Blog : Super8's Great

Super8's Great

J ARTS CREW :: Super8's Great
By Fiona Hogg
QLD | 11.04.2006

It's late on a Saturday morning and despite Friday night's film festivities an impressive 30 young punters of Brisbane's Other Film Festival are standing, slouching and crouching around a film-lab in the city's inner-south.

What lure could bring these northern youths forward from Saturday morning stupor?  A workshop which promises to confer the basic skills of Super8 film production and processing, that's what.  Video killed not the filmmaker star.

As the workshop goes into session, the eager participants jostle around a table bearing a handful of black gun-shaped boxes. These are the artefacts of Super8, and as our technical tour guides Sally Golding and Louise Curham take us through their anatomies and physiologies, it is rapidly apparent that the cameras are as much fetish objects to these film fanatic as they are tools of the trade.

After a basic what, where and how, the workshop participants are let loose on the nearby Southbank Parklands to point and pull the trigger, filming with fearless abandon. The enthusiasm these young people feel for film is clear and present, begging the obvious question; when video is so cheap and accessible these days, why the appeal of very expensive and fiddly film?

Asking around it's hard to find a straight answer; much mention is made of a tactile sense and sentimentality. The closest to a clear answer came in a near stream-of-consciousness from a participant in the midst of a post-darkroom smoko:

"You get this bright outside experience of running around hectically filming things with the camera, then you get this sensory deprived environment of hanging out in a darkroom with no vision at all... And then you get to play with some chemicals and you know, it's wonderful!"

Further into the discussion it also becomes apparent that with thanks to its once domestic nature, not everything about Super8 is necessarily so pricey:

"And you used your own camera today?"
"Yes, I bought it from the Hobart tip-shop for one dollar."

For all those with whetted appetites wanting to know more more more about the not-at-all dead world of film, here's Sally Golding's Top Five Tips for making a start with Super8:

1) Get to know your camera... it's important to have the camera functioning well for shooting. Check you have batteries where they are required (they may be hiding)! Twist all the dials, push all the buttons and see what happens.  Look up camera manuals on the internet to find out more about your model camera.

2) If you're looking to buy a Super 8 camera, look out for a camera model with 'manual' functions, basically the more buttons you have, the more control you can have over your shooting!

3) Learn to process your own film, even if you will use a lab to process most of the time. Darkroom processing can be done fairly easily and the chemicals used can be obtained from photographic shops (they are the same for still film). If you understand how the film is processed and can be altered at the chemical development and fixing stage, you can also ask the processing lab for any desired alterations too.

4) Don't be afraid to experiment with your camera or with darkroom processes. Most results you get will still have intriguing effects when you project them back. Sometimes the ghostly interference of camera or chemical hick-ups can produce the most beautiful experimental films!

5) Super8 black and white and colour film stock can be purchased from Kodak Australasia in Melbourne by contacting them on 1300 139 795 (a student discount is available). Also try larger photographic suppliers for the new 160 Ektachrome stock (replacing Kodachrome 40). However, a much greater variety of film stocks can be located in America from various outlets. Check on the internet for best prices and delivery systems.

The Other Film Festival was a three-day feast of expanded film, organised by young and emerging film curators, theorists and makers.  The Other Film Festival (OFF) was held in Brisbane 23-26th March.

For more information on The Other Film Festival check: www.otherfilm.org

listen to the audio for this article: mms://www.theprogram.net.au/streaming/attachments/19205.wma

Added by joel on 5 May 2006