Got some old home movie reels stored in your attic? Put 17 October in your diary. A free event at the Cinema Museum, Kennington will offer advice on preservation, storage and restoration, and how to transfer that precious footage of long-gone relatives and forgotten friends onto modern media. Better yet, some of the films will be projected for all to see (always read the label: childhood beach holiday, good; Uncle Jim's 1960's upskirt adventures, bad).
We're living in a bounteous age of the moving image. The numbers are staggering - billions of movies are viewed online per month and ten hours of video are uploaded every minute to YouTube alone. But home movie making is, of course, nothing new. The camcorder was a cultural icon of the 1980s and 1990s, and before that many households captured footage on a menagerie of cine cameras. Much of that stock is deteriorating in cupboards and boxes. How will you tell your offspring that you once had footage of their great, great grandparents, but that you left it to rot in a damp attic?
Home Movie Day hopes to redress that by offering free and expert advice to anyone who brings along 8mm, 9.5mm and 16mm reels. It's still a couple of months away, but we thought we'd mention it now so you have plenty of time to root around the house and ask relatives for their films.
Home Movie Day, 17 October at the Cinema Museum, 2 Dugard Way, Kennington. Entrance and advice are free.
