An unnamed housewife is expecting a few friends over for bridge, but her floors are scuffed and time is short!
Such is the dilemma presented by ‘Nick of Time, a brisk 30 second ad spot produced by Cascade Pictures of California, Inc., at the behest of Wisconsin-based SC Johnson for their “push button floor care” product, Pronto. The solution to the problem in this case is foregone, of course. After all, Pronto “perks up floors fast!”
I have no date for this production, though the late 1960s / early 1970s are suspected (any later than that seems highly unlikely, given the aesthetic aspects). The film is printed to reliably faded Eastmancolor, and is the only 35mm currently in my possession that retains its original head and tail leader. It is in relatively good condition, though the inconsistent fading has led to significant flickering in playback.
Continuing on from my efforts with the Il Mostro Invinibile trailer, I scanned this significantly shorter subject (under 750 frames, leader excepted) using a Pentax K-70 DSLR mounted with a HD Pentax-D FA 100mm macro lens, with the Valoi easy35 again serving as my film carrier. I still like this combination a lot, though I’ve had to isolate the camera and the carrier from one another; the easy35mm is intended to attach directly to the camera lens, but the seemingly insignificant play between the two as the film is wound through is enough to cause the lens to drift out of focus.
Workflow from there was fully lossless via Adobe After Effects. The raw .PEF captures were converted directly to lossless AVI at 24fps. Subsequent stabilization and grading was also done in After Effects, with final tweaks done in Kdenlive and final export (to x265 at 92mbps) done with AVIDemux. Sound was again captured at 48khz/24bit using AEO-Light 2, though it suffered from some clipping in places. This was remedied using Audacity.
I actually undertook this project twice over the past week. Results from the first pass were unsatisfactory, a combination of ill focus (lens aperture set too high) and my own forgetfulness – there’s a lot of slightly out of focus dust visible in my first scan, as I neglected to dust my backlight beforehand. Rookie shit, etc., though easily enough remedied by just scanning the film again. The learning curve from my first scanning effort has certainly paid dividends: Scanning this print took less than an hour in both instances. Practice, practice, practice.
I’m very happy with how this project turned out, all in all. The commercial itself, old-fashioned as it can seem 50 years after the fact, is quick on its feet and assuredly made. To set up and pay off a story, however simple, is no mean feat with half a minute of runtime at your disposal. You’ll find the finished project below, with additional versions (including my initial attempt, leaders and all) available in my bonus playlist.
