Super 8 Film Creation Process

[Lincoln Thorn]

Greetings film friends!

I’m curious if anyone has any in-depth knowledge on the process of striking super 8 prints by creating new negatives from 35mm/16mm film? This all just for my own enjoyment of how it works.

Thanks!
lincoln

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Get the negatives edited. Then hand them over to Andec or another lab that does „reduction prints“/„blow downs“ from 35mm or 16mm to Super8 and that offers striping and recording of the sound. That’s basically it. (Except for the minimum lengths and the hefty price tags.)

[Joerg Polzfusz]

(Depending on the price you want to pay, the lab will send you a demo reel with the first color-/exposure-corrected print before they’ll continue. So you will have to check it and communicate with the lab. Depending on the quality of the negatives, this can take more than one test print. And of course, all these tests have to be paid by you.)

[Larry Arpin]

Whatever you have as original material, such as a 35mm print, 16mm print, it all has to be converted to a 16mm negative made by an optical printer. In fact the pictured optical printer has a 16mm magazine. Then that is developed, timed, and printed by a super 8mm printer. I searched for a Richardson super 8mm printer but couldn't find one. The 16mm image is reduced and split in into a 2 row super 8mm print which I believe is now standard which has perferations on the edge and in the middle of a 16mm wide print stock. Then after the print is developed it is slit in two to make 2 super 8mm prints. Hopefully, that sort of explains the process.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Some more information:

https://www.l-abominable.org/en/tools/contact-printer/

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7866728

https://www.filmlabs.org/technical-s...film-printing/


In the past, there have also been 35mm wide film-strips that have later been cut into 4xsuper8 and a 3mm waste. Each frame of the original negative has been copied onto all 4 „tracks“. Hence, you ended up with 4 copies.
Today, AFAIK, only the „16mm that gets split into 2xSuper8“ is left. (And at least Andec also has a device that uses „pre-split“, 8mm-wide print-stock with Super8-perforations. This allows them to make individual copies when needed.

[Ruben Torrejon]

As a side note, by personal experience I can tell you, Lincoln, that as far as I know the only lab in the world that can do Super 8 printing (and I mean in a pro way) is Andec Filmtechnik. To get Super 8 reduction prints you’ll always need a 16mm master negative (created from a 35mm or 16mm positive or from digital files). We, at Ultra 8, personally contacted several labs in Europe and the US and the only option is Andec (some others do work with 16mm and/or 35mm but not Super 8 for mass printing). Luckily, Andec invested in the recent years a good amount of money upgrading their lab in order to get flawless, first rate optical printing.

Ruben

Ultra 8

[Lincoln Thorn]

Thank you all for the information! I'm always fascinated by the inner workings of things, so this is really neat to learn.