HOT LEAD, HARD FURY: The NEW Super 8 grindhouse feature film from Mike Olafson

Samuel Berger · January 20, 2018

The mission of American Vintage Pictures is to produce new films with a style and feel similar to B-Movies, Drive-in Films, and grindhouse/cult classics from the sixties and seventies. Started by writer/producer and director Mike Olafson, the productions are often shot primarily- if not totally- on either Super 8mm film or 16mm film. They have some exciting film projects happening in 2018- a feature premiere and re-release of a documentary and a short film, plus two exciting feature projects in development.

This article http://www.westword.com/arts/hot-lead-hard-fury-premieres-at-the-oriental-theater-9888017 makes the mistake of saying Mr. Olafson used 16mm in his film, ignore that point, the entire thing was shot on Super 8, I believe the main gun was a Canon 1014XLS.

An upcoming AVP production is FIST OF FRANKENSTEIN, also on Super 8. The poster looks amazing!

Christopher Ian · January 20, 2018

That looks like a lot of fun! Thanks for posting.

Tim Smyth · January 22, 2018

That does indeed look fun, Would love to go and see the screening, but it is a little far from me.

Funny, how they use the most expensive format, to re-create the cheapest of movies.

Best of luck to them.

Thanks for posting.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Tim Smyth

Samuel Berger · January 22, 2018

That does indeed look fun, Would love to go and see the screening, but it is a little far from me.

Funny, how they use the most expensive format, to re-create the cheapest of movies.

Best of luck to them.

Thanks for posting.

Tim, are you saying Super 8 is the most expensive format?

Anyway, Mike mentioned he used 50D for exteriors and 500T for interiors. I think, from looking at the trailer, that 500T might have been overkill in some shots. But it makes life easier to have a limited number of stocks to wrangle.

Tim Smyth · January 22, 2018

Hi Sam, I meant film in general, for that scale of production.

Once Kodak raises it price Super 8 may be the most expensive, for what you get.

I agree, the fewer stocks to deal with the better.

I wish him the best with his film, hope more folks decide to shoot on film, even if it is Super 8.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Tim Smyth

Samuel Berger · January 23, 2018

At the moment I'm thinking Single-8 is the most expensive small format. It is also my preferred format, as my favourite camera is the Fujica ZC-1000. I get my Single-8 from Retro 8 Enterprises in Japan. I think the last batch came up to $45 a piece per cart. They do include processing.

If Ektachrome follows older pricing trends when it comes out later this year or early 2019, it will be cheaper than colour negative Super 8. Hopefully the price of processing at Dwayne's won't go up by much.