Densho Digital Archive
Japanese American Film Preservation Project Collection
Title: Eiichi Edward Sakauye Interview II
Narrator: Eiichi Edward Sakauye
Interviewer: Wendy Hanamura
Location: San Jose, California
Date: May 14, 2005
Densho ID: denshovh-seiichi-03-0018

<Begin Segment 18>

Emiko Omori: I'm just curious, I, I developed film and stuff on my own, you know, when I was learning photography, and I can't imagine processing motion picture film. Did you do that? Did you process motion picture film, or did you send that to Eastman Kodak?

ES: Eastman Kodak is the only one that made magazine, 8 mm.

WH: But did you develop your own 8 mm?

ES: No, no. That time, I was free to do so. I was free to take pictures so I could send it to any photograph developers, but at that time, magazine film was addressed to Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York.

WH: So you didn't have to develop your own movie pictures?

ES: No.

WH: Oh, I see.

ES: I had no facility to do that.

WH: I see.

CO: And you were telling us that you didn't have a light meter? Tell us, like, how you'd go out. So here's an event going on, what would you do?

ES: Pardon? I didn't...

CO: You didn't have a light meter, so what would you do?

ES: No, I didn't have no light meter. I just judged by experience, because after you take a few pictures, you knew the condition, light condition or dust bowl or things like that, so you tried to compensate for that. But the problem is not only that, the film, you know, the film speed, that's what you got to watch out for.

CO: But I noticed, like with your footage, did you have a tripod? I mean, it's very steady and it's also...

ES: Lot of time I would lean against buildings or put it on the end of a hoe or shovel or something to lean against. And like movies, I can't put so many seconds for one scene, because I only can put so many scenes in that picture, fit to it, and I want to get the most out of it. So my pictures come and go quick, come and go, see? So I had to hold it steady. So I leaned against or put it on top of something, that's what I always did. But times like on the truck bed or on the front seat of the truck, through the windshield, I couldn't do anything but just hold it.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2005 Densho and The Japanese American Film Preservation Project. All Rights Reserved.