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New Super 8 Cartridge Design


Michael Lehnert

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Unless they get Kodak to actually switch to their cartridges, this kind of thing is really a waste of time.

There are probably 58 people on earth who would actually buy a bunch of these things.

 

 

I think you are underestimating the endevour, I'm sure there are a couple of hundred people in Germany alone who will be buying the cartridge, remember there will be Velvia 50D stock in it too. Many more in Europe and Worldwide will buy it too.

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Hello,

 

someone at filmshooting.com wrote

 

If you look very close to the pictures of the cartridge you will see how bad it was manufactured. No precision in the edges, no smooth surface. Some small plastic particles are visible, the corners are not even. Wrong plastic or bad tool. It is very sad.

 

He is right. Look at the pictures carefully. I have never seen a Cartridge from Kodak that looks that bad. I am sure, the film will not run smoothly inside.

 

Maik

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Hello,

 

someone at filmshooting.com wrote

 

 

 

He is right. Look at the pictures carefully. I have never seen a Cartridge from Kodak that looks that bad. I am sure, the film will not run smoothly inside.

 

Maik

 

That's presuming a lot, how do you know that it was a final test cart?, it could be just an early prototype. Those pictures may not be official releases.

Edited by Joe Uman
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That's presuming a lot, how do you know that it was a final test cart?, it could be just an early prototype. Those pictures may not be official releases.

 

Hello,

 

Mr. Klose personally has shown in a German Magazin (Cine 8-16) that they only have one tool for the cartridge. So: yes, this piece of plastic is the result of their one and only tool.

The (white) prototype was shown before already (created using Stereolithography and no real tool).

This new picture (black cartridges, produced using the real production tool = injection moulding) is shown on the website of Frank Briunsma (S8 Reversal Lab Netherlands) which is a official partner of Mr. Klose. So: yes, it is an official released picture.

I really would like to see a perfect new cartridge. BUT I doubt about the quality of the "new" cartridge looking at those pictures (No precision in the edges, no smooth surface. Some small plastic particles are visible, the corners are not even).

 

Maik

Edited by Maik Lobborn
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Thanks, Maik, for sharing these pictures and for also giving us new info with its source (that practice is always appreciated), namely Cine 8-16 magazine, which TMK is an all-new German-language magazine published by the people behind the Waghäusel film fair as an alternative competitor to Schmalfilm, the German-language original of the English-language offspring Smallformat (puhh.... I hope noone will "attack" me for this post as happened earlier here with THAT sort of disclaimer :P ? the German scene is quite emotionally-laden, personality-wise. BTW - to get that disclaimer really right: other magazines are available, such as Super 8 Today) .

 

Bob, your comments are valid, but it seems that the pre-series castings (the black ones made after that white prototype) suffer exactly from internal malfunctions, as I noted quoting Gottfried Klose himself in one of my posts above.

 

There is another issue regarding the micromarket aspects and selling a product with profit or cost-recovery: namely that V-50 is now no longer exclusively offered by GK-Film, but is quite successfully sold by Spectra Film & Video in LA using Kodak-made cartridges. Spectra operates in the US market, and that is a growth market as far as S8 is concerned. Meanwhile, the news from how the German market develops looks rather gloomy. For every international S8 newcomer I meet, I learn about a former German colleague, friend or indeed amateur filmmaker abandonning Super 8, even filmmaking altogether...

 

It might well be that the V-50 revolution started by GK-Film devours its own children as newcomer Spectra outguns GK-Film who is currently struggling to get its 2nd generation product to market.

 

Please note, that all above remarks are anecdotal only and should hence be regarded as a personally experienced knowledge.

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A guess on my part is the German market is driven by the older crowd that prefers projecting their super-8 film.

 

As much as I think projecting Super-8 film is cool, I sort of regret cutting to pieces one of my very first films so that I could show it via projection. This was back in the 80's so I didn't really have too much of a choice. If I hadn't cut up the original film so much I probably could have packaged some of the shots as stock footage.

 

So the German market can still revitalize if the replacement filmmakers are keen on transferring to video and of course editing on video.

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Seeing this picture doesnt help much.Excect the bad plastic finish (which maybe (??) doesnt affect shooting) all we can see is a difference in the presure plate which is still plastic but solid without the kodak bumps.

Is that enough? Its a patend and maybe we cannot see the inside parts before buying one(the first buyer and user if kind enough should send us some pics)

I would like to see if there is some better mechanism behind that gate comparing to kodaks metal thingy which most of the times works great

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  • 2 weeks later...
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A guess on my part is the German market is driven by the older crowd that prefers projecting their super-8 film.

