film reels
Wound movie strips
Film reels are spools holding strips of motion picture film, wound for storage or projection.
Before digital cinema, movies were distributed on multiple reels that projectionists threaded through machines and changed during screenings.
The phrase evokes the physical, mechanical era of filmmaking: dusty film reels in the archive, the clatter of the projector as the reel spins.
- spoolCylinder for winding material
- reel to reelTape system using spools
- Lumière brothersFrench cinematograph inventors
- canisterSealed cylindrical container
- sprocketsToothed wheels for chains
flange · rewinding · archival footage · perforations · core · acetate · leader · nitrate · splicing · silent films · digitization · projector · projection booth · emulsion · newsreels · 35mm · changeover · home movies
- mediatelevision, mass media, news, broadcasting, video
- obsolete media8-track, Betamax, cassette tapes, floppy disks, gramophones
- obsolete technologyVHS, 8-tracks, VHS tapes, cassette tape, cassette tapes
- video contentepisode, YouTube, subtitles, web series, Vimeo
- nostalgic itemssepia tones, handwritten notes, antiques, heirlooms, lockets
- digitized archivesscanned, uploaded, archived, stored, digitized
media format/technology
film reelsdigital video
Computerized moving images
digital cinema · streaming media · streaming · cloud storage · digital projection