Uploaded April 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

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So a couple years ago, my MacBook Pro in which most - if not all - of my 35MM and theater-recorded content abruptly shut down and ceased all operation one day while in its charging state. I tried removing the charger and plugging it back in, booting it back up, resetting the SMC... all to absolutely no avail. My archival MacBook had shit itself. Understandably, I panicked, because if there's one thing a 35MM enthusiast with all of the archival content in the world never wants to let go of, it's his memories from years past. Thus, I left myself in a state of depressiveness ever since then, filled with doom and gloom and the supposed "fact" that all of my 35MM / theater data was now bye-bye thanks to my dated, aging MacBook that finally gave up.

Or so I thought.

This morning I received a bit of assistance from a good colleague of mine who knew a thing or two about computers, more so than I. He told me a little something about a "SATA" adapter, in which you disassemble the hard drive from the computer regardless of corruption and plug the drive into another computer to restore your files from a crappy computer to a much more cleaner computer (the Lenovo Yoga 730 I am currently uploading this here video on). Intrigued, I place an order for a SATA cable to a nearby Best Buy, pick it up at the curb (thanks, COVID-19, for preventing me from being in-store), and bring it home. With my dead MacBook's hard drive removed and in tow, I plug the SATA cable from drive to Lenovo, and POP! appeared all of my old files. And to think that I was considering taking this thing into my local Apple Store. My dreams and happiness of being able to share my treasure trove of 35MM goodness are now restored because of my amazing friend who just saved me $500 and my faithfully restored hard drive that didn't go out like my MacBook did. So now I can concur that the ultimate issue with my old computer was the system itself and it did NOT affect the hard drive, and thank Celestia for that.

With this all in mind, I'm ramping up my uploading of 35MM / in-theater recorded content, regardless of how petty or silly a certain video of mine may seem. This is all ARCHIVAL - I was (heaven forbid) smart enough to carefully set a footnote in theatrical memory making that's more visible than just a brainstormed mind cloud. About 30% of this content on my hard drive is currently on YouTube. Now it's my job to keep these captures in a safe place so nothing bad ever happens to them again. Let's hope I don't screw this whole thing up.

But onto this video!

Here's the 2013 Universal Pictures logo in all of its 35MM analog glory. I know, it's vertical video; I was in a very dark room with about three other people, so I had to do the best I could. How you can tell it's from a film print; the slightly higher-pitched analog audio track, barely visible (but still visible) black specks, etc. For the curious, this was taken from a 1:00 showing of Ouija (2014) on October 26th, 2014. The theater is the great Rave Pittsburgh North 11, which very sadly closed in May of 2015 after the comeuppance of the shiny Cinemark North Hills and XD just a couple minutes away. It's too bad. This theater was awesome. Old, but it had a character to it and was the last true 35MM outlet in Pittsburgh. I wish I could go back to it. I'll never forget the last night I was there. More on that in a later video, but it was both magical and sentimental.

More videos to come! I think now more than ever it's important to have these sorts of videos because to me they emulate the amazing experience of going to the movies. Of course, right now that experience has been shunned by COVID-19, hence why videos like these mean so much to me. They're a seamless simulation of sitting in a dark theater and being blessed by a screen's magic. You can't replace that.

Stay safe, folks!