Super8 to HD?? Really??

[timdrage]

The proverbial 'LOL' @ anyone in the year 2012 talking about any kind of video file not being HD. It's really not a big deal or any kind of overkill to transfer S8 to at least 720p in this day and age.

it is overkill to come on a super-8 messageboard and troll about super-8 features from 10 years ago tho

[S8 Booster]

as far as scotness´In My Image goes no one can criticize him for that. my comments goes on making a full size feature today on 8mm. at the time scotness made IMI he ran into the worst timing etc - ever amongst other the jittery carts of the time so an already demanding project went from worse from bad and even worse. as it worked out i believe he did the best out of it and apart from the economic factor a remake would justified him best.

i have not seen IMI apart from lots of stills and never seen anything from Sleep Always so i can not judge the films as such.. i only commented on the issue of making a full feature on 8mm today which i do not thing is the best option.

Nigel may be in a different position to judge the films as such - possible in the relay change of some Old Crows.... ;)

shoot....

[carllooper]

i only commented on the issue of making a full feature on 8mm today which i do not thing is the best option.

It all depends on what you mean by "feature film". If by such you mean a Hollywood blockbuster such as 'The Avengers', then yes, Super8 would be an extremely brave choice.

But if by "feature film" you simply mean a film that is a long form film (as distinct from a short) which you, yourself and associates are thinking of making off your own bat or for which funding is forthcoming then why not? If it's good for short films it's good for long films. What's the difference other than some additional time and filmstock? A few more weekends then you might otherwise spend. A few more day job pay cheques than you otherwise might require.

People like Nigel like to think they are the "real" filmmakers because they make ads and work on 200K budgets. They are just knobs in the end analysis. Not all big budget filmmakers are knobby like Nigel. Scorsese is a really nice guy. Really genuine. Not that Scorsese would ever drop into this forum, but if he did you wouldn't have him mocking the work of low budget filmmakers in the way that Nigel was. Constructive criticism - most certainly. But not the flippant rubbish Nigel was spouting. Think about that for a while. Think very hard about that.

A feature film on Super8. Why not? It is difficult though. Digital does make so much more economic sense. But if you really like film (as I do) and you can afford it, then why not?

Carl

[S8 Booster]

ok, Carl on the premises you list i agree on that a "feature" can/could be made on S8/8mm.

only remaining problem is the ever present S8 cartridge "ghost" ;) (jitter/jam etc) which makes things fairly unpredictable vs 16mm....


shoot....

[carllooper]

ok, Carl on the premises you list i agree on that a "feature" can/could be made on S8/8mm.

only remaining problem is the ever present S8 cartridge "ghost" ;) (jitter/jam etc) which makes things fairly unpredictable vs 16mm....


shoot....

Oh yeah - for sure. Super8 can be difficult in a lot of ways. It's not even cheap any more. I decided to shoot my next film on Ultrapan8 because it's actually cheaper than Super8 - and you get more emulsion for your buck. You can have jitter/jam problems on 16mm - especially if you don't load it correctly. Loading film in a black bag can be very fustrating, especially when you have cast and crew waiting on you. But you learn patience in the process. It's not in the moment that the best things necessarily occur. It can be in that interval, in that waiting time, that the mind sorts out something. Mind you, when I'm loading film I can't think of anything else but the godamned f**king film not f**king loading properly. But I was thinking more about the others: some extra rehersal time with the director.

It all depends on what's important to you.

If shooting film (as distinct from shooting video/digital) doesn't matter to you, then of course digital is the bleedingly obvious answer. The upfront costs can be cheaper (or at least they would have been in my case). The "stock" is certainly cheaper and there's next to no "technical" hassles at all. It's quite insane shooting film when you think about it.

But the insanity of shooting film is also one of it's redeeming features. To do a good job of it despite all the hassles. Why do people run marathons when they could just take a taxi to the finishing line? Well, one reason is that taking a taxi would either put you back on the audience side of the fence, or disqualify you from the race. But the fundamental reason is just the challenge - even if you don't win the race, even if you can't win the race, even if you know in advance that you can't win the race. You win the respect of having a go.

Now this is not to suggest that digital is to be dismissed. As always it's the context. Shooting digital - be it a webcam, or the latest UltraDef digital beast may not be as technically challenging, but there are just as many other problems to solve shooting digital as there are in film. Heaps of them. So it's not as if you'll be going to sleep in the back of a taxi working on digital either. There's just as much respect to be won there as well. Perhaps even more!

Carl

[BAC]

This may sound crazy but I shoot my home movies on 8mm and watch them with a projector.

[Will2]

This may sound crazy but I shoot my home movies on 8mm and watch them with a projector.

Then you are watching in higher-than HD.

Hard to send the film, projector and instructions on how to set it up across the country like you can with Vimeo now though. That convenience is a big plus although I love to be able to project from time to time.

