Brian Beutel recently uploaded old super 8mm family films to Youtube, which were recorded by his father, Gord, in the 1960s.

Image Credit: YOUTUBE/Gord Beutel

Like Clark Griswold in the attic, Brian Beutel was flooded with nostalgia when he found his dad's projector and family films.

The super 8 millimetre reels were untouched for years, but after tracking down parts for the 1960s projector, he knew exactly what to do for this Mother's Day.

"I knew I had to get it done quickly before Mom started to slip away," Beutel said. His mother Sheila has dementia and lives in a care home, but he wanted to give her the chance to look back at her life when she and her husband were newlyweds.

He's uploaded several videos to Youtube of Beutel family vacations from the 1960s and early 70s. Describing him as a "shutterbug," Beutel's father Gord was always documenting the scene on family trips and events, either through photos or video. Now on Youtube, the Beutel vacations show trips to Kamloops, Jasper and back where Brian was raised in Regina. Although there is no audio, the click of the projector adds an extra dose of nostalgia to the now-digitized films.

Through the eyes of a young couple in a different time, his restored films take a viewer on cross-country trips from Kamloops to Niagara Falls on a 1960s virtual vacation.

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Gord's amateur filming hobby included an editing station in their Regina family home. He would cut and splice films together and he would even storyboard the family films he put together. Beutel said his father intended on digitizing them or converting to VHS in the early-2000s.

Unfortunately, what was once deemed the "Cadillac of projectors" needed constant repair and parts were tough to come by.

"Ebay wasn't prevalent back then and he had to order parts from Japan, which was expensive. He ended up shelving it. He was upset and wanted to get them preserved," Beutel said.

Adding to the difficulty, the reel-to-reel Elmo projector can be tricky to operate even when working well.

"If you don't get it right it can jam up and you can burn the film," he said.

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Gord died in 2007 before he could finish the project. But when Brian and his sisters started packing up the family home to move their mom into a long-term care home, he came across the old reels and the Elmo projector in storage.

"I made it my mission to finish his project," Beutel said. "I found an old projector on Ebay. It wasn't working, but it had the parts I needed. Sure enough, it fired up again. Everything was stable and I was able to pick up where dad left off."

Delicately putting the old, brittle super 8mm reels into the now-working projector, he recorded the old films simply with a smart phone on a tripod. Now, all but one family film is on Youtube under a profile he dedicated to his father, Gord Beutel.

His parents met in the 50s while Gord was working for CP Rail. Although Gord was born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, he met Sheila Proudfoot while he was stationed in Kamloops for the rail company.

After they married and got a house in Regina in 1958, Beutel said they spent ten years travelling and living as a married couple before having kids. Beutel, born in 1974, isn't in the videos, but he remembers sitting down as a family to watch them on the projector usually once a year.

"My parents would break this out once a year, put a sheet on the wall and play these old movies," he recalled.

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With his mother getting older and her cognition slipping away because of dementia, he hoped to spur some memories for her on Mother's Day so she could relive those moments when she was younger.

It wasn't quite as successful as he'd hoped, but he said she was on the edge of her seat the entire time.

"There's no sound so I had to explain here and there what we were seeing," Beutel said. "You could see the gears were turning, but it wasn't a eureka moment."

There's only one reel left over, which Beutel said looks like it's been spliced together several times and has become so brittle it breaks on every use. It's labelled "Expo '67," where his parents and their neighbours vacationed to. He still plans to finish that reel, but it's going to take more work to keep from breaking in the projector.

It's tough to pick a favourite, but Beutel looks back fondly to a 1962 Christmas video titled "Sheila's fur coat."

"She always said, 'You know you've made it when you've got a diamond ring and a fur coat.' And she was so elated when she opened that box," he said. "I remember into my teens she was still wearing it. She loved it."

Gord Beutel recorded several trips of family gatherings, the downtown parade in 1960s Kamloops, hikes in Jasper, Christmas morning at home in Regina and Gord and Sheila's wedding. Now that Brian has them uploaded to Youtube, he hopes his family can look back and remember those times, but it also contributes to a genre of nostalgia media for others who stumble across the videos online.

Work and other life obligations got in the way of his passion project for several years, but Beutel is glad he got around to finishing it.

"You never get time to get back to these small projects with a deeper meaning," he said. "This one's for you, dad."

Go here for a look at Beutel's Youtube page, dedicated to his late father, and a peek into Canadian life in the 1960s.

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