Kodak have Super 8 back in production with a good choice of emulsions. There are still people shooting on it. Also there's Pro8, uses purpose built cameras. Although the HDV cameras could spell the end of it.
Bob.

Hiyah Boomer!

Well you get to being 218 years old . .sleeping is kinda curlish? Yeah?

Wanna Vegas Chat in the coffee lounge . . gonna sip my 4:00am cafiene there . . if yah wanna join me? -

http://www.gooddogproductions.com/chat/vegas_cafe.htm

Gotta luv that 8 Track . .hah!

Seeyah!

Grazie . . . .



.. . oh in the last 3 days slept one night . .been making movies . .. ! But that's another story.

Super8 is definitely alive and well. I was asked to shoot Super8 at a San Francisco wedding 18 months ago. I had three video cameras and a Super8. I used my dad's old camera, which I had to clean and calibrate. Lots of emulsion to choose from, and several labs. Used my Workprinter to transfer to video.

However, as much fun as it was (because of the challenge), I am not tempted to do it again.

If you want to recreate the old home movie look, one way to help sell the effect, in additional to the film grain and scratches, is to remember that old home movies often have flash frames when you turn the camera on before the film gets up to speed. So if the effect is unedited home movies, each new shot should have some flash frames.

This came back to me as I watch rewatching Raging Bull. There are some home movies segments in the movie that show what I'm talking about.

Funny how people think that film is always scratched and grainy. I'm just contemplating moving from a 16mm Arriflex to a Sony FX1, on the basis that at last video might be getting close enough to film to be worth considering. I've got stuff shot on Kodachrome II in 1960s that has all the visual qualities that one would wish video achieved. Of course when you watch on a TV size screen you don't need much image quality. Recently I shot some stuff on a rented consumer DVcam (single chip) and that (on a 3 metre screen) was just awful. But the customer only had a TV and they thought it great. However I must admit that post production with Vegas was a treat and the cost of video tape (compared to film) is very nice. So if the trial of the FX1 looks OK on my 3 metre screen then I'll be retiring film.
Think I've got off the topic just a wee bit, there. I guess if you're trying to make video look like low-end 8mm home movie then soft poorly exposured images, with flash frames and going orange with punch marks at the end is the way to go. And no editing. Scratches are probably more typical of hire prints, but without the tramlines and dust how would you know it wasn't video?

Cheers

Yeah....I remember my Yashica 8mm, dual lens with turret. It had the ability to record in super slow motion or fast motion or Stop frame. I had a million plans and no money. I always had to buy outdated film and was never able to put the camera to good use. It was capable of doing a million things for an 8mm. Anamorphic lens. It probably still works right now. I hardly ever used it. I couldn't find film for it after the late 80's. It's just a regular 8 not a super. I bought it "used", in a garage sale for $35. years ago.

Our era is Mid 50's - Early 60's and still looks good.

Johnmeyer -
That would have been a challenge! Just tracking down the film - I didn't even think you could buy.
What memories. Within the last 2-3 years I purchased one of the old Brownie 8 camera. The 50' reels didn't last any time at all - you were constantly loading/unloading film.

I don't think we ever migrated to super8

Jerry Bryant

Awesome Grazie! I have my Super 8 Camera around someplace. Not only that I am one of the few geeks who has some full features on Super 8. Not the little Castle films version - full versions. I have The Warriors , Saturday Night Fever and Richard Pryor Live. Still have my projector and still have the little moviola thing too - the reel to reel editor and splice block. And you know my uncle used to have the 8mm camera - it took 16mm film loads and when it would shoot the whole 50 feet you would taker out the exposed film from the take up reel side and switch it around - and that would shoot the other side of the film. The lab would cut it down the middle and you would end up with 100ft of 8mm film.

Thanks, Grazie, that brought back fond memories of my college days. I was able to save up and buy a Bauer Super-8 with a Schneider-Kreuznach zoom lens. It shot at 12, 18, 24, 54 fps and had single frame capability. That was a good little camera. Gee, I miss those days!

Thanks for memories!

Jay

If we don't honour our pasts - what means it for our futures? - G

Actually standard 8 camera stock wasn't quite the same film as 16mm because it had double the number of perforations. Most cameras took 25ft rolls, so you got 50ft of standard 8 back from the processors. 100ft rolls were available for the Bolex H8 camera, so the processor returned you 200ft. Getting only 3 minutes on a roll had its advantages -- made people economical with their shooting. Too economical in many cases. People had to be told that shots should be at least 10 seconds. So the other characteristic of home movies is that they consisted of very quick glimpses of the world. Super 8 changed some of that because the camera stock was actually 8mm wide. I knew somebody who built a punching unit for converting 16mm camera stock to standard 8, so there is always a way if you're desperate.
Also there was 9.5mm, which is a memory for another time and place!

The camera my uncle had was for sure 8mm because I had to show some of his old film on my dual 8 projector one time. But his camera took 50 foot loads, not 25, and they were on a 16mm film reel. I remember the black reel and him flipping it over and me being slightly puzzled. I had my super 8 camera at the time and it had the liitle cartridges that are in the link the Grazie showed...so it stuck out to me. Later on when it dawned on me what was going on it was pretty amazing to me - the whole flipping over the role and what not. I think the only 8mm film I have still is a copy of Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt. My uncle on the other hand has tons of home movies somewhere - stuff I have never seen. Supposedly he has film of myself and my parents and my cousins...stuff form when I was maybe in 3 - 5 age range. Lord knows what else.

There were some cameras that took a 50ft reel, but very few. Yes the film stock was 16mm wide, but not 16mm camera stock. There were 4 frames in the area of one 16mm frame, so it had to have 80 peforations per foot (instead of 40). Since the perforations were the same size as those on 16mm it didn't leave a lot of room for the image. But you're quite correct about turning the spool over to expose the other edge etc. Super 8 used much smaller perforations to enable a larger frame. You should get your uncle's movies transferred to DVD.