AV Geeks 16mm Lunch 5-14-2025

Hello everybody. This is Skip Alzheimer. Welcome to the AV Geeks Lunchtime streaming show where we watch old 16mimeter films. And that was a German film. I think roughly translated uh the title was at the front, but you know, Google could be wrong. Um, so let's see. I have a bunch of new stuff to show you, stuff that we scanned uh earlier this week. Uh, we're going to start off with some cornet stuff. This is zoo animals um in the wild, elephants. Elephants big, heavy, noisy. There are elephants from Asia and elephants from Africa. This one's from Africa. African elephants are taller and weigh more than Asian elephants and they have much bigger ears. Elephants stay together in small groups called herds. [Music] They eat plants. Their trunks are certainly useful. And when an elephant isn't using its trunk to eat, it can use its trunk to drink. But a trunk can't do everything an elephant needs. Sometimes an elephant has to use a different kind of trunk. [Music] Elephants cover themselves with dust to protect their skin from insects. See how useful a trunk is? So out in Africa where these elephants live, they're usually pretty dusty until they get into water. An elephant drinks about 1,000 times as much water as you do. Look at those tusks. Tusks are just long teeth. Baby elephants don't have them. They grow slowly as an elephant gets older. Elephants use water for more than just drinking. Rolling around in the muddy water keeps an elephant nice and cool. [Music] [Music] And when they finish playing in the muddy water, they'll cover themselves with dust again. [Music] Elephant. [Music] [Music] [Music] Yeah, Jack Hannah. Uh we've seen others in that series and I'm sure there'll be more coming at some point. Uh this next film is uh also another cornet. So we've got some cornet ones that we've done and we got some other stuff. Uh this one is a companion to another film that we showed uh last week or week before last called E is for energy. This is E is for ecology. Enjoy. This is an E. This E is for energy. And this is an E. This E is for ecology. E. And the star of this movie is the ecology E. [Music] Just checking out my ecology. The sun's energy is so warm. Now, watch this. This is one of my favorite parts of ecology. As the sun warms the air, the air soaks up little teeny drops of water. So small you can't even see them. It's cooler up here, so clouds [Music] [Applause] form. That was a cycle. C Y C L E. A cycle goes round and round. See the water goes up, the water comes down. The water goes round and round. A cycle. This is called the water cycle. [Music] Now, I'd like to introduce you to my best friends, plants and animals. Now, the sun and the wind and the rain are not alive, but a plant is alive. And hey, cut that out. Plants have to breathe, too, you know. Gosh, I'm sorry. I was just playing around. I didn't know plants could breathe. Yes, they do. They need air and water just like you. But they can do something with air and water that you can't do. A plant can make its own food. Gosh. The plant can take sunlight and water and air and make its own food to stay alive and to grow. And when the plant is finished with the air, it breathes out, too. Just like my truck. That's right. And the air the plant breathes out after making its food can't be reused again by the plant for making food. Uh-oh. What happens when the plant needs new air to make food? Ah, that's where you and all the other animals come in. [Music] You see, the air the plant gives off after making food is the kind of air the animals like and call fresh air. And the air that the animals breathe out is good fresh air that the plant can use again to make new food. So, so the plant uses the animal air and the animals use the plant air and the air goes round and round. That's right, a cycle. This is called the air cycle. And the air cycle is connected to the water cycle because plants and animals need water and air to stay alive and healthy. The trouble with your truck breathing out is that not much of the air gets reused or recycled. It just stays bad air. [Music] Oh, maybe my friend energy can think of something for the truck. [Music] Excuse me, we're hungry. Oh, right this way. Plants are the only way animals can get food. Some animals eat other animals, but the first food comes from plants. But there's one more thing that a plant needs to grow strong and healthy. A very delicate balance of certain special chemicals called elements. The plant gets these elements with its roots. When the plant gets old and dies, the elements are still in the plant. Now, some little animals do their work. Worms eat the dead plant. And tiny little living things called bacteria eat the dead plant. And the elements go back into the ground to be used again. See another cycle. The elements are reused. They recycle. People and other animals also need these elements to be strong and healthy. When animals use the elements, they must be put back in the ground for new plants to use again. [Music] recycle. Now see how many cycles we have. There's the water cycle, the air cycle, the cycle of the elements, and see how the cycles are connected to each other. Plants and animals all working with each other, helping each other. That's ecology. And people must remember, whatever they make or use should be able to be recycled. Recycle everything. Otherwise, you could hurt me. I've written a song. Recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle. Just like the air and the water and those tiny elements. Recycle, recycle, recycle. Read I [Music] go. I know that song was so short. Was would that be a toetapping tournament