Old and New... What has changed for you?

[Lincoln Thorn]

Greetings friends!

I thought this could be a fun thread for everyone to voice their personal history of your involvement in Super 8 film and collecting.

What has changed about the hobby from your entry point to current day?

How has the hobby evolved in your life? Has technology changed the way you screen your prints?

What's one thing you miss about the hobby and one thing that you love about it in the present?

Food for thought!

Lincoln

[Steve Klare]

My involvement took kind of an unexpected turn in the early 2000s. I had a box of maybe 40 films and one silent projector and put up a tripod screen a couple of times a year. If you'd asked me around that time if there would ever be anything more, I would have said that my film collecting was as much as it ever would be: I thought nobody else did it and everyone that made the films and film stock was out of those businesses.

It was the VHS Age! (remember those?)

Then I got on the Internet and found out how untrue all of these things were!

All of a sudden there was this huge film-renaissance for me, and I went places I'd never even thought about before: sound, 16mm, 'scope. I was the only film collector I knew back then, but because of the 'net, I met many others and even started hanging out with them in person twice a year.

If you go by the conventional wisdom, it should be impossible to find films these days, but to a certain extent it's almost too easy! Easily 9 films in 10 I own now arrived here after the year 2000. I actually need to be a little picky in order to conserve storage space. Sometimes I look at a film for sale, and if anywhere in my being, a little voice at all says "....eh", I click the "X" and move on. What's nice about this is when a film IS on the way, I usually really look forward to getting it. When you get one and maybe don't even wait for dark to try it out, then you are getting few enough to savor each one.

-when they show up and lay piled up for a couple of weeks, maybe each one matters too little.

[Shane C. Collins]

It was 2005, and I was researching 8mm and Super 8mm films, etc. I got to looking at projectors, and cameras. At first, it was a Bell & Howell dual 8 sprocketless projector that I picked up for cheap on the Bay. Then, after that came in, I got interested in cameras. The first camera I purchased was the Bolex S-1, a standard 8mm camera. Once those items came in, it was time to mess around. I was quite "green" in those days, and knew nothing about film, projectors, etc. I then found out, using online research, I could still purchase movie film. So, at the very end of the Kodachrome run, I was able to purchase a standard 8mm roll of color reversal. I have to say my very first roll turned out quite nice!

In 2006, as Kodachrome exited, I switched to messing around with Super 8! Bought a Minolta Autopak 8 D6, fell in love! What a great camera that was, and still is! So my serious movie making started at this point in time! I began using Kodak's Ektachrome 64T. That film was quite grainy, but still had great colors, and decent sharpness. Then came Ektachrome 100D, a much faster and sharper film! The current Ektachrome 100D (7294) is my absolute favorite. Not only for its superior sharpness, but great natural colors, and contrast! Projected this stuff is amazing!

OK, I am rambling again and off target! What I've learned the most about film, is its ability to capture moments in time with clarity, and a dream like state! It's use of colors, grain, etc is just about how I remember a certain moment in time visually! It has taught me patience with filming, getting a good shot, and most of all people in as many shots as possible! There's nothing worse than landscape scene after landscape scene on screen! It's a moment for me that captures friends, and family! The silliness, laughter (no sound) and other fun things about using film itself.

Now that my wife and I have a 5 year old, my priorities have changed, as they do for most people! Shooting Super 8 today has been about capturing his growth, and development since he was born. I documented him a week after he came home from the hospital. However, I still want to capture the other family members that have grown to like my Super 8 home movies. Imagine just seeing my 5 year old on screen, and no one else, boring! So I've turned this whole filming thing into something fun for everyone who sees them! I now have a reason to pass these films down to my son someday. I don't shoot as much film as I did just a few years ago. However, I try to at least fire of a couple carts each vacation time, etc. I hope to at least keep doing this as long as color reversal film remains available. Projecting this stuff is the real magic!

[Steve Klare]

Having kids does great things for film collecting and making!

When my son arrived, I took it as an excuse to start collecting cartoons.