[BAC]

This may sound crazy but I shoot my home movies on 8mm and watch them with a projector.

Then you are watching in higher-than HD.

Hard to send the film, projector and instructions on how to set it up across the country like you can with Vimeo now though. That convenience is a big plus although I love to be able to project from time to time.

That's true Will2 but that may be a good thing for my family across the country. I have packed up a projector and screen and taken it across state lines to show films to family.

[carllooper]

Then you are watching in higher-than HD.

Was just looking at some 16mm this morning. Looks like late 50s, early 60s. Of some cows in an english paddock. On my kitchen wall, frame by frame (analysis projector) and was just blown away by how damned good it looks. The definition easily exceeds that of HD. There is no doubt about that, but far more significant I found was the colour and dynamic range. It's extraordinarily beautiful the image that film mediates.

There is this weird feeling one has looking at the projected film image. On the one hand one is blown away by it's beauty. On the other hand one feels fustration, at not being able to share the physical visual experience of it. One is left to put some inadequate words together in the hope that such might transmit the experience by some form of telepathy.

Carl

[Nigel]

OK.

It seems that Roger and S8 Booster are the only ones that are getting my point.

The reason I made the post is because there is a thread on the board that is 15 pages long about transferring S8 to HD all of it seems to be about polishing a turd rather than Super8.

Here is what I mean. Super8 is great. It has a look that we all love. It's faults are its biggest assets...AND...It's biggest faults are still its faults.

My guess is that a professional Xfer to Beta SP would look better than many if not most Xfers to some flavor of HD. So, instead of going around and around in circles about this HD CODEC or that HD Xfer method blah blah blah. Go out and shoot some Super8. Figure out what works best for what you are hoping to accomplish. Step away from the keyboard and step behind a camera.

As for Etimh's chatter about Guy Maddin and Super8. Yep. He sure does shoot it. He is also getting money from Canadian taxpayers to do so. And, "Brand Upon The Brain" made how much? My guess is most of his movies make less than the Canadian government gives him. Especially since most of what he does is short format stuff.

I stand behind my comments of "In My Image" it was watching a black screen most of the time. As for "Sleep Always" yep. It will always put you to sleep.

Now, does that mean that Scotness and Mitch are assholes? No. I think that Scot has a lot of grit to keep on keeping on and hopefully each movie of his gets better than the one before it.

It does mean that two of the movies that many people on this board like to roll out as 'successes' are hardly successful. And, even worse actually make Super8 look like crap to the non-Super8 lover. If anything people should be looking at Natural Born Killers. It used Super8 in a way that enhances the format and story.

This in part goes back to a thread I started years ago about the "Cult of Personality" behind Super8 and how people tend to glorify it without actually thinking about why. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6391

Good Luck

[carllooper]

It seems that Roger and S8 Booster are the only ones that are getting my point.

No doubt using some form of telepathy.

The reason I made the post is because there is a thread on the board that is 15 pages long about transferring S8 to HD all of it seems to be about polishing a turd rather than Super8.

How can a thread about polishing Super8 be about polishing a turd? Unless Super8 is a turd?

Here is what I mean. Super8 is great. It has a look that we all love. It's faults are its biggest assets...AND...It's biggest faults are still its faults.

And here we have it. Super8 is a turd. And you should love it as such.

My guess is that a professional Xfer to Beta SP would look better than many if not most Xfers to some flavor of HD.

Why guess?

So, instead of going around and around in circles about this HD CODEC or that HD Xfer method blah blah blah.

Because for Nigel, thought is nothing more than "blah blah", and gives him a migraine.

Go out and shoot some Super8. Figure out what works best for what you are hoping to accomplish. Step away from the keyboard and step behind a camera.

As if camerawork were the only thing one should think about.

The research and experimentation taking place in relation to film and it's transfer to digital is just as important and relevant in film making as any other part of the process. The fact that a thread is 15 pages long is a testament to the thought going into that thread. Thought is something that should be encouraged rather than disparaged as "blah blah".

Super8 certainly has qualities that do not require particular digital techniques being applied, and there is a particular love one can engender in relation to these qualities, but to say these qualities should then act as the reason to disparage other possibilities in relation to Super8 (or film fullstop), or thought itself, seems like a pointless and mindless argument.

What is the purpose? What is the fear? What is at stake? Is their some perceived threat to those qualities "we all love"? Perhaps there is. There is a particular usage of Super8 in mainstream film making, that is about a kind of domestic memory, mediated by the "home movie". Grainy footage of the beautiful wife hanging clothes on the washing line. Kids running amok with the garden hose. The memories someone is having in a hospital bed following the death of their family in a car crash. Super8 as memory, all the better to position the other scenes (shot another way) as being in the present, in the now.

