Blu Ray - Does someone have a personal dislike of Super 8

[Mike Newell]

Updating some DVDs titles with Blu Rays I have noticed and those which include a super 8 edition as part of their special features have something in common. They are all truly awful. Either bright pink or a soft focus scratched black and white 200ft silent editions.

Hannie Caulder, Duel and incredible Shrinking Man come to mind. Why do they bother?There are some great digest versions out there is it to much bother to include them?

[Douglas Meltzer]

Mike,

I found this to be true with The Mad Magician Blu-ray as well. In over 18 years as a member(!), I cannot recall seeing a single post on this Forum asking for a high quality print of a cutdown for transfer purposes. You'd think a little research would lead interested parties here or to another forum.

Doug

[Tom Photiou]

I guess they cant make it look too good otherwise the blu ray or dvd wont look so hot.
A lot of digital users try to put super 8 down as a poor or grainy source. We know differently of course.

[Chip Gelmini]

I once worked at a film festival as a projectionist. It was mostly 35mm with some 16mm at a nearby screening room. Speaking with the festival director, I asked why they didn't include some super 8 short films as I was certain there could be a source for it. That is, aspiring filmmakers shooting on super 8 desperate to have their product screened. She basically replied that super 8 was an inferior format. She didn't notice, but my hands changed into a pair of fists..............

[Osi Osgood]

I have noticed that as well, the making of 10 minute documentary on Land that Time Forgot. Terrible quality. I agree with the previous replies.

[Brian Fretwell]

I always find that 8mm and possibly Super 8 film included as extras (location film by members of cast, off screen filming of clips from missing episodes etc) used on Dr Who DVDs and Blu Rays is always very high quality. I expect it is due to the dedication of the team making them.

The others just seem to treat them as cheap fillers and don't bother.

[Lee Mannering]

THE WRECKER has the 9.5mm film on! I like the nostalgia of smaller formats being of BR discs and yes they look pale to the 4k scanned films oft taken from 35mm camera negatives but still fun. The REEL upside for this old timer (someone called me that last month) is I have had the films they often include for decades and projected so many times.
If I had one criticism it would be they could spend a bit of time finding better 8mm film copies at least and get them scanned ProRes at least, but at the end of the day it will boil down to money sadly.
I have a little pile of BR discs I keep together which have 8mm films on to accompany the new BR releases and of course we have discs that also have 9.5 films on.

[Osi Osgood]

Another thing that cheeses me off about this is that they didn't even bother to clean the freaking film before they did the telecine! Barbarians!

[Tom Photiou]

Chip, as it happens, i have the DVD for the seven ups, one of the extras is the 400ft super 8 version, a very poor copy with no colours worth mentioning, the narrator within this discs extra also makes the comment that cine film has an inferior quality, clearly these people have not seen decent prints at all.

[Osi Osgood]

I just wanted to mention a really good telecine of a super 8 print, '" Kooks Tour", an unreleased pilot for a Three Stooges TV show. (a 16mm master has not been found to this day), and a company did a great job of restoring it for DVD release.

[Brad Kimball]

Hi Osi, "Kooks Tour" was re-mastered by Rhino Video with consent from the Norman Maurer estate. They did a great job with the transfer considering there wasn't much good in the source to begin with. I have prints of both the feature and the digest and unfortunately they both have suffered from the Niles Films Eastman Curse ~ Fireball Red. Why I don't just bin the things is beyond me. Nostalgia, more likely. Why do we all keep red prints when we know we would never want to show them to anyone but ourselves? Who would sit through them?

[Osi Osgood]

Depending on the long cherished print? US!!!

[Brian Fretwell]

Not only Super 8 gets this treatment on Blu Ray often 35mm trailers do too. I watched the extra on "The Curse of the Crimson Altar" Blu Ray last night and the trailer was so bad compared to clips in the Making Of extra that I got my Walton Super 8 trailer out and watched that - it was in marginally better condition than the print used for the disk.

[Joe Caruso]

Super 8...what's that?

[Mark Todd]

Surely if they do include a diegest or trailer, both great to be on the disc, why not clean up and also redo the colour too.

Ok re-doing digitally sort of thing, but well worth it.

Be great to get good colour fast editions on to disc and stored etc.

Maybe we should between ourselves start to archive good colour digests somehow ?

Might be a worthy project.

Best Mark.