He's 23 now and the excuse stands!

He was a little kid during the last years of Kodachrome, and I have a number of films I made where he is the star!

[Melvin England]

What a wonderful topic !

My "entry point" into the hobby was around 1974. In those days I had a silent Prinz Magnon LV variable speed silent projector. Silent was all that a 12 year old could ever have expected to manage on his pocket / Birthday / Christmas money. And so it went on for several years, buying the odd 200' B/W silent film, but mostly those 50'ers because I could buy them quicker as they were cheaper.

When I started earning, several years later, the first thing to do was move into sound which I did. So that is a major change for me over the years. Slowly my 200 and 400'ers collection got bigger and bigger. I could never have imagined that by 2025 what a superb set of full length films would cross my path, even some I never expected I would ever get to own, and that I would even break into cinemascope.... and stereo sound !

That is my evolution.

As VHS grew, everyone around me either moved over to that..... or simply died of old age! I was left by the 1990's as, what I thought, a lone collector, barring my annual Blackpool visit, with no one interested in watching my collection.... except myself. Mail order film shops died (remember Mailmaster ?), local camera shops gave up 8mm, and I had at that time not discovered the delights of the Derann open days.

Wilderness years indeed !

Anyway, slowly things did improve. I discovered Derann and was quite happy to drive down to Dudley for the day, and grab a bargain, which I most certainly did. In those days my philosophy was quantity over quality ! A U-Turn by today's standard regardless of the current size of my collection ! So now I had Derann a couple of times a year or so, AND Blackpool !

Then, several years later, three things happened. In no particular order 1) Ebay 2) Discovering CHC which is only a 35 minute drive from my house, for goodness sake! 3) THIS FORUM !!!!

1) Ebay. Suddenly, for the first time in absolutely ages, a chance to buy films again! Heaven !

2) CHC. Phil in Cleethorpes. Classic Home Cinema. I really shot myself in the foot with this one. So near to me, yet so far. I knew of it but never got around to visiting it for years and years and years. Fool me. Anyway, that has been rectified and have been over many times since, I am pleased to say.

3) This Forum. For me, possibly the icing on the cake. It is absolutely wonderful to communicate with like minded people.... now from ALL OVER THE WORLD. I have learned so much by reading these topics and asking questions. Really, I think my involvement with super 8 has never been greater than now, and I just wish all this would have been in place all those years ago!

One cannot turn back time, but can go forward into the future and relish what may be thrown our way !

So, the last question was about what we miss about the hobby?

I wish super 8 Kodachrome sound cartridges were still around. The current film is also soooooooo damned expensive. I wish that not only was it cheaper.... and why the hell is the stuff NOT 40 asa ??? Search me! I would love to shoot again on super 8 with my wonderful Sankyo XL620 Supertronic. A lovely piece of kit that has been unused for so long. Just restrictive pricing.

The other thing I miss, if that is the correct term, is not worrying whether my new 400' purchase would have colour fade, because they weren't OLD enough to have got it in the 70's and 80's. That, and being able to buy digests of the best of the current films on release. What a golden age THAT was !


.

[Steve Klare]

I guess I do miss the days when I finished a cartridge and processing was locally available: any drug store, many department stores, any camera shop. One of my favorites was Fotomat: I'd be out doing something else and I could drop film off and later pick it up without even parking the car! (-a lot of it went to Kodak anyway: these were just intermediaries.)

I liked the young ladies working inside the booth, especially since I was just as young at the time! One of 'em said "What kind of finish do you want on these?". I said "Oh! This is movie film: it doesn't get a 'finish' ". Then she said "Oh! Ok! -what kind of borders do you want?", and I said "sprocket holes, please!". (I imagine she was behind the counter at McDonald's a couple of days before...)

These days getting film to the lab is a real process. There is the mailing part and the paying part. The best one is Dwayne's in Kansas. You send your e-mail address with the film and they e-mail you a Pay-Pal invoice. That's fine for color, but for black and white I often use one that insists on postal money orders or bank checks. -more steps in the process. It just makes it awkward and tends to get put off instead of being done.