option? I'm not sure. Uh, so I neglected to mention yesterday uh that I was going to be on Found Footage Festival's VCR Party Live last night and so I was on there. I don't know if you saw it. Um, but we did North Carolina jingles of which I had some suggestions and they also had some um pretty good ones. Uh, and then I also sang a jingle that I could not find online. And uh, so I kind of recreated the commercial as it appeared in my head. Uh, because I would literally see this commercial hundreds of times a day uh, when I was at home um, from school uh, during the summer and I wasn't in summer camp. I would get up at 9:00 and watch television straight until uh 5 or 6, which meant that I would see these ads all the time. So, that was in there. Anyhow, um yeah, if you saw me on there, um uh mention in the comments. So, this is another uh cornite film. This, but all of these all have different vibes. And that's the thing is like they were using different production companies to make these films and then they would distribute them under the cornet name but different filmmakers involved. This one I don't think has any animation. This is three hurting societies not hurting but hurting hurting three hurting societies. Enjoy. [Music] A distant herd of reindeer moves silently across snow-covered forest lands of Europe. The tiger of northern Finland. Laps lead the herds here and watch over them. [Music] In the rugged mountains of Peru in South America, llama's grace, Ketwa Indians tend them. In Kenya, in equatorial Africa, on the hot plains of the Great Rift Valley, cattle graze under the watchful eyes of the Messiah, the Ketawas, and the laps and the Messiah. Three very different cultures that share a common way of life. Hurting [Music] laps wander the northern parts of Finland. Hundreds of years ago, they hunted reindeer. But as the number of reindeer became smaller, laps began to herd them to be sure of a supply. Herders are usually found on land that can't be farmed. [Music] Even though the top soil of northern Finland is frozen most of the year, lychen will grow. These small plants are a reindeer's main food. With its large hooves, it can dig down to the plants, which it can smell under more than 2 ft of snow. In the summer, the reindeer move to the snow-covered mountains to escape the flies and mosquitoes in the lower areas and to find fresh lykan, and the laps follow them. Laps depend completely on the reindeer for their survival. They use the skins for shelter and clothing, the meat, milk, blood, and even the bones for food. They also use the reindeer as a pack animal. [Music] So self-sufficient are these lap herders that if the modern world were to end tomorrow, lap life could go on unchanged. Every year the government of Finland holds a reindeer roundup. The laps bring their deer in from the countryside where they're identified and checked for disease. The laps are then taxed according to the number of deer they own. Ownership of each reindeer is determined by ear markings. The old ways are changing. Snowmobiles are replacing the reindeer pulled [Music] sleds. And fewer young laps want to be herders. They'd rather drive trucks or work in factories in the cities. The laps with their traditional brightly colored clothing are a small, sturdy, hardworking people. Soon little may be left of the lap herters's old way of life in [Music] Finland, South America, and the great Andes mountains of eastern Peru. The Ketua Indians here have herded the llama and alpaca for 2500 years. These animals still provide the Ketuas with food and clothing. High in the cold, thin air of the mountains, they live lives built around the animals. The Ketuas are descendants of the Incas who were living in Peru when the Spaniards came in the 1500s. Even after the Spanish conquest, the Ketuas continued to live in the mountains as herders. Most of the fabrics the catchers make are woven from the wool of the llamas. The Incas used a knife for cutting wool from the animals. The ketuas use shears. After the wool is gathered, it is spun into threads. A simple spindle is used. While among the laps, only the women weave. In Ketuan society, everyone weaves. Women and men, the old and the young. The catchers, like the laps, have developed clothing that protects them from the cold. The fabrics they weave are often brightly colored. Llama wool is very coarse. The fabrics that are made from it are rough but sturdy. [Music] These villagers are starting a trip to market that will take them 3 days. Like reindeer, llamas are also used as pack animals. Unlike most herders, the ketuas do a small amount of farming. They raise potatoes which they take to market along with wool thread they've made and the materials they've woven. Without the help of the sturdy llama, such a journey would be [Music] impossible. Finally, the catchers arrive at the market to sell or exchange their goods for goods from other villagers and products from the cities. The Ketuas, like the laps, are a small, rugged people. Their bodies have adapted to the thin mountain air to allow their lungs to take in more oxygen in these high altitudes. [Music] Once trading is over, the Ketuas will return to their isolated villages. Ketuas are a more community oriented people than laps. They prefer to build their houses near relatives and friends. And the llama or alpaca can always be found in a nearby yard. A reminder that everything the ketuas do is still centered around their precious animals. Eastern Africa in the great rift area of the equator, the home of the Messiah. The Messiah have been hurting their cattle on these plains for a thousand [Music] years. Everything