 

You are bang on about that, Alex! But even this crowd has put down its gear on droves over the past years because of conflicting information about the future of Super 8 and a iron love for the K-40 ecosystem.

The latter aspect is just sclerotic and revolves even around anti-capitalist sentiments against Kodak born out of increasing economic distress and wider issue of national-identificatory collective thinking. The first aspect has to do with the information given to this market by essentially very few and quasi-monopolistic print sources (as the "cloud" is ? unlike in the English-speaking realm of this planet which, incidentally, drives the cine-film/S8 renaissance ? not a widely used medium to keep up to speed with developments) which unfortunately suffered at times when it was most important from thorough research, technical understanding and reflected wording. That was just Bad Timing that turned into Bad Joss.

The dispute between the two major German-language print publications mentioned in Maik's post, and the entanglement with leading German S8 companies also mentioned in this thread and others is just the peak of the iceberg...

 

As much as I think projecting Super-8 film is cool, I sort of regret cutting to pieces one of my very first films so that I could show it via projection. This was back in the 80's so I didn't really have too much of a choice. If I hadn't cut up the original film so much I probably could have packaged some of the shots as stock footage.

 

I can absolutely see your point. It really depends what your approach is: if you see the raw material as perpetual source on which you can draw ? then: NLE-based telecine post chains are ideal; or whether you live in the idea of the (french) Oeuvre, the (german) Werksgedanke at whiches heart is the idea of unique components coming finalisingly together to form a concluding work of (film) art that cannot be repeated in other ways. Then, craftmanly working the film original and finally projecting it like in the "real" theatre is a sort of "alternative lifestyle" :) .

 

As I favour the ways of the NLE post chain and can't wait to see HD telecine becoming more accessible, I must say that whenever I experience projections in a screening room, it grips me and makes me double-check assumptions and ideas I hold about Super 8, Super 16 and their places and resolution and their capabilities, as decribed in this earlier post, for example.

 

So the German market can still revitalize if the replacement filmmakers are keen on transferring to video and of course editing on video.

 

Which the older crowd will no longer adopt, from what I gather first hand. Yet the younger people have no longer the market size and long-termism that exists in Britain or the US, mostly due to a striving media industry with a global scope AND innovative and creative people. I sometimes think that more German mediaworkers work in the US and the UK than in Germany.

 

If someone would ask me about the prospects of the Cinevia project around most of the old-school German market currently resolves, I fear that over the time period from the original Waghäusel declaration of offering V-50, over the personal and technical troubles that caused the first product retirement, to the current "pferd-von-hinten-aufzäumen" strategy of putting enormous energy into a new cartridge construction for a film stock with dubious marketability, esp. as Spectra has overtaken GK-Film on the left at 180mph with a solid product, the target market has just become less sizeable enough to support it, even it strategic partnerships with Unsaleable.com who I sincerely hope will not suffer from this co-operation as I work with those guys for my Polaroid work.

 

Anyway, let's return to the technical developments and move away from societal politics...

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Well, there's still nothing new on the German cartridge front, despite the fact that sales should have already started. Actually, those few folks on this planet who should have received the "device" from GK-Film for testing havn't yet, either. So patience seems to be the motto of the day here...

 

In the meantime, I would like to hyperlink to another thread here on the forum that discusses the Ektasound Coaxial Instamatic-Cartridge as 200ft sound cartridge (60m Ton-Cartridge) as introduced above in post #21

 

The thread was started by Tony Bullock, is entitled "Are 200ft Super 8Rolls gone forever???" [click the name] and discusses compatibility and the issue of the availability of this cartridge.

 

Although the terminology goes off here and there (incl. in my posts ^_^ ), it provides a good further-afield resource for this version of the Ektasound.

Jim Carlile contributed a very comprehensive list of all cameras accepting the Ektasound Coaxial Instamatic-Cartridge as 200ft sound cartridge (60m Ton-Cartridge) in post #14, clickable here.

 

Worthy a read, dear subsribers to this thread.

 

-Michael

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  • 4 weeks later...
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Well, still no sign that would indicate that GK-Film's new cartridge design would leave its current vapourware status behind. That's the second stated deadline/sales start passing by without note (although some suggested last summer that time is not of the essence in this venture... - they must be financed by Donald Trump...or actually... not).

 

So let's put this thread to slumber again after this brief and pointless update.

 

In the meantime, to keep everyone amused, feel free to leave this safe haven of debate and wander off to the hilarious peasants' theatre that is played out on "the other forum ®" in a thread about GK-Film 's strategic error with the underlying ideas for the new design. Click here to start reading the show of all shows... it's Santo vs Super8Booster Time all over again...

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