burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Handle old film as little as possible. Scan all. Digitally edit. Digital editing is much faster. You can add titles, effects, dissolves, fades...

If you have a Mac, you already have the editing software — iMovie. Inexpensive editing software is also available for Windows.

BBurns Loc: South Bay, California

Absolutely correct. You will spend so much time editing by hand and loosing valuable footage. It is far more efficient and easier to cut & paste digitally than manually.
Unless, you just want to enjoy the experience. If I never see a splicer again, I will feel blessed!

Bipod

If the OP's name happens to be Walter Murch or Anne V. Coates, then definitely he should sit down
at the Moviola machine in his editing room and edit his film the old-fashioned way. He'll know how
to insert clear footage, do dissolves optically, print titles, match film stocks, etc.

But assuming he's not a retired professional film editor, then computer editing of digital is much
easier than cut-and-splice. Time is money. And it's also a lot less risky, since he can make
a backup copy.

No professional cuts his only copy. And these days, no professional splices film or tape
unless it breaks. All editing is digital.

I used to splice 4-, 8- and 16- track audio tape. Those days are gone. Everybody uses ProTools
(or something like it).

Want to save even more money? Put the reels back in their cans, put the cans in a cool, dry
place, and forget about it.

charlienow Loc: Hershey, PA

On my earlier post I forgot to mention that a professional service will also clean the film before digitizing...and have it done at the highest possible resolution...

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

They usually do not charge by the foot, they usually charge by the minute, each format use different amounts of footage by the minute, but that way they can keep pricing simple!

aellman Loc: Boston MA

Go with the lab. You'll avoid getting glue on your fingers, and splices, particularly with old film, can let go when they run through a projector.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I don't know were you get that a processed film is just waiting to come undone, I have never had a single splice come undone in over 30 years, nor have I ever heard of such thing happening to anybody!

Bipod

Apparently you were using the correct materials and technques, speters,
Not everyone is so fortunate.

Even unspliced prints occaionally break in projectors (especially if the projector
is out of adjustment). I've seen it happen more than once.

Finally, we don't know what condition the film stock is in, or even if it standard
acetate stock. The OP didn't say how old these reels are--maybe they're nitrate--
anythnig is possible in the world of conserving film.

That's why the rule in conservation is: "do as little as possible" -- just whatever is
necessary to prevent further damage.

BebuLamar

If you want to edit your film first do you edit the sound too? I would rather have the sound track intact so that I can use them with a different footage of images.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Digital editing is an order of magnitude faster and more precise than editing 8mm/Super 8mm film!

If you get a Full HD conversion (1440x1080 viewable pixels inserted into 1920x1080P video), you can edit it in iMovie or Microsoft MovieMaker or Adobe Premiere Elements (or any better software).

In Apple iMovie, for example, you can correct color/brightness to some degree, plus edit, fade, cross dissolve, add titles, and do all sorts of other effects. You can get rid of all the scenes that viewers had to suffer through in the film days, like "ground shooting," leaders, trailers, overexposed scenes, underexposed scenes, scenes with personas non gratis...

You can do all sorts of things to the sound, if there is original sound, or add sound, if the original was silent. In digital form, you can bounce the sound to an audio editing application like GarageBand, and have real studio tools to play with (compression, equalization, filters, noise gates, exciters, limiters, multi-track mixing of effects and music...). iMovie and GarageBand are included with every Macintosh.

Bipod

Technology is why today's movies are so much better than Citizen Kane, The General, Battleship Potemkin,
Ugetsu, Metropolis, The Godfather, Chinatown and Lawrence of Arabia.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Not always. Storytelling has little to do with technology. Witness: Casablanca, Animal House, Blazing Saddles, A Star is Born (Cooper/Gaga version)... and many other simple stories with great scripts, casting, and acting. Meanwhile, some of the Star Wars films are pretty weak. And 1980’s TRON? Awful, but technically outrageous for its time.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Digital editing may be in some circumstances a bit faster, but it is not any more precise than editing film (analog)!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The precision comes in the ability to simultaneously add titles, digital effects, and adjust/match color. I was part of the company that owned CFI (Consolidated Film Industries) in Hollywood. I got to see what they did, and a little of how they did it. It was advanced for its day, but primitive compared to Avid Media Composer, or Final Cut Pro X, or Adobe Premiere, or DaVinci Resolve.

Bipod

I was being ironic (maybe you didn't see the smiley).

These days we get "summer blockbusters" year-round --- movies targeted at teenagers. The emphasis
is on CGA effects, not the actors, certainly not the script.. The most successful ones are based on comic
book characters.

New movies are all about marketing: they are designed around merchandise: can McDonalds create a Happy Meal
featuring the characters? The film itself is packed with product placements (has there been a recent movie
that didn't have the Apple logo prominently displayed in it?).

BTW, that list in your post are all bad movies--with some good moments. Even Casa Blanca
--while the cast is superb--is sentimental, cliche-ridden, predictable and utterly improbable. (What is
a "letter of transit"? Anything like a visa?).

Nobody involved with the project knew a dang thing about Morroco--it might has well have been
set on Mars. The Maroccans don't even figure in it--- unpeople beneath the notice of the heroic
Americans and perfidious Europeans. The central idea of the film is American invulnerability:
Humphrey Bogart plays "Rick Blaine"--an American ex-pat running a bar in a Muslim country when
he isn't running guns. Impunity fits him like his white dinner jacket.

Only three months after the film's release, the US and Axis forces met for the first time at the Battle of
Kasserine Pass. Badly equipped and poorly trained, US forces suffered horrendous losses, and were
only saved from disaster by British reinforcements While the lesson was learned by the US in WW II,
it had to be learned again (with heavy losses) in the Korean Conflict (in the events leading to the Pusan
Perimeter), Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. But next time we'll send Superman, Batman, Spiderman,
and Captain America.

Anyway, there have always been good and bad films. The difference is that the good ones are now few and
far between. The producer and director have to want to make a good film--not just to make a pile of money.