Carrying from last nights blog about old climbing films, I remember that for a presentation a few years back I ripped off a very old climbing film and brutally cut it down to 4 minutes. The film was shot by the legendary climbing photographer John Cleare, and as such the angles are a testament to his ‘style’ which captures not only the climbers but the architecture of the climb. The film was shot on ‘old school’ film, none of this video, miniDV or digital capture, and non destructive non-linear editing.
The very filming of it would have had a considerable cost in the developing and film costs alone, then the film would have to be cut and spliced by hand. A sound track recorded and added. Things that I can do in an afternoon on my laptop now, would have be a slow, tedious and manual job, that if you got it wrong were not as simple to rectify, as hitting the undo or Apple-Z buttons. What you get is one well thought out piece of quality film rather than a series of bedroom production companies knocking out a vast quantity of Amateur Hardcore.
If you like to see old school films on a variety of subject, then you can access the British Pathe archive online via www.itnsource.com. You have to register, but when you do there are a host of old news and showreels that were shown before films in the cimema. In particular I like the film of the dinowic slate quarry’s when they were actually work, as well as some very early mountain rescue footage from around North Wales. Pure genious!
Anyway I have put the edited version of The Climbers here. Not sure how long it will stay up for, as I don’t own the right for it. DMM did pay for the restoration of the film, and have shown it at several Film festivals over the years, and as such deserve the credit for saving this film from slipping away into the dustbin of history.