September 24, 2006
Dear Cousins:
Great news! We are ready to release our first DVD to you!!! Click here to see a three minute sample.
Yes, we are making good progress on our project to make Great Aunt Hilda's wonderful ~80 year old home movies available to the descendants of Charles Henry Wheelright Foster. (For those of you who want to refresh your memory, click here to see the eMails we sent out in January and March.)
We have accomplished three of our initial objectives:
• We've digitized all the films, including the additional footage that surfaced last spring – some of which was shot by Hilda Foster's brother, Reginald. We now have approximately 75 minutes in all! To be sure, some of it is shaky home movie footage ... but much of it is absolutely fabulous, like a time capsule from a bygone era, and of PBS quality. The fact that this footage stars some of our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in their younger years makes it all the more valuable and astonishing.
• We have created a lightly-edited master version that cuts out duplicate scenes and eliminates sequences where the lighting is too bad to see anything.
• We have transferred the master version to a DVD for those of you who would like an un-cut, un-edited original copy of the entire set of films.
This fall, we will be finishing the identification of people and places in the footage and, with your help and suggestions, planning the next phases of this project. We are considering how to work in Derry Allen's work on family genealogy, linkage with Nancy Morris's Aunt Hilda book and the CHWF diaries. Several cousins have told us about treasure troves of photographs.
Finally, we are brainstorming ways to deliver footage segments to those who might be interested in making their own tailor-made movies. Our current thinking is, the more versions made from this amazing old footage, the better. In other words, stay tuned for some more interesting announcements ahead!
PLEASE SEND US YOUR UP-TO-DATE MAILING ADDRESS!
For all of you who sent a donation to the project, we'd like to send you your DVD copy of the un-cut, un-edited original films. Again, click here to see a three minute excerpt from the disc. So, if you wish to receive your copy, please reply by return eMail with the mailing address to which you'd like the DVD to be sent.
For those of you who have not yet donated to the project, we'd love to send you a copy too. eMail us your contribution check (any size...whatever you think is right) and mailing address to:
Hilda Foster Film Project (make the check out to this name)
c/o Reginald C. Foster
168 Allens Point Road
Marion, MA 02738
Finally, you will see that this message is to the xxxxxxxxx branch of the family. Look at the "To" eMail addresses: are we missing cousins that would be interested in getting a DVD copy of the Hilda Foster home movies? If so, please forward this message to them, with a copy to Reg.
Best Regards...and Happy Viewing!!
Derry Allen
Adam Foster
Reg Foster
Nancy Morris
Molly Warner
Roger Warner