Celluloid Best-of!

[Lincoln Thorn]

We all are here because we like to collect, screen, share our loves of Super 8 films - but I have a confession… I do cheat on Super 8 with blu rays and other formats often when I sit down in my home to watch a movie.

I know, I know… I can hear the gasps as I type this.

Fear not, for my question is simple: What are movies that you simply can’t enjoy as much unless it’s on film? What are those special movies or digests that only super 8 will do?

Let’s have some fun!

[Graham Ritchie]

No gasps from me Lincoln all film/VP formats work well side by side

For me the films I would rather watch on Super 8, over there digital counterpart are the "Fantasia" extracts on one 1200ft reel, all my Silly Symphony Disney shorts bought new from Derann many moons ago, Tom and Jerry. Others would be the Marketing 3/400ft of "Airplane" . "Raise The Titanic", The Black Stallion, Great Expectations 1946 features and a few more I can't think of just at the moment.

I guess I am more into Super 8 shorts than features, Going of topic just slightly there is one film on 35mm that stands out over the blu-ray and that's "Dances With Wolves" that one, is really a must to watch on film .

I never have looked at just one format, I tend to go all over the place with film and video projection

[David Baker]

WOW , what a LOADED question.........
For one is BEN-HUR ( 3 reel cut-down in SCOPE )
Even in Mono sound I can't take my eyes off the screen for that whole sequence !

[Chip Gelmini]

I have BEN HUR in Cinemascope and stereo sound full length and it's a beautiful motion picture every time I see it

[Bill Phelps]

Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. I have only seen them on 8mm, super 8 or 16mm. That goes for a lot of silent era films.

[Osi Osgood]

So do I, Chip! My personal feeling is any film that I truly love, I would rather watch, for instance, Star Wars on film, than the best Blu-ray copy. Seeing it on TV is OK, seeing it on the big screen in scope makes me feel like I am that ten year old, all over again, awed and seeing that star destroyer, rumbling down the screen after the rebel blockade runner. It's an EVENT on celluloid!

[Brian Fretwell]

Any cartoon short. Finding the right disc then waiting for the menu to load before selecting the right one, then going through the same rigmarole if the next one you want is on a different disc is too much. With film you can just line them up and work your way through.

[Melvin England]

What a great question !

My answer would be, firstly, all those black and white Astaire / Rogers song and dance routines, all the Busby Berkeley classics and most of the 1930's / 40's / 50's black and white films (except Casablanca) that I wouldn't give the time of day to if I saw them on the TV listings. These are the films that were plain and simply made for the BIG SCREEN and super 8 fits the bill beautifully. They take on a totally different dimension up there on that silver screen instead of on even a 65" TV where one immediately loses size/width due to the academy ration format of the films in the first place.
Specific features would also include black and white classics Great Expectations, The Bells of St. Mary's, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, The Happiest Days of Your Life, Tom Brown's Schooldays, The Outlaw and several others.

Others I would watch on TV but are far better on super 8 include Tom & Jerry and the Disney 200'ers which I know in themselves do not make TV but the full length films often do. Oh yes.....one more in this category that was "65 million years in the making" !!!!!!!!

.

[Martin Davey]

I enjoy projecting various short from film. Laurel and Hardy, Tom and Jerry and cinema commercials always work well for me in that media. However for features its always bluray / streaming. These are projected on a 6.5 foot wide screen, and look and sound splendid. I don't touch features on film at all.

[Ali Hipperson]

For me, and as the large majority of my collection covers 1920-1960 (and mostly in B+W - so I largely escape the dreaded colour-fade problem) it would be all the films in my collection - shown and viewed as they originally were on their release back in the day, using a conventional projector and onto as big a screen as the throw on my set-up will allow 🙂

[Osi Osgood]

I agree, Melvin, especially
when you see how much the PC crowd is editing them these days!

[Zachary Greenberg]

For me, watching animation on Super 8 (particularly the Disney features from Derann) and 16mm film is always a treat and the quality is still better than Blu-Ray video transfer. Also, I agree some older acetate black and white film prints beat current video transfers by a long shot.
For instance, I have a print of "The Man With The Golden Arm" on 16mm (made in the 1950s on excellent B/W film stock with an absurdly high amount of silver) that is glorious to project.

[Ken Finch]

Like Graham, I use all formats. All are projected, thus maintaining the cinema experience. Watching a film on a T.V. whatever size loses all impact to me. Too much distraction from the surroundings and the sound quality is poor. I could never afford to buy full length feature prints on the 8mm gauges. Even most of my 9.5mm collection were purchased second hand. Had quite a bonanza when people changed to 8mm and "dumped" 9.5!!
Also until the arrival of video, most 16mm feature films could only be hired from various libraries. Ken Finch.

[Steve Klare]

It's very common for me to run film shorts before a digitally sourced projected feature: it just allows for such a variety of material that staying strictly film or strictly digital can't provide.
Sometimes I do things to clue the crowd into what's special about film: for example the last show we had for our friends had a brief demonstration of how CinemaScope works including a little on-screen demonstration using a spare anamorphic lens and a flashlight.
The one rule I live by is to project film first, especially 8mm: most of the time I use 100W lamped machines and by themselves they look fine. However when I screen them immediately after my Epson (even in its dimmest lamp setting), they look dim. (I guess this is where a GS-Xenon might come in handy...)

I do own prints on Film that I also have digitally, just for when the mood calls for it.

We have a show for our friends coming up this winter: 8mm, 16mm and DLP: 4 projectors and a disc player all playing through the same sound system (Let the cabling BEGIN!).

[Trevor Adams]

Ever wonder which super 8mm digest is the most repeatable? The flick you are most liable to go back to-over and over?My pick would be 'Airplane!'. Would Osi be,'L and T of Grizzly Adams'..........