Perhaps this particular usage of Super8 is under threat.

What is it about Super8 that "we all love"? I expect this is just as diverse as there are Super8 filmmakers.

But lets look at "Natural Born Killers" as if it were a good model. It's a bit different and doesn't easily fit the "mainstream film" tag, although being released across a lot of cinema screens would tend to put it closer to that tag than further away. Be that as it may lets allow Natural Born Killers to be our model.

How exactly was the Super8 of Natural Born Killers transferred? What is it about the techniques it might have used that would say to others exploring other techniques that they shouldn't do so? Was the Super8 transferred to BetaSP first before being transferred to 35mm, or did they do a direct optical blowup to 35mm? I expect the later is more likely. I don't really know myself. But if it was a direct optical blowup, then what exactly would be so bizarre about "blowing up" Super8 to HD? Indeed to obtain the equivalent of a blowup to 35mm one would actually pursue something like a 2K or 4K transfer.

Does one like the grain of the Super8 in Natural Born Killers? Well, a higher definition transfer will actually capture more of that particular quality. Indeed there isn't any qualities of Super8 that would be lost in a higher definition transfer. Indeed one will get more of those qualities rather than less.

So even when we use Natural Born Killers as a model it's hard to decode what Nigel is arguing. What in particular is the problem? My suspicion is now closer to my original suspicion - that it's not the transfer as such but the attempt (by myself and others) to "improve" the signal that Super8:digital mediates. Natural Born Killers celebrates the "natural born" qualities of various mediums (amongst other things) and that is certainly to it's credit. The plot leaves me cold but I'm not particularly concerned with that. What bothers me is why the "natural born" qualities of any medium should be limited to those qualities. If one can do something different then why not?

But even if one doesn't do something different. When I look at an HD transfer of Super8 I see much more of what it is otherwise mediating. I see more of the image it otherwise represents or reproduces. Is this not therefore closer to the natural born quality of Super8, ie. closer to that quality we can see when projecting Super8 directly on a wall? Surely getting a signal that approaches even just this particular native quality is worthy of exploration.


Cult Of Personality

This is an interesting theme to explore. There is some sort of proposition of relationship between Super8 film and cults of personality and some discussion on that. The initial proposition seems very vague. And there isn't much clarification on it, but it does sound as if it might be interesting. Just needs some further work.

Carl

[carllooper]

Natural Born Killers

Looking for info on how the Super8 was transferred for Natural Born Killers I found this by Martin Baumgarten, 23 Nov 2010:

For Blowup, yes it is possible to blow up Super 8 to either 16mm or 35mm, but the cost is high and is based at the lab on the per foot cost of the format you are having it optically enlarged to. There are resolution and grain considerations, but it can be done....and has been done many times. Over the years there have been quite a few theatrical release films that have employed Super 8 footage for both short and long sequences as part of their 35mm production feature. e.g. Flatliners, Natural Born Killers, JFK to mention some.

Source: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=48984

In each of these films the Super8 tends to be used in a self-referential way, or otherwise as something different from the way other shots are done, ie. for a particular shot or sequence rather than for the entire film. Using these films as a guide to how to make a film entirely on Super8 will be misleading. If we read these films as a lesson in the use of Super8 the only lesson would seem to be to use Super8 sparingly, at particular moments, for a particular effect. Which is probably the lesson Nigel is trying to give.

But how to shoot an entire long form film on Super8? These films don't really help that much. They can indicate what Super8 looks like on the big screen but one has to keep in mind that the look is framed (in time) by 35mm photography, which can alter one's perception. The actual look of Super8 in these films is partly a function of how they look in the context of 35mm photography rather than on their own. It is in how they differ from the other shots that they work in these films.

To shoot a film entirely on Super8 requires thinking it through in another way. How will Super8 look "naked" so to speak, when it doesn't have 35mm film framing it. What sort of story/content will work when it's not juxtaposed with 35mm or digital? Or what can be done to the Super8 to make it different from how it is otherwise deployed in a collage approach? A film's story can be developed in relation to a particular medium as much as the medium is a function of the story. The history of 35mm film is as much about stories written specifically for 35mm film as it is about what sort of technology will service a given story.

The same can be argued for Super8 (or any other medium/technology for that matter). What sort of story or ideas can work for a particular medium/technology? If it's only mainstream theatrical films one uses as a guide the answers will be few and far between.

These are the real issues, rather than how to deploy Super8 like Oliver Stone, or how to imagine it as a replacement for where 35mm or digital might otherwise be used.

Carl

[Nigel]

Carl

First off Super8 has roughly a 1:33 aspect ratio so framing Super8 for Academy 35 would be pretty much the same.

