How does super 8 printing work?

[Clark Teddles]

Hello, hope you are all doing well
I have been searching the internet for a bit and cannot find much information about printing onto film.
I found some kodak film that is made for printing, but was wondering how is content printed onto this film?
I saw a person who just printed single frames onto some pre-cut pieces of super 8, but that looks extremely tedious.
Does anyone know what sort of printer is used to print film?
Thank you.

[Osi Osgood]

You have a rubber stamp made which states "Super 8", then you simply get a little ole ink pad and stamp out as many super 8 prints as you desire. BOY! I'm no help, am I?

[Lee Mannering]

Hello Clark. If you are looking to print film in length to Super on industrial scale you will be looking for something like a TAKITA or BELL & HOWELL Optical printer. These are big heavy machines that typically involve the use of a negative film to print onto positive print stock.
But it does not stop there.. You then need a machine processor, motorized film slitter and more. To set up with some old equipment which will need maintenance doing I am sure you may be looking at a starting price of £25,000 and more. These hefty precision machines often need new parts machining and they do prove pricey to maintain.

So to start with you will need a negative then that will be optically printed (exposed) within the printer.

Some years back I did experiment with contact printing at home using both 9.5mm and 16mm film to replace titles or short sequences which I could do up to 50ft at a time. In the dark you load the original film print in contact with the new Positive film and when camera light safe expose it in a balanced light to suit the type of film. Home contact printing.

The greatest fun was with 9.5mm film have to say saving some rare home movie clips for a friend where the sprocket holes had been damaged.
Hope this helps you a bit.

[Brian Fretwell]

The main printers used in the latter Derann days was the continuous reduction printer which used a 16mm negative and through a prism system printed two copies side by side on 16mm wide film which was in motion all the time and therefor had to be very carefully maintained. I seem to remember the brand names were Peterson and Hollywood printers. Others were contact printers either from 16mm wide dual or 35mm quad negative to similar width positive stock which were trimmed to 8mm later.

[Larry Arpin]

I once had a home made 16mm to super 8mm printer. I could do either 16mm negative to super 8mm print or 16mm print to super 8mm negative. I also had a super 8mm contact printer. So I took the super 8mm negative and contact printed to super 8mm print stock. This was back when Kodak had pre-striped magnetic strips. I would then take the film stock to be processed at the lab. Much easier back in the day. Not so these days. Most major labs had Peterson super 8mm printers either dual or quad printing.