Super-8. No, not the upcoming and very-exciting-looking Spielberg/Abrams collaboration. I’m talking about the format. Can you believe, in this digital age, that our parents and grandparents shot home movies on genuine film? Ah, the glorious luxury. Actually, it’s getting hard to believe that everyone used to shoot holiday snaps on 35mm film just a few short years ago. The extravagance!
I’ve wanted to shoot something on Super-8 for quite some time. Colin has been collecting the cameras from bootsales for a while and we kept talking about using them, but it was only last week that I got the kick up the arse that I needed to get on and do it. Katie and I had a conversation about where we wanted to be in two years’ time and it became clear that I really need to start making more films. I’d had a 90 second script kicking around for years and that seemed like a good way to get back into shorts. When I remembered that Virgin Media Shorts is currently accepting entries it all fell into place and I decided to shoot this script on Super-8 and enter it.
Looking at the deadline (July 7th) I perceived a hitch. I was going to be away in the States for three weeks, returning on that date. Although this necessarily accelerated my production schedule, it turned out to be very convenient for post-production. Because nowhere in the UK still processes Super-8 reversal film. So my well-timed trip means I can take my exposed stock to the US with me, mail it down to Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas for cheap processing and telecine, cut it on my laptop when it comes back and upload it to the competition site.
The shoot’s on Sunday, with Colin as Director of Photography, Ian on Production Design duties again (though these duties are considerably less arduous than on Dark Side) and Katie as costume designer. Johnny Cartwright and Therese Collins, actors I’ve worked with on numerous shorts and participatory films over the years, take the lead (and indeed only) roles. We have no idea whether the camera works properly, and there was no time to test it, so I’ll be shooting everything on HDV too as a back-up. I’ll let you know how it goes.
In the land of Dark Side, there was another screening and a meeting in London on Tuesday. Amongst the attendees were the team from Underwater Realm, an exciting short film currently in development and set to take place entirely beneath the waves. And I thought filming exclusively at night was a pain! Thanks for coming guys and good luck with your project – it looks intriguing.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – was the trilogy really crying out for an extra installment, minus the original director and plus a third spatial dimension? Jerry Bruckheimer obviously thought so. Sort of. As usual Katie and I travelled to Malvern cinema in order to be spared the eye-aching party trick that is 3D, but I hear that this film’s 3D was fairly shallow to the point where you wonder why they bothered. I was unable to observe any difference in the camera and editing style from what I’d expect in a 2D movie – there was just as much handheld material and quick cutting in the action scenes, so I can only conclude that watching it in 3D wouldn’t be very pleasant. Honestly, watching it in any format isn’t very pleasant because Jack Sparrow has been transformed into something approaching a heroic romantic lead, thereby robbing the character of at least 50% of what made him so great in the original trilogy.
But that’s enough of that. In other news, I’m making a short Super-8 film next weekend… that is, if I can sort out an actress and a location in time. Watch this space.