the Messiah do is related to their cattle. The Sai warriors will hunt and make war only to protect the herd or the grazing [Music] land. During the wet season, the hot plains are covered with thick grass. But in the dry season, the planes become barren. So the Messiah move their cattle toward the mountains in search of new and fertile pastures. Like the laps and the Ketuas, the Messiah live almost entirely on what is provided by the animals they heard. The laps identify their animals by ear marks. The ketuas with brands. The Messiah rely on their good memory and on a large vocabulary of cattle terms. Unlike the laps and the Ketuas who live in cold climates and show their skills of color and design in their heavy fabrics and clothing, the Messiah put their artistic abilities to work in beads and bracelets. And like the laps and catchas, the Messiah build their homes from what their herds and the land make available. Cattle dung is in abundant supply as a building material in the world of the Messiah. In times of plenty, Messiah warriors dance to celebrate their large herds. For their lives depend on them. Three different cultures in three very different parts of the world sharing a common way of life. hurting. [Music] Hering. Not hurting hurting. All right. Uh so this next film is um so I have a couple of films that deal with this topic and so these all tend to be a different flavor. They cover similar ground but um they're interesting nonetheless. And this one's kind of interesting because of how far it goes back. Uh the film is called Evolution of the Motion Picture. And like I said, I have other one other films that kind of talk about those topics, but um yeah, this one's kind of novel. And this one came from the um Craig Baldwin collection that we scanned. So enjoy. [Music] You will be surprised to know that the idea of movies originated more than 3,000 years ago, the Chinese, Persians, and Japanese had moving pictures. They were shadow plays, stories told in pantomime without words, shadows of living people shown in silhouette on a white screen. In Egypt, Rammeses II built a temple and dedicated it to Egyptian goddess. The figure of Isis was carved on the 110 pillars of the great temple, each figure in a slightly different position. As the Egyptians drove by the pillars in their chariots, they glimpsed the figure of Isis. As they increased their speed, it appeared to move. The images merging into one another as the horses galloped past. Isis was moving. She was alive. Yes, a moving picture. Of course, it was an optical illusion and it was crude, but the effect was there. Nothing further happened in the march of the movies until many centuries later when Leonardo da Vinci who painted the celebrated Mona first brought to the world the principle of photography. From the window of his studio, he viewed with the eye of an artist and a poet the beautiful landscape and watched two lovely ladies walking in the garden. On this sunny Italian afternoon, something important was about to happen. As he drew together the curtains, a ray of light focused through one of the round leathered panes of the glass and fell upon the white canvas of his easel. He saw a picture, a moving picture. In great wonderment, he looked closer. Yes, the figures were moving and the picture reproduced the scene taking place in his garden. Dainci was about to discover the basic principle of photography. But he noticed as the light struck the canvas, the figures were upside down. What to do about it? He figured that rays of light travel only in a straight direction. As the light from outside struck the glass lens in his window, the images were reversed. He built a machine with lenses and mirrors. And this creation of his caused a reproduction of the landscape outside to be reflected from a right angle mirror down onto a white table. This reversed the images and caused the picture to appear right side up. Dainci called his invention the camera obscura. If he had found a means to hold the images, he would have had photography. But as the light faded, his pictures died with the coming of night. Then came Athanasius Kesher. He called his invention the magic capoprica. It was nothing more than a magic lantern. By means of a round bottle of clear water to condense the light, an oil lamp, reflector, and a lens on the outside of the machine. He created the first means of projecting pictures. This is the great granddaddy of our present day projecting machine. Kesha was also an artist. He painted pictures of skeletons and goblins on blast slides and projected them on the walls of his room. His friends and neighbors were very much frightened at seeing these strange apparitions. Then came the urge to make his pictures more lifelike to make them move. This comic figure created much amusement and wonderment on the part of the audience. Here is the early ancestor of Mickey Mouse. And this is how it was done. The jaw was painted on one glass, the mouse on another. Both being movable and each operated separately by hand. [Music] The importance of persistence of vision was brought to light in the 19th century by Dr. Roger before the London Society of Scientific Research. We cannot see both sides of this card at the same time. We see the bird and then the cage. But as the card is revolved rapidly, the bird appears to be in the cage. If it were not for this persistence of vision, the pictures we were looking at now would be only a [Music] blur. He invented a large hollow top with openings in the side and little figures painted on the interior. As the top was whirled, it created the curious effect you see here. It was the first