Category Opinion

In July, Lina Gasser from Switzerland interviewed me for her Matura thesis SUPER 8 – AN ANALOGUE SHORT FILM. I answered her questions.

How did you come to filmmaking? What attracts you to it?
In the beginning there was a huge passion for cinema. The films of Truffaut, Godard, Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and John Ford told me more about life than other art forms. After having given lectures on selected films by my favorite directors during my studies in 2003, it was studying abroad in Paris in 2006, during which I attended the Cinémathèque française almost every evening, that I got the idea to try filmmaking. Back in Germany, full of ideas and having hundreds of subversive-transgressive experimental films in my head, I took a camera and went into the woods. The resulting short film was then very positively discussed by friends and film students. Over the years I made more and more short films, which then even ran regularly at festivals. What makes me excited about filmmaking is the moving image: while a painting is quite static, in film, one can now show movement, relate music and sound, and create a unique rhythm through editing. Film as the art form of the 20th century unites almost all other arts in itself. A unique tool to express yourself.

Einzelne auf Super-8 gedrehte Filmszenen in pofessionellen Kino- und Fernsehproduktionen gibt es immer wieder – zumeist wir dabei der ganz spezielle Super-8-Filmlook für Traum- oder Erinnerungssequenzen verwendet.

Aber es gibt auch komplett auf Super-8 gedrehte Produktionen, die Ihre Premiere im Kino erleben, wie z.B. dieser Film, auf den ich durch Zufall aufmerksam wurde:

Auf der Website des Filmemachers die ansonsten wohl bewusst mit näheren Informationen geizt, gibt es hier interessante Bilder zu den Dreharbeiten.

Für die Premiere am 11.Oktober 2019 in Panama City, Florida wünsche ich viel Erfolg! Tickets gibt es hier. Vielleicht haben wir ja einmal die Chance, den gesamten Film zumindest in digitalisierter Form in einem Internet-Guckkasten zu sehen.

Perhaps others here also know the chronic problem of too-dark b&w reversal films. At least for me, b&w reversal films turn out much more often too dark than too bright. This happens especially in the case of expired films or obscure russian film stock etc., as well as in the case of negligence in development or lack of potassium rhodanide additive.

Often you just have a basic fog (so, bad Dmin) … There are many reasons.

In 1978, so more than 40 years ago, the photochemistry legend Patrick D. Dignan published a highly interesting script with the title
“How to Compound … Simplified Color Processing Formulas.“

Unfortunately, this script is extremely hard to find, and the Dignan family has no further copies either.
Darkroom mate Adrian C. from England was so nice and scanned his copy, Filmkorn now makes it available as a searchable PDF download!

The document is very interesting. While it does not list the exact formulas of the original processes, they would be very difficult to recreate. Rather, it offers a variety of simplified and tried-and-tested alternative processes with often startlingly good (or even indistinguishable) results.

The collection includes recipes for alternatives to the C-41, C-22, E-6, E-4, E3, Agfachrome and some paper processes (including a developer for Cibachrome!).

Great reading, and a printout shouldn’t be missing in any ambitious lab. You can learn a lot here.

Many small gauge film makers do not even know that there is a Double-X between the (now discontinued) Plus-X and the still very popular Tri-X. As the name suggests, its sensitivity lies between these two popular classics. However, it was introduced only in 1959, after the Plus-X (1938) and after the Tri-X (1954). In 1964, it was followed by the highly sensitive 4-X, which existed until 1990.

Die Kinder der Toten (“The Children of the Dead”) – a film project by Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek – consists of 8mm found footage material and newly shot scenes on Super8. The film premiered at this year’s Berlinale. A detailed report can be found here

Filming with Super8 cameras:

And here’s another trailer with found footage:

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In Saxon Frankenberg, a Super 8 workshop will take place in June 2019. Five participants learn with filmmaker Patrick Müller the handling of a Super 8 camera and the development of the film to the negative with the self-produced organic developer Caffenol. Afterwards begins a colorful ramble through Frankenberg, where everyone can capture his view of the city on the Zschopau river during the State Garden Show. The next day, all of the films will be developed together, will also be projected onto the big screen of the beautiful Welt-Theater cinema on the 22nd of June 2019. Are you ready for the analogue coffee-movie revolution?

More information and registration details can be found here. The workshop will be held in German and English.

## UPDATE 17.01.2019: 1 place available ##

Die Anonymen Analogiker des Filmvorführerforums trafen sich auch 2015 für ein Wochenende in Kreuzberg, um ihrem Hobby zu frönen. Diesmal verteilte ich sechs S8-Kassetten beladen mit Fomapan R100, die nach der Entwicklung dann von Thorsten zu dieser schmissigen Collage verarbeitet wurden.

The examined camera has the serial number 35933; With Pentovar, No. 6355608. On the back of the selenium cell I find as confirmation “ELECTROCELL Dec”. Stamped in 1963. The production year can therefore be derived from the serial number. On the inside of the case, the number 1675 is engraved. Series 1, serial number 675.
The cell originates from the “Electrocell-Gesellschaft Falkenthal & Presser”, founded in 1933 Berlin-Dahlem, the moving-coil instrument perhaps from Erlangen.

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