have a good look around for information on handling glass negatives, I know a bit but things like 'use distilled water' if it is neccessary would have been helpful, as it is there's next to nothing (and one of my master's degrees is in librarianship so it's not like I don't know how to find information). If I wanted to know about diodes or the properties of iron oxide there are more websites than one can shake a stick at but glass negatives... F**king conservators, get some of that knowledge out there. Slipping your uncles and cousins in through the back door and teaching them on the job is all well and crap but what about those of us trying to make their way without any f**king nepotism?! Grrrrr...
Motors, glass slides, torn film perfs, hydrolised videotape binders, why didn't I become a f**king brain surgeon, not much harder and one gets payed a hell of a lot f**king more!
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
More Little Things
It really is the little things that get one down. Like trying to convince my 16 year old sister that 99% of modern culture is rubbish (no chance!), wishing I could be bothered to find everything to set the N64 up so I can test how well my soldering the lead of the buster controller has gone. Or that said 16 year old sister would stop wailing like a banshee. Or that I could face going for a quick walk so I might actually stand a chance of shifting some of this paunch I'm cursed with. Or that I could be bothered to get everything together so I can test this sound mixer now that I have a DC supply for it. It's not so much that I'm lazy, more that the N64 and the sound mixer require actually finding things in all this clutter because this small armpit of a room really isn't big enough! Hey ho!
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Monday, 2 August 2010
All The Little Things
Argh! Glass negs I've had to scan in two sections not stitching together properly, film without any kind of edge markings or where the markings have faded/rubbed away, learning to drive, broken Super Vox motors, trying to finish writing this book, typing handwritten notes up...
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Cost & Availability
Lets deal with today's topics one at a time.
The good news is that Network, one of the greatest companies ever, has released a 4 CD set of music from 'The Saint' to compliment their fantastic range (http://www.networkdvd.net/product_info.php?products_id=1154) . The bad news is I haven't bought one single one yet because they're quite expensive and I'm quite poor. The really bad news is I really want a copy of that set but really can't afford the expense at the moment, particularly as I will soon be in need of what little spare cash I do have to pay for having this Super Vox motor rewound (see posts below). Meh! On a similar note that Tondo Junior CT80 I've got my eyes on is also way outside my price range right now. F**king rich people- "I say Cecil, I just bought a new set of nickel plated titanium golf clubs with with Texas leather covered handles and I spent £20,000 having my coat of arms embroidered into the leather on each of them in 18ct gold thread", rich people haven't got a f**king clue!
And now for something money really can't buy short of being able to purchase the rights. I haven't mentioned it on this here blog before but my friends know I get very frustrated at certain TV programmes/pieces of music etc. not having been officially released by the rights holders. For example the BBC has a 16mm telerecording neg of a 1958 production of' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' directed by Rudolph Cartier himself sitting on a shelf somewhere in the BFI's vaults and it's never been released/repeated. Not even a 'grey market' copy, just nothing. And that's bloody Shakespeare! And boy would I like to see it! It is with deep frustration then if not surprise that I sit here lamenting the lack of a copy of Delia Derbyshire's 'IEE 100' despite an immensely tantalising snippet being played as part of a documentary about her that was transmitted last year. There has been a recent CD of some of her works yet 'IEE 100' is irritatingly absent. THESE THINGS ARE NO BLOODY GOOD SITTING ON A SHELF IN SOME VAULT, GET THEM OUT THERE FOR F**K SAKE!!! And preferably at a cheaper price than the average Network release please! A piano score of David Lee/Hal Shaper's 'Adam Adamant' theme wouldn't go amiss either!
Di-da-di-da-di-da.
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
The good news is that Network, one of the greatest companies ever, has released a 4 CD set of music from 'The Saint' to compliment their fantastic range (http://www.networkdvd.net/product_info.php?products_id=1154) . The bad news is I haven't bought one single one yet because they're quite expensive and I'm quite poor. The really bad news is I really want a copy of that set but really can't afford the expense at the moment, particularly as I will soon be in need of what little spare cash I do have to pay for having this Super Vox motor rewound (see posts below). Meh! On a similar note that Tondo Junior CT80 I've got my eyes on is also way outside my price range right now. F**king rich people- "I say Cecil, I just bought a new set of nickel plated titanium golf clubs with with Texas leather covered handles and I spent £20,000 having my coat of arms embroidered into the leather on each of them in 18ct gold thread", rich people haven't got a f**king clue!
And now for something money really can't buy short of being able to purchase the rights. I haven't mentioned it on this here blog before but my friends know I get very frustrated at certain TV programmes/pieces of music etc. not having been officially released by the rights holders. For example the BBC has a 16mm telerecording neg of a 1958 production of' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' directed by Rudolph Cartier himself sitting on a shelf somewhere in the BFI's vaults and it's never been released/repeated. Not even a 'grey market' copy, just nothing. And that's bloody Shakespeare! And boy would I like to see it! It is with deep frustration then if not surprise that I sit here lamenting the lack of a copy of Delia Derbyshire's 'IEE 100' despite an immensely tantalising snippet being played as part of a documentary about her that was transmitted last year. There has been a recent CD of some of her works yet 'IEE 100' is irritatingly absent. THESE THINGS ARE NO BLOODY GOOD SITTING ON A SHELF IN SOME VAULT, GET THEM OUT THERE FOR F**K SAKE!!! And preferably at a cheaper price than the average Network release please! A piano score of David Lee/Hal Shaper's 'Adam Adamant' theme wouldn't go amiss either!
