Feature movies on Super 8

[Gautam Valluri]

Oh I almost forgot I recently went to see this really good feature documentary made up of the director's Super8 home movie archives. It looked really good on DCP.

Les années Super8 :

 

[Tyler Purcell]

20 hours ago, Joerg Polzfusz said:

BTW: HBO‘s TV series „Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty“ was completely shot on Super8, too.

What? LOL 

It's nearly completely shot on 16mm/35mm and an early CRT tube camera. Not only does it look like 16mm, but my friend John Elfers bought a bunch of SE's from the first season, I did as well! Shit between the two of us, we probably had 6 - 7k of 16mm SE's alone. 

There are a few moments where they cut to super 8 here and there, but it's far in between.

It looks like 16mm with some 35mm shots later in the season.  

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Tyler Purcell

[Dom Jaeger]

5 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

What? LOL 

It's nearly completely shot on 16mm and an early CRT tube camera. Not only does it look like 16mm, but my friend John Elfers bought a bunch of SE's from the first season, I did as well! Shit between the two of us, we probably had 6 - 7k of 16mm SE's alone. 

There are a few moments where they cut to super 8 here and there, but it's far in between.

The second season looks like it's mostly 16mm, with some 35mm scenes later in the season. 

 

This wasn’t “nearly completely shot on 16mm”. Take a look in the mirror before you LOL at other people getting facts wrong.

The production used a lot of 35mm (shot and graded to emulate 16mm),  on season one they had 4 Millenium XLs and a 435 on main unit. There were 2 416 cameras as well as 2 Pro-8 4008 Super 8 cameras, plus several old Ikegami video cams. They shot over 1200 carts of Super 8, the biggest production Pro 8 had ever been involved with, so there is quite a bit of Super 8 in the mix. 
 

https://www.pro8mm.com/blogs/blog/winning-time-the-rise-of-the-lakers-dynasty-now-on-hbo-max

https://theasc.com/articles/hoops-heaven-winning-time

 

[Tyler Purcell]

2 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

This wasn’t “nearly completely shot on 16mm”. Take a look in the mirror before you LOL at other people getting facts wrong.

It was a mistype. 

Thanks for pointing it out. 

[Jon O'Brien]

The point Heikki mentioned is a hugely attractive thing about Super 8: just easier and cheaper to do because you would only need a 'skeleton crew'. By that I'm sure he doesn't mean a crew so old they're nearly skeletons. Haha just joking. 

16mm is a great choice for a feature too. But inevitably it would mean more money and more crew because the camera just inherently needs more assistance (loading mags, pulling focus, etc).

The other thing about Super 8 is specifically the look of it. I'm pretty sure just like 16mm it could be made to look stunningly beautiful and interesting on the big screen (and on big tv screens).

[Diego Collado]

A few years ago, I watched a film at the London Spanish Film Festival that was fully shot on Super 8 (I have no idea about the other technical details, such as the camera or lenses used). The name in Spanish is 'La Reina de los Lagartos', which would translate to The Queen of Lizards. Quite an odd but fun film about an alien lizard that arrives to Barcelona and falls in love. Very quirky!

These are the trailers:

 

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by Diego Collado

[Jon O'Brien]

La Reina de los Lagartos looks good! I think it would have been even better if they'd de-sharpened the lizard a bit, to fit in with the Super 8 footage, but it was a tongue in cheek film so it sort of works.

With Super 8 cameras, I'm wondering what is the best way to go with a back-up camera. Pay a bit more for a fully rebuilt model, or just get some lowest cost smaller models from ebay and have them repaired, and chuck one or two in the side of the camera bag in case the main camera develops a problem during filming. For now, I will take a long a 16mm wind-up such as a K100 as second cam for such an eventuality. I'm thinking the Canon 514 is a good little back up camera for Super 8.

BTW, I've come up with two terms I've started to use for my business (on the side, at the moment):

Film gig, and 'dig gig', for digital filming jobs. I don't know .. maybe it's been used before .. but there you go.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Jon O'Brien

[Joerg Polzfusz]

https://manage.kmail-lists.com/subscriptions/web-view?a=HHTxWc&c=VjWYSU&k=a0a0581cbc6bc08c8fcfa2ae14e6fd6e&m=01H8PTZBHP3ND7MQS67VTZWYKH&r=34RMDUPa

[Dave Kovacs]

Shot entirely on Super 8mm in New York City in late 1999, early 2000. The movie 'I AM JOSH POLONSKY'S BROTHER'. It's an America movie but only available as a Region 2 DVD out of France(Amazon). It stars the character actor, Richard Edson(Do The Right Thing, PLATOON, Stranger than Paradise).

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Natural Born Killers (1994) includes a bit of Super-8. Inside the prison break at 16:02–17:17.

