What I don't get is why people are quibbling about the prices, when the issue here is that the basic premise of the OP -- that falling value of 16mm production gear from 1980-2005 provides a serviceable plot point for the narrative of a novel -- is weak and questionable regardless. If the novelist were to supply some idea of what dramatic function he or she thinks this loss of market value would serve, I'm sure the Frameworks community could up with more compelling and accurate scenarios that would present a creative worker's angst at the decline of his chosen physical medium, or whatever else is intended...
----- As for the quibbling. > I'm not sure what planet you were on in 1980, The upper midwest. There was an upright Moviola in my school's film lab when I started the masters program in 1978, snd it just sat there. Well, I tried to use it once, but then, like everybody else, when I couldn't get on the flatbed, I just used the bench with rewinds and a Moviscop. I wouldn't have paid $200 for a Moviola. By 1983 I was in Philadelphia, and if you were patient and knew where to look for stuff (Bargain Hunter classifieds, etc.) there was lots of used 16mm gear for cheap. I bought a dog-leg 12-120 for $200; spent about $50 for a synchronizer, got a Filmo body for $25... In 1984 I bid $75 in a closed bid auction for a Cinemonte that needed some setup and adjustment. That was the high bid, but the seller had already given it to the only other bidder for $25. I was cool with that because he was a friend, and he was going to use it to cut his MFA thesis, and I had no immediate need. I just wanted to say I owned a flatbed :). > No digital in 1980. Film was still king. Of course there was no DIGITAL. There was, however, small format video, and what was called at the time 'multimedia': multiple slide projectors synched to dissolves units deriving cues from multichannel audio-tape. 16mm had been a ubiquitous and widespread technology, but many of the users that had been dependent on it abandoned it as soon as an alternative became available, including corporate communications divisions, TV news, production of short 'stag' films, etc. etc. By 1980 whatever country 16mm film was king of had lost well over half it's last mass over the previous 15 years. ------ But back to the too-vague OP. If the character is in LA working steadily in some professional sphere where there's a budget available and time is money, then, yeah, he'd be buying gear from a dealer and paying those higher prices. But if he's an indie/artist type with more time than money, say, somewhere in flyover land, he's scrounging and being resourceful (like I was) and getting stuff on the cheap to begin with. _______________________________________________ FrameWorks mailing list [email protected] https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
