Hi. I'm new to this site.
My father was a DP and after he died he left behind a huge number of issues of the American Cinematographer Magazine, the official organ at the time of the American Society of Cinematographers. Some of them date back to the early Sixties, and there are many issues from the Seventies, which is about when my father died, and the subscription ceased. There are articles about some of the most famous pictures ever made, such as " 2001: A Space Odyssey," directed by Kubrick; "Patton," "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Well, there are many titles. I was wondering if anyone has any copies of the American Cinematographer. I consider myself very lucky to have these in my possession. They are in amazing condition, because in those days they published using the acid paper that never yellows. Some of the magazines look as if they'd been bought yesterday.
I'm wondering (a) Does anyone find this interesting, from whatever angle, and wish to discuss it?
(B) I don't want to sell them, but I am curious if they are worth anything. I'm not a cinematographer myself - I write - but I've always maintained a continuing interest in and love of the craft of cinematography, and I did work with my father fairly often when he was on assignment, (as a boy) more or less as his assistant, changing camera rolls, and I even did focus-pulling, and I was a grip for a while pushing a dolly (the job I loved the best, hitting those marks as the drama on-set evolved and actors shifted to their own marks!)
Anyhow, if anyone's interested, this topic is up for grabs in any direction. Love to hear from anyone interested in the contents of these magazines, or whatever. Oh yes, and
© I would like to digitize these issues - at least the most important ones to me - but I don't have a scanner at the moment. I guess scanning would be the best way to get the job done, right?
(d) assuming I can get a scanner, I'd be happy to upload any article(s) of interest to anyone free of charge. I'd be happy to upload a table of contents from which people could pick items of interest.
Of course, I just realized that I don't know what the Copyright issues are here. I would imagine that if it's for personal use, it'd be OK, but I can't say for sure. Any ideas?
Thanks, and keep on cranking.
Mike.
PS One other thing. It's been years since I had anything practically to do with film production, but lately I've been hearing rumors. Is film out, completely? I mean, is digital taking over entirely as the primary medium of production? I used to get In-Camera, but now that's digital too. Any heads-up on that would be welcome. Film has such a great look to it, and such great exposure latitude, I can't see digital ever catching up to it. I could be wrong, of course. But I could always tell whether something was shot on video or on film, and I'm wondering if the same difference is obvious with digital?