A few months back I stumbled upon a 3 minute reel of film on ebay titled "Disney World '78". The seller had no information of what was on the film, so I took a chance and bought it...I kept my fingers crossed that it wasn't laced with character greetings!
The short 3 minute film is like most that were taken years ago; The family full of excitement boards the monorail, enters the Magic Kingdom, sees a few attractions and leaves before the sun has set. When Super8 film was king one cartridge of film, just three precious minutes, was often all most people had to record their memories. In this home movie it is quite evident that person behind the camera was very cautious with their film; many shots only last a few frames, telling us that they were nervous that they'd run out of film - as a result, the film does jump around wildly from scene to scene.
Remember that you are watching the memories that were important to this family. The ones they wanted to bring home, remember, and share with family and friends...now inadvertantly share with you. The little girl (now probably in her mid forties!) is filled with anticipation on the monorail, we see her buy flowers on West Street, and the family looks back at the camera as they walk towards the castle. Feelings all of us can identify with.
Highlights: Monorail passing through the Contemporary - complete with the orange glass trees, West Street, Swan Boat boarding area and Tomorrowland fountains.
Technical Notes: The film unfortunately suffers some sort of crystalline degeneration. You'll see what looks like snowlfakes on some frames. These are too strong to be cleaned by the software; a frame by frame restoration of this film would be the only way to remove them and is not warrented based on time/cost vs content.
Video is here: https://www.retrodisneyworld.com/re...8-super8-magic-kingdom-home-movie-hd-restored