Second, whilst Martin's comments are made with the utmost sincerity they come 16 years after the film was made. By 2010 my guess is that most if not all chemistry based Super8 to 35mm blow ups were DOA. But, his point still is that Super8 has been used in major films seen by the movie going public and has been used well.

But, you are correct in saying that I do think that Super8 should be used when it works.

I have yet to see a feature that was shot entirely on Super8 that works.

Maybe that will change but somehow especially at this stage of filmic history I doubt it.

Just keep shooting Super8. And, like BAC said--"This may sound crazy but I shoot my home movies on 8mm and watch them with a projector." That is the way the format was intended. Use it within its limitations.

(Carl) You are getting caught up in an esoteric argument of Super8 and you are hanging on every word I type instead of thinking of the broader argument I am making.

What is the best thing for Super8?

Shooting it or talking about what you would do if you shot it?

What is wrong with saying that Super8 isn't equal to other formats even if they are video?

This just supports what I am saying about the 'Cult of Personality' that surrounds Super8 and how people will line up to march off a cliff because Super8 is a God.

Do I think that it is bad that there are 15 pages of bullshit about Super8 and HD? No. Do I think it is a waste of time? Yes. I do think that there are people on this board that would rather spew than shoot. I think there are people on this board that get more hung up on the process than the product. I think there are people on this board that are myopic to the point of ignorance when it comes to Super8.

So...Keep on going. I'll keep on reading what you say and none of it will matter because I think you are missing my point.

Good Luck

[CHAS]

I do think that there are people on this board that would rather spew than shoot.

Unfortunately that is true...pardon me while I get back to my script (non-Super-8!)

[carllooper]

First off Super8 has roughly a 1:33 aspect ratio so framing Super8 for Academy 35 would be pretty much the same.

The term "framing" was being used in the way one might use it when saying something like "Jack was framed for the murder of Jill". The 35mm shots either side of a Super8 shot can be regarded as "framing" the Super8 shot, not in space, but in time. The 35mm "framing" creates a temporal context for the Super8 which alters it's perception. It is in the difference between the mediums that the Super8 is made to resonate the way it does. The point being made is that one shouldn't equate this resonance with how Super8 might otherwise resonate without this "framing". One has to imagine how Super8 would look on it's own, how it might carry a story, or idea, were it used outside a collage such as Natural Born Killers.

Just keep shooting Super8. And, like BAC said--"This may sound crazy but I shoot my home movies on 8mm and watch them with a projector." That is the way the format was intended. Use it within its limitations.

Is Super8 to 35mm blowup the way Super8 was intended? Is 35mm to digital the way 35mm was intended? Is 16mm to TV the way 16mm was intended? The intention of any technology is based on a set of assumptions. If those assumptions don't hold in a particular context the technology can be adapted. Apart from the historical fact that this has always occurred, why not do it anyway?

The world is changing. Always has been. We live in a world where the original consumers for Super8 (and Regular8 , and 16mm) were those who would make "home movies". Most of those particular consumers have left those mediums behind. They now use digital cameras. So home movie film formats now belong to a different range of people with different ideas on how it can be used. The new users for film technology no longer feel compelled to just "use it as intended" (ie. to make home movies). Indeed one can find evidence in the history of home movie film formats that they were never just used as intended.

And the reverse can occur. Make a "home movie" on 35mm. An artist such as Will does just that producing beautiful works of art. The moral of the story is that there are no real rules that really matter. What matters is what you do with what you've got or can get. How you make it work. What you can make work. Be it for a small audience or large.

This is ultimately not an argument for making feature films on Super8. Rather it is an argument that film making itself - whether short form, or long form, can be done on Super8, or whatever medium you like for that matter. Whatever fits your budget and outlook. As to whether an audience will like it or not - that's entirely up to the audience. That's their decision. You make what you think will be a good film, not what you imagine others might think will be a good film. If you don't like the film you want to make then don't make it. If you don't think Super8 is the right medium for what you want to make then DO NOT make it on Super8. Or change your idea about what you want to make to something that can be shot on Super8. It's as simple as that.

Using a medium within it's limitations is not a choice. It is impossible to do otherwise. But the question is where those limits are. Conventional wisdom is not the best guide in this domain. Conventional wisdom is merely safe. Boring.

The photographic image is quite special. It is not something that is intrinsic to any particular photographic medium as such. We might often talk of the qualities of a particular medium, and hold particular fascinations for such attributes, but the power of the photographic image is not limited to such qualities. It extends beyond the medium into an image as large as the universe itself. All photographic mediums can exploit this power. The power of the Zapruder film, for example, is not to be found in any particular attribute of the medium in which it was inscribed, but in what it relays, what it mediates, whether grainy or crystal clear, whether hand held or stabilised.

Once this power is understood it becomes obvious that a powerful film, of any length, can be made on any photographic medium. There is nothing about Super8 that excludes it from consideration in this respect.

Carl