1975/76 Mojave Gold

[sierra fox]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTtddG9fU64

Here we have two Mojave Championship Air Races from 1975 and 1976, both Gold finals. Keep in mind, this was shot with Super 8mm ( by my dad), before we had vhs cameras. The quality lacks, but i think for the air race fan, its worth a look. I was inspired to post this after getting an email regarding the ill health of race veteran Lyle Shelton (this is for you John!) The race from 75 was incredible, Lyle and Darryl Greenamyer duking it out at 100 feet, 450 mph and in a "right" turn. One pass we thought Darryl was truly in the weeds another pass where Lyle cuts inside the pylon and makes the correction before he gets there, at 50 feet and blazing at 450mph. Cliff Cummins won that race and there's not one shot of him going by...??? (super8 you only have two minutes per roll) RB-51 went out on lap two as his canopy would lock. Lots of great passes by Frank Sanders in 232.

Human Fly is in there, but look fast, Bob Hoover rocked our RV with a buzz job (i have audio of this also and you can hear mom screaming explatives)

1976 we have the RB-51 with Mac McClain blazing the trail for the win, first win with the Griffon and the contra-props, you can see Cummins grab sky on lap three after a burnt piston, Gary Levits, Lloyd Hamilton and Clay Klabo and one quick shot of Putman in Ciuchetton.

Hope you enjoy these relics, i dont know if this film can be restored, but i'm gonna look into it.

Lots of heroes in this clip, many no longer with us, my prayers go out to John and Lyle.....Blue Skies

warbirdfotos

[BEARCLAW777]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

sierra fox can you get me a copy of the red Barron speed run the 10 minute one from ABC i want it for my records because this is the only way i could see the Rb-51 fly

[laminar]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

Way cool, thanks for posting.

Elliot
Wasabi

[flyingjibus]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

That pass with Darryl and Lyle is Spectacular!

[wyhdah]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

Nice!

[bkmeo]

1975/76 Mojave Gold

SF ... your Dad was pretty good with that camera, aircraft in the frame almost the whole time. It's tougher than it looks, especially out at the pylons. Lyle yanking it hard left was pretty cool. RB-51 close up was sweet too ... good luck finding a restorer, and maybe a techie who could try to sync up the audio ??? B

[sierra fox]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

SF ... your Dad was pretty good with that camera, aircraft in the frame almost the whole time. It's tougher than it looks, especially out at the pylons. Lyle yanking it hard left was pretty cool. RB-51 close up was sweet too ... good luck finding a restorer, and maybe a techie who could try to sync up the audio ??? B

Glad you guys enjoyed it, i think it could be edited down to half the running and it would be twice as good, audio would really make it special

[dvddude]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTtddG9fU64


Hope you enjoy these relics, i dont know if this film can be restored, but i'm gonna look into it.

Yes, they can be restored, quite easily actually - all it takes is money or technical know-how. The amount of money you spend is directly proportional to the quality, for the most part.

If you are serious about getting the absolute best quality out of them, I would take it to a professional video service that does this for a living, not some "fly-by-night", $ 20 special that anybody can do.

It looks like you shot video of the projection screen. For starters, I would take it to a video service company that can do actual digital scans of the individual film frames, not just an "optical copy", so to speak. That will GREATLY improve the visual quality from the get go. After you have the entire film scanned and in digital format, the rest is easy. It's just a matter of utilizing a video NLE to do color/contrast correction, sharpening, digital noise reduction, etc. on the clips. From there, you can output the work to DVD. Not terribly difficult.

As far as synching up the audio, it's not too hard to do, but just time-consuming. I do video editing/DVD making as a hobby and have done many such projects such as this. The thing that makes audio synching difficult, is that the audio will often times not run at a constant speed. This makes it more challenging to synch up to the video, which if digitized, will be in NTSC format and run at a constant 29.97 frames per second. Most of the older 8 mm "home movies" from the 70's, such as this, exposed film at 18 frames/sec. The video NLE, however, will convert that to 29.97 f/s to make it compatible for DVD playing. The reason that most analog audio recordings don't run at a constant speed, is due to the minor variations in recording speed due to the tape sprockets slightly speeding up or slowing down because of a non-consistent voltage ouput from the batteries. The differences we are talking about are slight - we're talking micro-seconds here. For short clips, it's not too much correction, but taken over an hour, like for dialogue or a music concert, it can make the end result be up to a second or two out of synch by the end. Modern DAT recorders are much, much better at holding a constant recording speed.

So, I guess it all comes down to "how much is it worth to you". I don't have any idea how much it would cost to have the whole thing done profesionally. Just remember one thing - you get what you pay for.

One final thought - whatever you do, NEVER, EVER, EVER destroy or lose your original master films. So many times, people in the past have destroyed their original master copies of their films, or camcorder videotapes, thinking their "current" copies are just as good. They're not. For example, do you know that if you transfer an 8 mm videotape to VHS, you will lose close to 50% of your resolution. VHS is a horrible archival format, btw. Also, remember, that as time goes on and technology improves, it might only be possible to get better resolution copies by referencing your original master sources. Just something to think about.

Good luck on your project and thanks for showing that! I absolutely LOVE the old 8 mm films. I remember how hard it is to shoot with that stuff as my father used to let me film with it back in the early 70's when I was a kid. Great film!

[sierra fox]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

Thanks for all the great info "dude"

[dvddude]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

Thanks for all the great info "dude"

No problem, glad I could help.

[Leo]

Re: 1975/76 Mojave Gold

I used to hang with a guy named Rick Shurk that must have take HOURS of film. I used to be envious as I had to go into hock to develop my 10 or so rolls of slides every year. He always seemed to be shooting, and changing film! He started shooting from the tower in 85 or so, and I am sure went to video after that, but has to hav a huge amount of stuff from the 76-86 era. I met up with him there again in 2003 but he missed this last year.