mechanical device to picture lifelike motion. [Music] The greatest forward stride in motion picture history was made by Louis Jacqu Dair who began his experiments in 1839 and by 1850 was doing a rushing business in what he called detertoypes. He invented the photographic wet plate and succeeded in imprisoning the images created by Leonardo da Vinci centuries before. Let's drop into Dair's studio. Here is a happy bridal couple who are being derayped so their portraits may be handed down to posterity. [Music] The gear produces the birdie tells them to keep an eye on it and ask them to uh smile [Music] please. The bridegroom keeps one eye on his turtle dove and the other on the stuffed canary. They have to sit absolutely still for from 5 to 10 minutes and naturally look almost scared to death but nevertheless very proud of their first family portrait. In 1860, Coleman Sellers photographed athletes and dancers in various positions of action and mounting these glass plates on a sort of paddle wheel revolved it slowly in front of a magic lantern and showed the public the first synthetic pictures of motion. He called it kinematoscope. This combined the temple of Rammeses, Zoe's top, Leonardo da Vinci's camera obscurer, Kesha's magic lantern, Dr. Ro's persistence of vision and Dair's negative and positive [Music] images. 1875 Edward Mbridge in California invented a method of instantaneous photography. Previous to this time, an exposure of several seconds was necessary. Leland Stanford, then governor of California, engaged in a $25,000 wager with James R. Keen, maintaining that all four feet of a trotting horse were off the ground at various times during the animals progress. Keen said no. To decide the bet, they engaged Edward Mybridge, who set up a battery of 24 cameras side by side with black thread stretched across the track attached to the shutter on each camera. As the horses trotted by, they broke the threads and clicked the shutters. And one of the photographs showed the horse with all four feet clear of the ground. This is the winning snapshot. So, photography proved that Governor Stanford was [Music] right. Now, the greatest genius of all, Thomas A. Edison. He had invented the phongraph and made tiny photographs running spirally around one of his photograph cylinders. This was a modern improvement on the Egyptian zoe. Fred Art, one of Edison's employees, was photographed on this cylinder while singing a song up in a balloon boys. Here's the funny little picture and listen. Boys, happy balloon. Way up in the class, boys. So Edison's first movie was a [Music] Squawky. The cylinder machine was unsatisfactory. But one day, word came to Edison that George Eastman, the Kodak man, had invented a thin, flexible strip of photographic material covered with sensitized emulsion. It was known as film. Edison ordered a small quantity and made some tests with it. He found it was the ideal medium to use in animated photography. So the problem of making practical motion pictures was solved. September 2nd, 1889. Edison drew plans for his first film camera, then went to the Paris Exposition. On his return, he was taken to his secret experimental room 5 where his assistant WKL Dixon started the machine going and appeared in a picture on the wall saying, "Good morning, Mr. Edison. Glad to see you back." So, Mr. Edison's second movie was also a [Music] talkie. Now, a studio was necessary. So, Edison built this little shack and called it the Black Mariah. It cost exactly $63767 and with a studio talent was needed. Mary Pikford was not yet born and Charles Chaplain was only 3 years old. So Fred Hugh proved that he was better at sneezing than singing. Pictures made on the old cylinder machine were very poor and the glass plates that had been used were thin and fragile. But now the problem was solved. Edison soon showed the world that at last movies were a reality. Edison put a blazing electric torch into Kesher's magic lantern of 250 years ago. And with Eastman's film, he put the essence of life into Kesher's shadow pictures on the wall. From the union of Edison's camera and Eastman's film, the movies were born. They were crude at first, but this was a great forward stride. Each year saw progress until pictures like this were given to the mutoscope was designed to defeat the Edison kinettocope patents. Edison used film running in an endless band. So, the Biograph Company built a nickel slot machine with movies created by hundreds of little photographs on cards that flapped over as you turn the crank. This is how it works. This reel shows a very historic gathering in 1910. All of the motion picture producers of that period. There I am in a nice new suit, stopping in a rather awkward position. And now my other partner Albert E. [Music] Smith. The picture ends with a fine study of dear old Mr. Edison and his genial smile. [Music] In 196, I began to experiment with the making of animated cartoons. Using my training as a newspaper artist, I changed the drawing slightly for each separate exposure, thus making the figures appear to move. It took a great deal of time and patience. Hours and sometimes days were required to complete one of these cartoons. This principle of a series of slightly different drawings photographed successively and then run through the camera at the regular rate of speed is the same method used in making the animated cartoons of today such as Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies. So this film made in 196 was the world's first animated [Music] cartoon. A new step in photography was accomplished when we discovered how to make slow motion and fast motion. Slow motion might be