A Moment Of Aww Nuts! - Matthew A. Hawkins

Last night my father-in-law pulled out his old camera (below) and his projector. He also grabbed a few hours worth of film stock he had made with his super 8 and told us he wouldn't bore us, and he didn't.

He showed some highlight clips of his days of hockey and the lack of padding they wore. There were great shots of my wife as a kid and you can see the resemblance of my one year old to her. He has the same blond hair Debbie had when she was one. We watched a great sailing video of my pop-in-law dropping a guy in the lake and not getting wet himself, impressive.

It was great fun, up until my oldest son jumped through the scene onto a chair and knocked over the projector. It was all in slow motion. My heart raced and right away thought, "Where in the world are we going to find another bulb for this thing?" to "Awww Nuts!". My son is sensitive to things like this, much like his father and so I grabbed him right away before the questions of "What Happened?" came along... like really "What Happened?..." It's obvious, the projector fell over, can't you see! Come on! Kiefer was fine and I consoled him that accidents happen.

In the end, nothing broke, except the floor. That projector was fine, but it left a mighty ding in the floor! I loved the moment of watching the film and checking out the camera. Sure simplicity. I loved that you could film in 12, 18 or 24 frames per second and that the editing all took place in your own 'lab'. No computers, just straight hand to reel. I sometimes wish things were still that simplistic.