On Friday night I went to a screening of short films shot by a local high school's A/V and Drama clubs. As one can expect, all of these "films" are shot on either Hi8, Digital 8, or miniDV. This screening was slightly different. The organizers only had two recent student "films" to show, so to give the guests their money's worth, they brought out a Super 8 sound projector (an Elmo, I think; I didn't get a good look at it) and showed classic student films from the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Most of the "real" films were Claymation and "Star Wars"-inspired stop-motion shorts. There were two "features," each about fifteen minutes long, both of them short film versions of two student plays that had been put on in 1978 and 1980, respectively. The stop-motion shorts were plotless and seemed more like demonstration films than narrative films, but the "feature" films were much better. The lighting was amateurish, the acting a bit crude, they shot everything on Ektachrome 160, and on the soundtrack you could hear the clatter of the camera as it filmed, but taking into account that it was a production crewed by high school students, it was not bad at all. The factor that irritated me the most was that on the first "feature" film they shot the film on the stage where the play had been put on, complete with props, furniture, etc. Although they used closeups, medium shots, etc., it still felt like I was watching a filmed reenactment of theater. The second "feature" was shot in actual locations and felt much more like a narrative film.
It was also great to see Super 8 projected on a big screen...even if it was Ektachrome 160 some of the time. The audience enjoyed it, too; on the way out of the auditorium, I heard a lot of people speak positively of it.
Tom[/i]
'70s Super 8 Student Films Projected at "Video" Sc
Moderator: Andreas Wideroe
