What if you found out that not only were your home movies some of the oldest 16mm home movies shot…ever, but that the footage originated from a family member that ended up to be someone famous? Our guest this week was Rob Hummel, President of Group 47, a company formed to acquire and license the technology behind DOTS; the advanced digital archival storage media originally developed by Eastman Kodak. He is the nephew of former congressman, football player and HUD secretary Jack Kemp. He has completed the digital re-mastering of the home movie collection of the Jack Kemp family, probably some of the oldest home movies discovered.

Dating from 1925 through the 1940s, 4000′ feet of 16mm home movies were shot of the Kemp Family, including footage of boyhood Paul Kemp, Tom Kemp, Jack Kemp, and Dick Kemp. They were discovered in 2002 in the attic of a family member in Laguna Beach.

What you are about to see has not been seen in over 50 years! Rob has raised the bar and provided inspiration to what a complete family legacy could look, like. They utilized not only film and photos, but records from the library of congress, maps, marriage and birth certifcates, deeds, telegrams, letter and newspaper clippings

Watch a clip of the films transferred in High Definition by Pro8mm here

Watch these early 16mm Kemp Family Film Legacy

View the early history of the family through photos and documents

Eastman Kodak introduced 16mm in 1924. It was not that common for families to have home movies at that time due to the expense. It was Clare Kemp that owned the 16mm camera, and you can tell in some of the footage that he clearly hired a cameraman to shoot the footage for him. The footage is like a time machine glimpse of the family in the 1920s, 30s, and up to 1940!

Bio: ROB HUMMEL is the President of Group 47. He began his career as the director of production services for the Technicolor Laboratories, and then moved on to Douglas Trumbull’s visual effects company during the making of Blade Runner (1982) and to post-production work on Tron (1982). A former president of DALSA Digital Cinema, Hummel has also served as Senior Vice President of Production Technology at Warner Brothers where he oversaw digital post-production (mastering films for digital cinema, HDTV, DVD, etc.) and digital restoration work on such classics as “Gone with the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

He previously worked in post-production, animation and Imagineering at Walt Disney Studios, headed animation technology at DreamWorks, and helped launch digital cinema units at Technicolor and Sony.

Hummel currently serves as the Chair of the Public Programs Committee of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Science and Technology Council and sits on the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee.

Rob has hosted several programs at the Academy on Film Formats, Film Technology, and 3D Stereoscopic Imaging. He is also an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers and editor of the 8th edition of the American Cinematographer, and authored most of its articles. Rob has taught classes at the USC and the UCLA and is an Honorary Visiting Professor at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology in Kanazawa, Japan