Spring City man helping to preserve silver screen's legacy

A quick swish sound of the screen descending, a flip of the lights and the careful threading of film transforms the living room into a theater.

In a few seconds, the projector hums and the screen lights up in black and white, displaying a 1940s newsreel on daredevils. The narrator takes a jocular approach to the unhappy endings met by those doing car tricks, getting gored by bulls and tossed by horses.

“It was a different time,” jokes the home’s owner and projectionist, Ted Wilby, known on stage as Ted The Fiddler.

The film reels give a peek back into a forgotten time. During the week, he’s the tech director at in Phoenixville. At his home in Spring City, Wilby’s amassed an enviable collection of 16mm, 8mm and Super 8 films.

The Malvern Library passed its film collection on to him, and those include mostly educational offerings shown in classrooms before teachers just popped a DVD into a machine. Others were hand-me-downs from other collectors, and still others Wilby purchased on eBay or other sites or from the backs of film collector magazines.

He fell into collecting by accident three decades ago. On the hunt for a used computer back when computers were the new thing, Wilby stumbled on a $35 projector. After doing a lot of home movies as a child, the projector caught his attention and he carted it home.

Once, he queued up It’s a Wonderful Life, and noted details missing from the edited version. Uncle Billy’s office featured décor unseen to those catching the flick on TV.

“I realized how much films are destroyed by editing,” Wilby said.

The passion spawned an organization—of sorts. A library wouldn’t loan 16mm films to individuals, so only organizations could take them out. Wilby teamed up with a buddy to form the Schuylkill Valley Film Club, and the two soon had the organizational backing to get the films on loan.

And that first projector led to many more. He estimates that he owns between 26 and 30 now.

“My wife said no more projectors come in unless one goes out,” he said.

Cartoons, newsreels, silent films and educational movies make up the bulk of Wilby’s collection. He put the cartoons on for his great-granddaughter, and then sorts them into two piles—one of films that his great-granddaughter enjoys, and another of those she didn’t really like.

In a way, preserving these films is a labor of love. The best way to store them is in the cold, and some collectors and even the Library of Congress freeze them. If they start to fade, the picture gets a red hue, something Wilby doesn’t notice as much due to slight color blindness. With some films, there's only one copy, and preservationists spend hours, days or weeks ensuring the film lives on.

The lifespan of film reels is around 100 years—more if they’re well taken care of. In vaults throughout the country, copies of movies are preserved on film reels, instead of on DVD or in digital format.

“There’s no digital media that’s permanent,” Wilby said. “And they still haven’t found anything to replace film.”

In a way, some films are contraband. After showing them, the projectionists were supposed to burn them to prevent pirating. Some, however, didn’t have the heart or just flagrantly broke the rules, and those films survived.

He still enjoys watching the old films, and gets his new film fix thanks to his gig at the Colonial. One of the selling points of the house he resides in was a big front window where a projection screen would fit perfectly.

“The way to really appreciate those old films is to see them on the big screen,” Wilby said. “That’s how they were meant to be seen.”

To spread his knowledge and love of film, Ted teaches film appreciation courses at Chester County Night School and in the Owen J. Roberts adult education program. That will be starting up again in March, and enrollment opens soon for both courses.