 

 

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Scott Bullock]

On 8/2/2023 at 10:28 PM, Jon O'Brien said:

What is the potential for features shot on Super 8 in your opinion, including films for showing in cinemas? Regarding feature-length Super 8 films I've only ever heard of Steven Spielberg's first movie (which was shown at a local privately owned cinema) which I think was called 'Firelight'. With modern post improvement of Super 8, getting rid of jitter and weave, etc, and with top quality audio, I'm thinking that a feature in Super 8 could work. 16mm for feature movies doesn't have the clarity of 35mm, and it can come across looking like a soft, not so good version of 35mm. But Super 8 is so definitely low definition and grainy that it would be obvious to all that it wasn't trying to look like 35mm. It would be marketed as shot on Super 8. That's a name that has meaning for many. Does that make sense to anyone else? It does to me.

Obviously, it would only suit certain scripts.

I think the idea of shooting a feature (or even a documentary or short subject film) on Super 8 is an intriguing idea for all the reasons outlined in the quoted post. The idea, at least for me, would not be to mimic anything; instead, I'd lean on the idea that it was shot on Super 8. If using a hybrid approach - Super 8 with all the benefits of digital post - I think a truly enjoyable and watchable film could easily be made.

I remember reading a book about the making of THE EVID DEAD (1981) that detailed how Sam Raimi made every effort to shoot it on Super 8 but was ultimately discouraged from doing so after seeing what test footage looked like once blown up to 35mm. But that was in 1979 with 1979 technology and film stocks and all that went with it. He wanted a 35mm blowup so it would stand a chance at theatrical distribution and the technology just wasn't there to make Super 8 a viable option.

As we all know, much has changed since then. I haven't seen it for myself, but I'm betting that today a DCP made from Super 8 acquisition would look much, much better than a blowup to 35mm ever could have. In fact, if all this modern technology had been around 40+ years ago, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Raimi and co. had gone for shooting THE EVIL DEAD on Super 8. After all, the 30-minute short (WITHIN THE WOODS) they made to raise funding was shot on Super 8. It's worth taking a look at if you can find it. It was all shot with Kodachrome 40 and Ektachrome 160 and has never been professionally scanned (that I know of) and all that now exists is bootleg copies that were originally transferred to video, so it doesn't look very good, but it does show the talents and humble beginnings of Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell. They loved Super 8 because they were all about the in-camera effects.

IMO, with today's hybrid approach, I think Super 8 is definitely a viable medium, especially if (as the OP mentioned) it were marketed that way. In other words, don't try to make it something it's not; just embrace it for what it is and push it to its limits.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I still really love all of the narrow gauges, and not because of nostalgia either (well, maybe a little) but because I truly love how the stuff looks. This topic spoke to me because I've gone back to shooting a lot of Super 8 and 16mm for my personal projects and it's really been a lot of fun, and the idea of doing a longer project on Super 8 has definitely crossed my mind many times recently.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Scott Bullock

[Malcolm Ian Vu]

Film Photography Project has lots of Super 8 footage shot on modern stock that they've scanned themselves.

Obviously not a professional production, but you can at least see how the images look.

Here's some 50D:

And 200T:

 

[Scott Bullock]

Hey Malcolm. They do good things with Super 8 at FFP. I watch a lot of their YT videos; there's good info there for veterans and newbies alike. I have no doubt that Super 8 is completely viable for the home video, streaming, DVD/BluRay, etc. markets. I just have never personally seen Super 8 digitally projected in a theater, but I'm completely confident it'd look much, much better than the old school 35mm blowup.

Personally, I'm all for the idea of doing a feature on Super 8; I think with the right project it'd be a ton of fun. There's always talk of required specs for various content services, which is certainly true if the project is developed for them from the ground up, but if a completed film was good enough that people really wanted to watch it, those services would eat it up also.

[Dave Kovacs]

WESTSIDER (2007), shot entirely on Super 8 using 9 different film stocks. The FUJi VELVIA 50D color reversal film is the most saturated outdoor shots in the trailer.. Not a full length feature, but entertaining nonetheless.

 

 

 

[Jon O'Brien]

I love those two videos from FFP. Very much worth watching.

I find Super 8 very easy to watch. I don't know why that is. Where as a lot of high def video footage just looks unappealing to me. It looks so boring

[Scott Bullock]

1 hour ago, Jon O'Brien said:

I find Super 8 very easy to watch. I don't know why that is. Where as a lot of high def video footage just looks unappealing to me. It looks so boring

I agree 100%. It's very aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I was discussing that with another filmmaker friend of mine recently and I demoed by pulling up some good Super 8 footage on YouTube. Next thing we knew a half hour had gone by with barely a word spoken between us. It has an almost hypnotic quality to it.

How seriously are you contemplating doing a feature on the format @Jon O'Brien? I'd really like to know all about it if you go that route. I've long contemplated it myself but, as you say, it's gotta be the right project. Personally, I'm thinking a horror movie; but,  then again, I'm always thinking of horror. ?

[Jon O'Brien]

I need to find a good script from a writer. At the moment I'm thinking more along the lines of 16mm for a feature though. Super 8 might be a success for a cinema release feature, but everything would need to be done to maximize sharpness. Super 8 looks great on a phone or tablet screen but on the big screen .... tests would need to be done.