Even Kodak pre-paid mailers were better: seal the cartridge in the envelope, place some stamps on it and away we go!

[Shane C. Collins]

Steve, I also use Dwayne's Photo for processing color reversal. You can set up an account and pay online, via their website, before you send those movies in for processing. This is how I do it, and it's made the process a little easier. Dwayne's offers Super 8 processing for $12 per cart. I just sent 2 carts of Ektachrome 7294 a few weeks ago, and they are now on their way to my house. I always have great results from Dwayne's! Projected colors are always nice, with sharp images!

[Steve Klare]

Shane?

Did you join the Last Kodachrome Roundup at Dwayne's?

High Noon in Parsons Kansas

-been there, done that, literally DID buy the T-Shirt and I still have it!

December 30th, 2010 was the last day that Kodachrome would be accepted for processing: not only at Dwayne's photo but everywhere else in our solar system. I had about 4 cartridges left, and I did a lot of work like titling and shooting missing pieces of films I had unfinished. Just before Christmas I finished up. I figured I'd send them out on the morning of the 26th and they'd be there the 28th or 29th.

The night before I was set to ship them, a major Nor'Easter hit the East Coast and shut down anything that rolled or flew. Before I managed to get them a ride I was at FedEx, UPS and USPS and lost at least a day when the guys behind the counter kind of just shook their heads! By the time they actually left, this went from "third day" to "overnight" ($$$)

There were these weeks of awkward silence where I wasn't sure if my film made it to Dwayne's on time or was 3 minutes too late! (It turns out they weren't late as long as they hit the Processor before the chemicals ran out.)

-somehow I always manage to have an adventure at moments like these!
/

[Shane C. Collins]

Steve, I never joined the last Kodachrome Roundup at Dwayne's, but I know it well! I watched all of this unfold back in 2010! I wasn't as sad as everyone else, since I got a late start using movie film in 2005. I only every filmed with Kodachrome twice on standard 8mm. By the time 2006 rolled around, as mentioned above, I went straight to Ektachrome E6! I was more upset when Kodak discontinued Ektachrome 7285 around 2012, I was like "really Kodak"! Two years on the market and bam! But, when they re-released a new version of Ektachrome in 2018 I was so thrilled I about lost it, LOL. although I have to say I wasn't thrilled with my first cart of 7294. I shot that movie at box speed (100 ASA) and was surprised how dark everything looked. All details in the shadows were lost. Then, after reading some online posts at a still photography website, I learned what someone had done. They mentioned opening up the camera one stop to expose the film for a bit longer. So the next cart of 7294 I did the same thing. Opened that exposure up one stop. When that film came back I was like wow! Totally looked like a whole different stock. And the sharpness and clarity was simply amazing! OK I'm off track again as usual!

[Graham Ritchie]

Reading everyone comments above has been great, as Shane comment is spot on when he says "projecting this stuff is the real magic" last week with Steven and April around we watched some of our home movies, more in two weeks time. April who is now 40 years old, was not happy about her baby in the bath bit, Dad can you fast forward that bit it goes on and on, Steven comments, its film you can't fast forward. Its funny to see that kind of reaction Also captured on film was April hitting Steven over the head with a lump of wood, she denied it ever happened, see I said its on film, and so it goes . The thing that for me that really stands out is the color. Home movies that were shot on Kodak from the 1970s to the 80s look so alive, as if they were taken just yesterday, the only way to watch them proper is using a film projector. Although I also collected commercial films, from the likes of Derann, the films I treasure the most is the ones were taken with our Super 8 camera many moons ago.

My big mistake though, was to make the move to VHS during the 1990s, I should have stayed with film regardless of the cost.

