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I'm starting work on the 2013 Silent Movies Benefit Calendar. For this project, I do the layout and publishing, but none of the actual work of collecting For that, I rely on the community of film collectors and archivists who have been the real heroes behind this long-running project.

Perhaps inspired by this year's beautiful BluRay release of Wings (and by the fact that someone sent me an awesome photo of Rin Tin Tin in a biplane that I couldn't fit into the "animals" edition), I've decided that the topic of the 2013 calendar will be "flying machines."

This is not restricted to airplanes, of course. Any kind of device used for flying, whether airplane, dirigible, balloonatic, real, special-effect, fantastical Melies contraption, or the catapult from Beloved Rogue is welcome. Although I have several stills from Wings, most feature a painted backdrop rather than real airplanes, so I'd love a good Wings airplane still if one can be found. I need photos that are high-enough resolution to print full size in a calendar.

Donors will receive a credit line of their choosing, and gratified thanks. 100% of the proceeds after printing costs are donated to archives that are doing silent film preservation.

Cool idea, Rodney. Of course, you could do it all with Melies stuff....

Bob

Rodney wrote:I'm starting work on the 2013 Silent Movies Benefit Calendar. For this project, I do the layout and publishing, but none of the actual work of collecting For that, I rely on the community of film collectors and archivists who have been the real heroes behind this long-running project.

Perhaps inspired by this year's beautiful BluRay release of Wings (and by the fact that someone sent me an awesome photo of Rin Tin Tin in a biplane that I couldn't fit into the "animals" edition), I've decided that the topic of the 2013 calendar will be "flying machines."

This is not restricted to airplanes, of course. Any kind of device used for flying, whether airplane, dirigible, balloonatic, real, special-effect, fantastical Melies contraption, or the catapult from Beloved Rogue is welcome. Although I have several stills from Wings, most feature a painted backdrop rather than real airplanes, so I'd love a good Wings airplane still if one can be found. I need photos that are high-enough resolution to print full size in a calendar.

Donors will receive a credit line of their choosing, and gratified thanks. 100% of the proceeds after printing costs are donated to archives that are doing silent film preservation.

Too bad it's limited to "flying machines". My father invested in an airplane that didn't fly. I mean, the inventor tried to get it to fly, but...

That sounds good, Rodney. I agree with Bob that a whole calendar of Melies would be terrific. I'll be waiting for more information.

Danny

I think the biggest problem with a Melies calendar is that it would mostly have to be frame captures... I don't know if he had a still photographer on the set (Martin Scorsese notwithstanding), and screen captures of 100-plus year old films are often disappointing in terms of quality. That said, if anyone has a still of the rooster-headed airplane from La Conquête du Pole for this calendar, I'd love to have it!

Ooh, I might have something from Flying Pat with Dorothy Gish

I got a bunch from "Wings" with actual flying machines!! Where do we send 'em to?

You can click on the link in my sig, there's an "email Rodney" link at the bottom. Or, if they're huge, get them up where I can get them and send me a PM (to avoid cluttering the discussion). Once files get bigger than 10 mBytes my server has problems... Thanks so much! I'll probably only use one or two from Wings, but we'll see how many submissions I get...

On their way through cyberspace!!!

Got a still of Larry Semon standing next to a smashed up plane. Don't know if you want comedy or not.

Gloria Rampage wrote:Got a still of Larry Semon standing next to a smashed up plane. Don't know if you want comedy or not.

Comedy is fine, romance is fine, drama is fine; so that photo sounds great. The only thing is that it be from a silent film, be worth looking at for a month, and preferably have an identifiable actor or two...

Ok. I'll scan it and send it off. Give me a while to get it out etc.

Rodney, just sent the still to you.

There are some post-Melies silent film spaceships, too. Lang's "Woman in the
Moon" comes to mind.