I'm busy at the moment as I'm also a musician and teacher, and do some videography on the side, but will soon get back to my own filmmaking projects.

Funding from organizations and/or from government grants, for a feature movie, is necessary. You have to motivate people and convince them. Takes time but often good things happen. Well, that's how I see it.

[Jon O'Brien]

I was once interested in the horror film genre. It has a lot going for it as an effective feature can be made on a low budget with this genre. I find a lot of B grade old B&W films fascinating to watch in the endless variety since the production was forced to shoot in existing locations on low budgets and the whole mix of the production realities results in sometimes very interesting movies bordering on quirky in some cases that ends up being so original. These days though I probably wouldn't get into horror flicks. I'm more interested in human drama stories with people facing challenges and somehow overcoming their difficulties, etc etc, you know, character-driven stories that are inspirational and uplifting. Beautifully photographed and compelling to look at and listen to (great soundtracks etc). I'm also very drawn to period drama pictures which Australians have traditionally always been gifted at making.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Jon O'Brien

[Jon O'Brien]

I actually like westerns. I still think there's a definite market for them. I'm sorry but I can't abide a western shot on digital, even with film emulation in post. To me it just doesn't work. The right feel isn't there for that genre. Same with most period dramas. For television productions (for instance, the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries series shot in Melbourne, Australia, about 10 years ago, set in the 1920s/30s) digital can work very well for period drama series. But for feature movies in my opinion it's such a better effect if the movie is shot on film. You need a slight graininess or texture in the picture, and also in my opinion the colour saturation has to be just right to get the proper effect.

Miss Fisher was a great series. It would be great if we could bring that back ... ten years on.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Jon O'Brien

[Jon O'Brien]

2 hours ago, Scott Bullock said:

.. It's very aesthetically pleasing to the eye ... I demoed by pulling up some good Super 8 footage on YouTube. Next thing we knew a half hour had gone by with barely a word spoken between us. It has an almost hypnotic quality to it.

That's a good word for it. To describe watching Super 8, and how great it is, here is a short list of words I've compiled, adding Scott's word too:

"Artistic, tranquil, timeless, hypnotic, dreamy"

Go Super 8!!! You're a winner.

To me, 16mm is just that little bit more 'businesslike' and serious, and still arty like Super 8. But Super 8 is in a league of its own.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Jon O'Brien

[Jeff Bernstein]

6 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

I need to find a good script from a writer.

Dear Jon O'Brien, What would you like?

[Jon O'Brien]

How about a script for a western, or a 'frontier' Aussie story during the years of the early European settlers 'out bush', with a theme of redemption woven into an adventure tale or a feud of some kind. A classic western story. Perhaps a story of sheer survival under incredible odds (a variation on Deliverance, maybe). I'm hoping it's not out of fashion (or if it is, that it can be good enough to spur a new fashion in films), but at the moment I'm looking for a story that gives you a gleam in your eye and maybe a bit of a tear, too, at the end of the film.

Other than that, how about a rip-roaring adventure tale, set in outback Australia. A minimal number of characters to keep the budget down. How about a small team of geological surveyors or jackaroos/ringers that have some kind of an encounter with something 'unknown', 'unseen'. How about a supernatural presence that could be either a demon or an angelic being. A bit spooky. With a moral in the story woven in -- a morality tale.

Just some quick ideas.

[Jeff Bernstein]

5 minutes ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Just some quick ideas.

Okay, JOB, coming up is free of charge and hassle-free. Keep an eye on my thread over the next two weeks. I will attempt to write a script in ten days, just as Paul Schrader could, back in the day. I shall start counting the days from tomorrow.

 

Let's see. Best wishes.

[Scott Bullock]

On 10/3/2023 at 9:15 PM, Jon O'Brien said:

I was once interested in the horror film genre. It has a lot going for it as an effective feature can be made on a low budget with this genre. I find a lot of B grade old B&W films fascinating to watch in the endless variety since the production was forced to shoot in existing locations on low budgets and the whole mix of the production realities results in sometimes very interesting movies bordering on quirky in some cases that ends up being so original. These days though I probably wouldn't get into horror flicks. I'm more interested in human drama stories with people facing challenges and somehow overcoming their difficulties, etc etc, you know, character-driven stories that are inspirational and uplifting. 

I hear you. The usual perception of horror films, especially low-budget (micro and zero-budget also) ones, is that these films and character-driven dramas are mutually exclusive. While this is often true, it need not be; many, many horror films have compelling and interesting characters at their core. In fact, in most cases, the really good horror films almost always do. although in the end "inspirational" and "uplifting" may not be the best adjectives to ascribe to them. ?

[Scott Bullock]

20 hours ago, Jeff Bernstein said:

Okay, JOB, coming up is free of charge and hassle-free. Keep an eye on my thread over the next two weeks. I will attempt to write a script in ten days, just as Paul Schrader could, back in the day. I shall start counting the days from tomorrow.

 

Let's see. Best wishes.

That's awesome! Hope I get an opportunity to read it.