Stingray on Super 8mm
Hello Peter,
Well, you will get me going on this subject . . . just tell me when to stop!
Apart from some short copies of the Stingray series and Thunderbirds, and some cartoons like Popeye, Mickey Mouse from the late 30s, or Donald Duck from the 40s, I also have a couple of full-length feature films on Super 8mm. The finest in my collection would be the 1933 release of
KING KONG. It is a superb Blackhawk copy with a high quality optical soundtrack, which I bought in the outskirts of London in 1981. When I want to watch this type of sound film, I use an ELMO ST1200 M/O projector. I have also recently bought a very fine Beaulieu 708 EL projector (eBay in Sweden!), with magnetic sound, an adjustable shutter, and 700 meter reel capacity.
I also have a full-length Super 8 version of David W. Griffith´s silent masterpiece from 1916,
'Intolerance'.
I used to make quite a lot of Super 8 movies in the late 70s and early 80s, when I was working at a cinema lab here in Stockholm.
Still being something of a movie nerd, I have a couple of functioning Beaulieu Super 8 cameras (silent and magnetic sound) and I also recently bought a magnificent Canon Sound Scoopic 200 SE 16mm camera from a cinematographer (also eBay in Sweden!). I plan to shoot in both 16mm and Super 8 this summer, and edit digitally in Apple Final Cut Pro, after a telecine of the film negatives. These days, several professional, fine-grain VISION 2 and 3 negative films are available from KODAK in regular Super 8 cartridges, which opens up a fully professional editing approach even to this smaller format:
http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Products/Production/Spotlight_on_Super_8/index.htm
In the US, for example, Super 8 has become the preferred medium of skateboard enthusiasts, due to the unique possibilities of slow-motion cinematography, of up to 80 fps (Beaulieu). Furthermore, in the US, there are many labs catering to Super 8 filmmakers - Pro8mm in Burbank, California (formerly Super8 Sound), can scan Super 8 film to full HD resolution, direct to portable hard drives or to CDs/DVDs:
http://www.pro8mm.com/home.html
And Dwayne´s Photo lab in Parsons, Kansas, still process the supersharp Kodachrome films in Super 8 or 16mm (at least as long as the people at KODAK in the US still make them in 35mm):
http://www.dwaynesphoto.com/newsite2006/movies-kodachrome.html
Kodachrome films are actually black & white films (hence the thin, fine-grain, sharp emulsion), and the color dyes are added in the extremely complicated K-14M process.
Have you seen the filmmaker magazine
'Super8 Today', by the way? It is published by Super 8 enthusiast filmmaker Chris Cottrill in the US and it´s currently the only magazine of it´s kind in English. The German magazine Schmalfilm, used to have an edition in English, Smallformat, however, sadly, it is gone now, since about two months back. I am a regular subscriber to Super8 Today and I can wholeheartedly recommend it, if you are interested in technical issues (cameras, projectors, telecine, editing), or what is happening around the world, re. film festivals, new film releases, filmmaker interviews, etc:
http://www.super8today.com/
All the best from Stockholm,
Bengt :thumb: