Home movies

[RichardB]

Pretty much everything I shoot is a home movie! Im struggling to get any proper movie making projects off the drawing board due to time constraints so far.

[standard8]

I started making home movies when i was given a super 8 camera for xmas when i was kid and have never stopped though mainly Standard 8 and 16mm now.

briefly dallied with video (video8 & hi8) but never really liked it - just seemed a bit boring.

[rweilert]

Although this thread is somewhat outdated, it's only the 5th in the list in this forum, so I post a reply to it anyway...

I started my "film career" with just family films when I was 14, a simple S8 camera did the job. A year or so later I got a sound projector, and now I made two small films, one with a teddybear (stop trick animated) and one science fiction action adventure with my brother and sister which was actually equipped with sound.

With better cameras and partly going to standard 8, I made a couple of weekend or holiday shows, all with sound and comments (a bit the style of old cinema weeklies). Some are just 3 or 4 minutes, some are longer (up to 60 meter roll). Then there was a city portrait of the town I live in, a very short trailer to sell ice in a cinema, other documentaries of class trips to Prague etc.

Two longer films are there, having a "day in the holidays" subject, one showing nature and family, one showing practically only nature. These are rather long, about 30 minutes or so... standard 8, the latter one 24 f/s, sound, music, some noise effects.

After about 10 years, after I had got married and we had our first child, we bought a video camera, and I didn't find much time to make films anymore. There were a few projects, some never finished, but now I hope to live it up again

Rolf

[granfer]

I've gone right back to the second post on this thread...

"71er" said...
"Just before I started, it struck me that the footage my grandparents shot about 50 years ago still looks like it was taken yesterday! "

I don't know why he calls himself "71er"; from the content of his post, it's NOT his age! However, I would be justified in calling myself "72er". I never knew ANY of my Grandparents... but I can confirm that the Kodachrome footage that I took 50 years ago still looks like it was taken yesterday ,except for all those wierd clothes everyone is wearing!

[71er]

Hello granfer!
It's actually my birthyear: 1971 - so I'm 38 years old. If you are interested: We have four kids and I'm filming them to have some footage I can pass on to them in the future as a compact overview (and not hours and hours of video that I never cut). I hope they will appreciate it ...

[ricohmite]

I use it primarily to shoot family films. It is a lot of fun, asthetically pleasing, and their permanence is reassurring. Yes, permanence. I recently watched some family film from 1950 and the colors were beautiful.

Meanwhile, in the time I have been married we've burned through 4 differnet formats of video cameras. Most of America is not transferring this. It's sitting around in closets and 50 years from now-- good luck. (If the much dicussed "EMP" doesn't get it and the machines they play on.)

I still fool around with making "films". They are simple and revolve around family member "adventures." I used to think I'd make clever movies and felt guilty when they didn't materialize. Then I read a piece by Ivan Watson who said that pretension caused a lot of people to underuse and not enjoy their movie cameras. They didn't want to do "baby on the lawn" stuff because they had higher aspirations. And that was me. So now I do "baby on the lawn" featurettes and have a truly appreciative audience (my family).

[Charlie Blackfield]

I don't think there's anything wrong with 'baby on the lawn' films. Some of my most recent movies - partly Super 8, partly Standard 8 - include: a 'non-wedding' by friends of mine (actually very much like a wedding, but they still have some objection left to the idea of marriage, so they went for a 'certificate of partnership' instead); a 'welcoming' event for a 6-month old (the Quaker equivalent of baptism); and a recording of the Goring and Streatley Regatta where I met up with a few friends of mine. I'm currently having the films transferred to miniDV, but I find it very reassuring to know that the original recordings on 8mm will probably outlast miniDV and all those other formats by many decades. Even in 25 years time, I bet that most of the digital photographs and videos other people took during these events will be inaccessible - unlike good old celluloid.

[Macnessa]

One thing I like to do is use old footage that my family shot 50-60 years ago and edit it with other 8mm clips of people I don't know, (picked up at garage sales and on ebay) into more of a fine art type film. I often think that I'd like to shoot a silent movie in super 8 sort of a fake home movie with a really dark theme, like a barbecue in a suburban home, everyone wearing 1950s and 1960s costumes and have a murder in it or something.

Here's something I did with that technique a couple of years ago:

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

One of the best super 8 sequences I've ever saw was the first few minutes of the movie "The Game". IT's of a children's birthday party, and it uses the cultural expectations that home movies create. It's totally silent, but unbelievably creepy.

Super 8 has an atmosphere that is imposslble to create with video, or even larger format film.

[71er]

One thing I like to do is use old footage that my family shot 50-60 years ago and edit it ...

I have got some 400m of footage taken in the 50's and 60's taken by my grandparents but I would never touch the material to cut it in a way you described; I have too much of a feeling that it is family property and I'm just having it in my hands to conserve it the best way I can.
BUT: From time to time I find footage on flee markets given away by people who think there was not any use for it anymore after digitalisation. I love to cut them and create little shorts: I made one showing a boy growing up from about the age of 8 to the age of 16; another one has shots taken in the 70's of the town I live in and I filmed the same places to show what it looks like now.
All not perfect in the slightest but a lot of fun to do.

[superadio]

3 years ago, we ot our first kid. Everybody told me to get a videocamera. Instead i bought a super 8 camera. I have maybe shoot something like 50 cartridges.

[wahiba]

Home Movies only. Never actually 'made a film'. Mainly 'moving snaps'.

It is when one looks back on the 40+ year old stuff that the historical context becomes interesting - did we really dress like that!!!!!!!