Why shooting Super 8?

Jurgen Lossau · February 4, 2011

schmalfilm magazine took the opportunity to shoot a last roll of Kodachrome - a very special one: a cartridge with 60 meters of Live Sound film, produced more than 25 years ago. It was processed at the end of December 2010, in the last days of the Kodachrome era at Dwayne's, Kansas, USA. We asked 10 German filmmakers why they are using Super 8. Have a look at those brilliant colors - even if it is winter and the film is 25 years old! We did not change anything at all. This commercial is the first one in a series to promote Super 8 and schmalfilm magazine. We will use it as a viral campaign and on festival screenings.

Here you may see it:

www.schmalfilm.de (first in News section)

or

http://www.vimeo.com/channels/schmalfilm

or

http://www.youtube.com/user/schmalfilmmagazin

In German only - sorry ;)

Shoot!

Juergen

Rafael Rivera · February 4, 2011

Impressive how long the actual useful life of this stock might be.

Cool, thx for sharing!

retoxproductions · February 8, 2011

schmalfilm magazine took the opportunity to shoot a last roll of Kodachrome - a very special one: a cartridge with 60 meters of Live Sound film, produced more than 25 years ago. It was processed at the end of December 2010, in the last days of the Kodachrome era at Dwayne's, Kansas, USA. We asked 10 German filmmakers why they are using Super 8. Have a look at those brilliant colors - even if it is winter and the film is 25 years old! We did not change anything at all. This commercial is the first one in a series to promote Super 8 and schmalfilm magazine. We will use it as a viral campaign and on festival screenings.

Here you may see it:

www.schmalfilm.de (first in News section)

or

http://www.vimeo.com/channels/schmalfilm

or

http://www.youtube.com/user/schmalfilmmagazin

In German only - sorry ;)

Shoot!

Juergen

please do an English language version

K Borowski · February 9, 2011

You could always do a dub yourself ala the RED vs. 35mm Fuhrer dub that became so famous here ;)

But, in seriousness, I think it's a real shame that the only accepted worldwide language has become English. There is a wealth of content out there in major languages such as German, French, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili.

Expecting all major content to be automatically translated into English is something we may be used to now, but I doubt will last into the future (Mandarin Chinese hack hack, cough cough).

K Borowski · February 9, 2011

You could always do a dub yourself ala the RED vs. 35mm Fuhrer dub that became so famous here ;)

But, in seriousness, I think it's a real shame that the only accepted worldwide language has become English. There is a wealth of content out there in major languages such as German, French, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili.

Expecting all major content to be automatically translated into English is something we may be used to now, but I doubt will last into the future (Mandarin Chinese hack hack, cough cough).

Martin Baumgarten · February 9, 2011

Very nice. In any language, it's the enthusiasm and love for the format as well as film, that comes across. The woman at the end puts it all into a relative perspective, "...it has film grain, and it's the grain that captures the soul of the subjects being filmed..". Another mentions the organic nature of film, and how it can be seen, held, felt, analyzed that gives the Super 8 medium something unique. I of course, have to totally agree. Thank you for this vignette done in Single-System Sound on Super 8mm.

Martin Baumgarten

Plattsburgh, NY U.S.A.

Mark Dunn · February 9, 2011

please do an English language version

The level of German you need for Schmalfilm isn't really that difficult to acquire.

If you really can't be bothered, Google translates German quite well.

Miguel Loredo · February 10, 2011

please do an English language version

and Spanish, and Basque B)

Jurgen Lossau · February 10, 2011

Well, we stay German... The second clip is online. Nine Super 8 freaks about small format filming: "Super 8 is magic!" says Dagie.

http://vimeo.com/19784794

Carl Looper · February 13, 2011

The article on the decline and rise of film grain was a great read. I can't translate german myself but the google translation seemed quite fine. As a technical person I often struggle with subjective descriptions of film and video/digital, eg. that film might be described as "warm" where video/digital might be described as "cold". But I translate such into technical terms. Grain is noise. Noise is heat (entropy). Warmth is a function of heat.

The author of the article notes that such perceptions are, from one point of view, a function of prior "viewing habits", that such is "a cultural phenomenon, not innate", that "it's just a matter of time to get used to the new hyper-reality". But tis this said as a way of avoiding further analysis along these lines. To acknowledge the counter argument as a way to tame it, as something known, as something despite which, need not silence the alternative.

The concluding paragraph (Google translation):

Director Peter Jackson said to quite appropriate: "If you shoot at 4K, but want a "film look", then you finish at 2K and add some grain. It's easy. It looks like film. ". Yes, it looks like film, but not one and the film grain has risen a digital renaissance again.

Here the author passes through a "reality argument" (the difference between that which "looks like" and that which "is"). But is this only by way of a prelude, to separating out film grain as something else, as something that can cross that boundary - from something already (naturally) there in film, to something that, by virtue of it's (natural) absence in digital/video, is added (or must be added).

Is the overall argument what it appears to be - that film grain remains something desireable rather than as something culturally determined (or otherwise tolerated by the culturally immune). Is the digital renaissance of film grain something that re-confirms a belief in the warmth of film (noise is heat) - a warmth that must be otherwise manufactured (warmed up) in the digital domain. Seemingly. And does it matter if one arrives at this warmth via film or digital (the reality argument). It appears not.

The answer to that last question is, for Peter Jackson, apparently: There is no difference. And it is easy. (And I'd argue - in principle a lot cheaper).

But there is a domain of film making (as well as digital production) in which there is a difference. A philosophical difference, whether the technical is enlisted in the articulation of such or not. It is a difference that Peter Jackson's films do not really address in any way. In Jackson's films (as in most conventional films), the technical is subserviant to a story in which it doesn't matter whether the story is constructed digitally or photographically - so long as they both look like they belong to the same universe. If only in appearance. The erasure of difference.

Carl Looper