HISTORY MADE REEL IN HOME MOVIES.

Byline: CAROL ROCK Staff Writer

NEWHALL -- When the black-and-white image of her mother wearing a plastic flower-covered bathing cap appeared on the screen, Bonnie Milstein's niece gasped.

``When you're watching home movies, you're immediately taken back to those days, remembering all the emotions. It's an amazing experience,'' Milstein said.

Milstein was one of about 60 people who brought old films to Home Movie Day last year. The annual event was started in 2002 by a group of film archivists who wanted to make sure home movies shot on film would be preserved, both for their historical content and as anchors to the past that many families were losing, especially when children clean out parents' homes after a death.

``Part of the problem is that people don't have projectors or they need parts to fix them and can't get them, so they give up,'' said Rhonda Vigeant, one of the event's founders. ``We bring regular 8 mm, Super 8 mm and 16 mm format projectors and let people see their films.''

Milstein brought several films her father shot, looking for movies she remembered from her childhood. She was amazed that the reels not only held shots of her and her sister growing up, but also material she'd never seen -- including her parents' honeymoon.

``There they were, so young and beautiful, and suddenly, there were my grandparents,'' she said, tearing up. ``It was an amazing experience. All I could do was burst out crying. When you're seeing these things, you are taken back immediately, but then the film ends and you wake up.''

Andrea Schiller's collection was created by her father, who had recently passed away. All she knew was that the films had been taken between the 1940s and 1970s.

``I didn't know what was on these,'' she said. ``It was so wonderful to see my parents when they were young. I was very close to both of them.''

Film preservationist Snowden Becker said that the first thing people should do if they are given old films is to pick up the phone, not the trash bag.

``Find out what's on them,'' she said. ``Start asking questions of friends and relatives right away. Whatever answers you get, keep them with the films and don't let that window of opportunity close. Part of the reason we do this event every year is because the last few people who might know anything about the movies are fading away. Films outlast the people who shoot them, but if we lose the memory, the meaning will disappear.''

``We brought the event to Santa Clarita because there is such a high value placed on family here and to remind people what it used to be like,'' Vigeant said. ``We forget that this area was a rural farming town. It's amazing to look back and see Placerita Canyon and Melody Ranch and some of the rolling hills.''

Seeing these slices of life has huge significance, Vigeant said.

``It shows us how we ate, how we dressed, how we celebrated. We see history unfolding, whether it's in the background or in a performance that someone recorded.''

``As much as we talk about how great it is to laugh and cry when we see Grandpa acting crazy and goofing off in front of the camera, home movies show how uneven the mass media representations of `normal' has been,'' Becker said. ``If you are a person of color or distinctive ethnic or national background, it's a powerful experience to see a face that looks like yours on a movie screen. Sometimes it's the only time you see those groups represented.''

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Foundation, where Becker once served as an archivist, considers home movies to be a treasure worth saving.

``They are not just the home movies of famous people or academy members,'' Becker said. ``For example, they have the home movies of Alfred Hitchcock and Esther Williams, but they also have those of the Newcomb-Condee family. The father was just a regular upper middle-class guy with three daughters and an active family life which he documented extensively.''

Condee, an attorney in downtown Los Angeles in the 1920s, also documented the building of City Hall.

``You may not think your family is that remarkable, but you might be preserving some part of history that can't be found anywhere else.''

IF YOU GO

Home Movie Day, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Repertory East Playhouse, 24266 San Fernando Road, Newhall. Free. Call [phone] or visit www.homemovieday.com

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