called the poetry of motion. And the effect is achieved by cranking the camera at about 150 pictures per second and fast motion by cranking very [Music] slowly. Motion pictures have long been employed by institutions of learning as a means of spreading knowledge and aiding scientific experiments. See how the camera photographs the eye of a fly. The eye being dissected and examined through a microscope. By this means you can look through and study the eye and note the lenses in the fly's eye. Like the lens of a camera, they are circular and curved. Here's the fly's eye on the head of a pin. The thousands of lenses in the eye plainly showing Mr. Tallhurst performed an almost incredible feat by photographing this little man using the fly's eye as a photographic lens in conjunction with his microscopic camera. Here they are thousands of little men in the fly's eye. A fly can see in all directions at once. That is why he is so difficult to swap. This little Spanish drama featuring beautiful Mildred Harris is a sample of the silent films of a few years ago. Settings, costumes, acting, photography, all could not be improved. Still, something was lacking. Audiences of today accustomed to seeing and hearing the characters on the screen, particularly hearing them, can hardly believe that in the past they were satisfied with pictures like this. Listen to the silence. Isn't it curious and unsatisfying to see the lips moving and no sound coming forth? Those silent dramas were shadows, merely an improvement over the shadow plays of the Chinese. This little demonstration must make you all realize how far the movies have marched since those first flickering shadows you saw in the early part of this film. In a few moments, we will witness the transformation from silence to sound and we will then hear the very latest development in modern singing and talking pictures. In 1928, by radio amplification, sound became an integral part of the motion picture and the movies began to talk. [Music] Mommy, mommy. [Music] The beautiful voice of Irene Dunn. [Music] The [Music] lovely gole with [Music] I [Music] All I found where I [Music] made the I [Music] love the dead. In this outline of film history, we have journeyed into the past and have seen the wonders of the present. But what of the future? Much of this tremendous achievement is due to the genius of that great benefactor of mankind whose beloved personality is but a memory and whose name now belongs to the ages. Thomas Alva [Music] Edison. All [Music] right. So, they're playing a little fast and loose with uh um film history. Edison was was good. He was I think he was great, but he they totally ignored French developments. They totally ignored all this other stuff that was going on. And a lot of that development was going on because Edison was a little bit of a patent troll. He really would he would patent this technology and then he would just go around and make it incredibly difficult for other people to develop anything that was similar. So there was all these variations on it. He also had very tight control over early movie motion picture distribution and had his hands slapped many times by the federal government. Um, but you know, there was some great stuff that he did and he certainly had he bankrolled some things. Uh, but you know, you got to give the French, the Luminere brothers and other developers of technologies across the planet some credit. Um, so anyways, uh, it's a good place to start. I think start with that and then say like well actually blah blah blah well actually blah blah blah. Um and yes George Eastman was a confirmed bachelor and I do not think uh is related to Linda Eastman who married uh Paul McCartney. Um it's it's interesting. So I've been to the Eastman house in Rochester which I recommend. It's kind of cool because there is a film aspect to it, but there's also other things that Eastman um did. Uh but yeah, his bedroom was connected to his mother's living mother's bedroom. So, I don't think there was any hanky panky going on in uh with George, at least in his house. Um but, you know, we'll just leave it at that. Thanks for watching today. Okay, very much appreciate your eyeballs and your support. Uh ways you can support us. One, hit the thumbs up or the like uh button on your whatever you're watching us on. Uh that helps with algorithms and stuff. Um watch other films that we've uploaded to YouTube. Uh we've uploaded uh more than 10,000 things. That's shows and then also independ uh individual films. And so this is what's interesting is I'm noticing that I'm getting a bump in viewership, but it's for Story of Lead. Again, I don't know why Story of Lead, that was a popular film like two or three years ago. It got all these viral hits. I'm like, why are people watching this like 30 minute film about lead being mined? I don't understand. Um, you know, certainly we make money off that ad revenue, but why don't you guys like make a campaign to make some another film that we've uploaded recently, uh, a viral film. I don't know. You guys figure it out. You're smart. Um, but, uh, uh, other ways you can support us, uh, we have, we've just added a store to the YouTube channel, Age Geeks, uh, 16 millimeter Films YouTube channel. So, you can buy merch that have the logo on it. Uh, you can also, uh, support us via the superthanks button, ko-fi.com/avgeeks, patreon.com/avgeeks. Uh, you can also, um, I don't know, watch that found footage festival VCR party live thing last night and, uh, vote for a jingle. That's another way to support us. But, uh, thanks again for watching and we will see you again tomorrow, everybody. Take care. Bye.