First 100 films added to vintage home movies

A milestone was passed earlier last week when the 100th film was added to Vintage Home Movies.

Considering the fact that I only started the Vintage Home Movies site at the very end of 2019, adding 100 films by the start of May is, I think, quite an achievement. This short post is just going to highlight some statistics and acts as a snapshot point for me when I look back on the site later.

Breakdown of the 100 films

The films are categorised and the categories with the largest number of films are:

• Trips within the UK with 17 films
• European Travel with 16
• Holiday films with 14
• Home Life and Social History with 12
• Sporting events and games with 11

There are then also a variety of other categories which make up the other 40% of the films.

The majority of all the films are standard 8, and Kodachrome film stock – I think that probably represents a good indication of the historic use of 8 mm film; most of it was filmed in standard 8 because that format was around longer, and Kodachrome was the most popular film for still images as well as cine film.

Highlights

I think the films which have been highlights for me fall into different categories.

For technical quality the film I posted recently from the USA would tick that box because it is the newest film, being taken in the 1990s and was Super 8 which has a large picture image.

Other films which have stuck out would be the film taken on the set of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which probably has the the most ‘celebrities’ in!

Late in April I discovered a film of an NHS Mobile X-Ray unit which was taken in the 1950s, and that struck a chord in today’s lockdown crisis. It was interesting to see the contrast with the way the Government acted in 1950, taking precautionary measures to protect people and the chaos of today.

One other set of films which appealed to me personally were ones featuring Stevenage, where I live. I haven’t published them all yet, but it was interesting to see some familiar scenes from 50 years ago.

I suspect the next 100 films will take a bit longer than the first 100, but I’m glad to have built up a reasonable archive.