Re: Plan 9 from Outer Space

Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> I don't know.  One thing I've noticed about very old (e.g. 1910s)
> films is that their brightness varies randomly on a time scale of half
> a second to several seconds.  I'm not sure whether this is due to
> deterioration or due to the exact composition of the original film
> stock varying randomly.  In other words, did that old movie do that
> when it was first shown?

I've always supposed that this had to do with copying the movie by some 
optical process that wasn't synchronized perfectly.

One thing that interested me is that many old films have had the 
contrast badly blown and seem to be largely white with ghostly little 
shapes moving around in them, but at the very end of a scene, it gets 
dark, and a couple of frames have a nice,normal range of lights and 
darks, way better than the rest of the movie. Oh well.

> A local store has a flag poster in the window, left over from shortly
> after 9/11.  All of the red is completely gone.

There was a truck in the parking lot of the place I used to work that 
had a flag bumper sticker with the caption, "These Colors Don't Run." Of 
course, the red was completely faded out. I'm sure the owner saw no sort 
of irony in that at all.

Kip W