Di-da-di-da-di-da.
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Computers and Glass Negatives
Yes I know, I'm a bad blogger, if one were as irregular in real life one would go and see the doctor. Still here I am and here's some stuff not being easy. Computers. I was having a crack at tracing the olde family tree back a bit yesterday. Couldn't get very far on the side I wanted to because I don't know my great grandfather's name but on the 'other' side I managed to trace back one relative's ancestry to about 1812! But I don't doubt I'd have done it a whole lot quicker if the family computer (pun intended!) wasn't playing silly f**kers! SO f**king slow! The only conclusion I can reach with that one is the network USB stick gets very hot and this is affecting performance. But even so how can it take quite so f**king long to load a simple webpage?! Even on my computer Firefox seems to take several years to load, it clicks and whirrs away, WHAT THE F**K IS IT DOING??!
So I get a message the other day at the archive, a lady has called and wants her collection of glass negatives digitised. With some trepidation I arranged to meet her today. The trepidation arises because the scanner we have at the archive that can handle glass materials can't handle anything larger than about 6"x4" ('standard' size). So I've been hoping and preying they're all 'standard' size. Now what do you suppose happened? That's right, there was a right mish-mash. About a third are standard, the other two thirds are larger and will have to be scanned in sections and stitched together. Now try as I might I cannot make the process work completely seamlessly, it is impossible to get the quadrants to line up pixel-for-pixel because it is impossible to line the negs up precisely straight every time by hand (which is what I have to do). Scanners capable of handling larger glass materials begin at around £500 so we can forget that! On the plus side. even though I have made it clear that the results will not be 100% on the larger negs, I am getting paid to digitise them. But this just means I have to work 110% to get them just as good as I possibly can, I guess that's the downside to having a sense of professional pride.
Once again the solutions are so simple, a better computer/USB stick and a better scanner, these would make my life SO much easier (and I'd get paid the same without having to do 4x the work). Better still couldn't the glass negs have all been 'standard' size? No, of course they couldn't, because that would be easy and, as we know,
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
So I get a message the other day at the archive, a lady has called and wants her collection of glass negatives digitised. With some trepidation I arranged to meet her today. The trepidation arises because the scanner we have at the archive that can handle glass materials can't handle anything larger than about 6"x4" ('standard' size). So I've been hoping and preying they're all 'standard' size. Now what do you suppose happened? That's right, there was a right mish-mash. About a third are standard, the other two thirds are larger and will have to be scanned in sections and stitched together. Now try as I might I cannot make the process work completely seamlessly, it is impossible to get the quadrants to line up pixel-for-pixel because it is impossible to line the negs up precisely straight every time by hand (which is what I have to do). Scanners capable of handling larger glass materials begin at around £500 so we can forget that! On the plus side. even though I have made it clear that the results will not be 100% on the larger negs, I am getting paid to digitise them. But this just means I have to work 110% to get them just as good as I possibly can, I guess that's the downside to having a sense of professional pride.
Once again the solutions are so simple, a better computer/USB stick and a better scanner, these would make my life SO much easier (and I'd get paid the same without having to do 4x the work). Better still couldn't the glass negs have all been 'standard' size? No, of course they couldn't, because that would be easy and, as we know,
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
More Film Orientation Issues
Forgive me for dredging up this theme again but honestly...
Today I was trying to catalogue some films that were originally all from the same collection. It's proving incredibly difficult however because every so often the film will not just change horizontal orientation (so all the lettering is suddenly the wrong way round) but switches direction (so one moment it will be running 'forward' then the next scene will be in reverse). I cannot begin to tell you the sort of evil this makes one dream of visiting upon the moron who put the film together like that. If Vlad the Impaler's victims had consisted solely of these people then I, for one, would consider him one of history's greatest agents of justice! Joining film the correct way round and in the correct orientation isn't difficult it just REQUIRES A BRAIN! But no, instead it's taking me ages to sort out and is causing much frustration. And I've got about another six reels to do. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Today I was trying to catalogue some films that were originally all from the same collection. It's proving incredibly difficult however because every so often the film will not just change horizontal orientation (so all the lettering is suddenly the wrong way round) but switches direction (so one moment it will be running 'forward' then the next scene will be in reverse). I cannot begin to tell you the sort of evil this makes one dream of visiting upon the moron who put the film together like that. If Vlad the Impaler's victims had consisted solely of these people then I, for one, would consider him one of history's greatest agents of justice! Joining film the correct way round and in the correct orientation isn't difficult it just REQUIRES A BRAIN! But no, instead it's taking me ages to sort out and is causing much frustration. And I've got about another six reels to do. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Super Vox 2
I had an email last night from the wizard. He informed me that after many hours of tinkering sorting out a butchered baring and installing a spare Super Vox motor he had my machine was living once more and was ready for collection. I went up and we started to run a film through it to test everything. Then just as we were coming to the end the noise from the motor disappeared and the whole thing packed up! What this means is that I will have to get my original motor professionally re-wound (our little attempt at repair not having worked in the end). On the downside this will cost about £70 and I could do without the expenditure at present but there we are. The major plus is it should 'future proof' the motor for some years, all being well. Of course the easiest thing would have been if our repair or the alternative motor had worked but once again life has proved that:
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Nothing's ever f**king easy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