[Osi Osgood]

It's kind of back and forth for me ... now, I mostly spend my time expanding my collection by finding rarities on super 8, that's the old; but I also have ENORMOUS FUN editing and making, having printed new digests, something that I never thought I would enjoy, and in 2025!! The only downside is that I really wish that I could share with fellow collectors these new digests, but due to copyright concerns, that a no go.😬

[Ed Gordon]

The personal histories of how you developed the mental condition known as Obsessive Film Collection (OFC) share common threads.

So began John’s lifelong obsession: to own the movies he most loved, to turn circulating commodities into sacred objects. His biography as a collector from childhood onward took on a shape similar to those of numerous collectors throughout America. With the purchase of his first small reel, John felt a new identity emerge. He was no longer victim to the whims of television schedules and parental moods. He was a master of images, a magician of the visible. In his own room he mesmerized himself with shadow shows. During daytime in the classrooms and auditoriums of his school, he wowed his classmates with his cinematic wizardry. These public displays became increasingly sophisticated. By the time John was in junior high, he was supplementing his own collection of shorts with features from film rental agencies. With the permission of his teachers, he frequently planned screenings in the gym. He drew by hand his own advertisements and pasted them around the school a week in advance of the show. He also designed tickets and sold them at the door the day of the movie. He introduced the movie by a brief lecture. Next he screened trailers and cartoons. And finally, the film itself, something “educational,” such as The Day the Earth Stood Still or The Red Badge of Courage. John continued this practice in high school, even to the point of getting course credit for introducing and screening literary adaptations. When it came time for college, John chose his school not for its academic reputation but for its proximity to an independent television station devoted to showing old comedy shorts and features. His very first day on campus, John approached the provost and asked her if he could run a free film series. Permission granted, John launched a four-year project of his own making. When he wasn’t lolling about his room catching old flicks on television, John was scheming over how to purchase his own collection of features. It was around this time that he met Moon Mullins.

The article is attached below:

The Most Dangerous Hobby in the World Film Collecting in the Digital Age.pdf

The is no cure for OFC, thank God.

[Osi Osgood]

I know, it's been stated ad nauseum, but there really is something, even with all the hassle, of watching a cherished film on actual celluloid, and I really don't think it comes down to it being "organic" or something to be handled. It's an experience that I personally have never had with digital, even with the best of restored digital prints

[Lincoln Thorn]

I've enjoyed reading everyone's great personal accounts and history with Super 8! I've only been collecting since 2019, but I have fallen more in love with film collecting with each passing year, and more than that, I have made some many wonderful friendships.

I hope you all continue to share your history and answers to this topic.

[Steve Klare]

Being involved in film has changed a lot since video technology has allowed for recording and playback. It used to be if you wanted to record your kid's birthday party, 8mm or 16mm film was all that existed. If you wanted to see highlights of World Cup, the World Series or the Super Bowl: you bought reels and ran them through a projector. If you were an English teacher and you wanted to wake your kids up by putting Shirley Jackson's brutal The Lottery on screen, it was 16mm. Even if you were a train nut (like me!) and wanted to watch (and maybe hear) the Denver and Rio Grande narrow gauge climb through the Animas Canyon out in Colorado, film it was!

People under these circumstances had two choices: use film or do without! Some of 'em grew to love messing around with this stuff, but many did not. They were stuck with it.

Ever since VHS showed up, people have had a choice and understandably a great many made the switch to cheaper and easier. If someone at Work decided to do a presentation with Super-8 film, even I would be astounded! I'd have to talk to them about it, but I would be amazed!

These days, somebody standing next to a film projector with a large image on a big screen is doing this because they want to: they have a choice, just like the people that wouldn't show a reeled film at gun-point!

By and large the people that know about my film hobby think it's pretty cool, but every so often I still get the "Why do you do this when you can have video". I'll admit I've been a wise-guy a couple of times and pretend I've never heard of this space-age wonder, and I ask them to kindly explain it ("Noooooo!!! You don't have to bring it to the drug store after you shoot it?" How on EARTH do you fit it in the projector???!!!), but the truth of the matter is I actually have a pretty nice video system, and the reason I still use film is simple: it's fun!

(Nobody drives a classic car because they have to, either!)