Beyond the Frame

Here’s my first film test for a Super 8 project that I’m shooting this winter.  It’s rough; I just needed to make sure that the camera we’re using (a Beaulieu 5008) doesn’t have any surprising quirks before we really get started.

When you love working in film as much as I do, it’s difficult to describe what makes it so special.  There are a few technical reasons that still remain, but there is also a timelessness to the image and an elegance to the process.  

The film above is two seconds long, on a loop.  I scanned in 48 frames on my flatbed scanner, cut them out in Photoshop and then stitched them together in Final Cut Pro.  The process didn’t take too long and I get to see what the exposure actually looks like.

The Super 8 frame is tiny.  I scanned this in on my flatbed scanner at 2400 dpi (72 dpi is considered good enough for screen images) but the information contained therein is massive.  When I do an actual scan,  I’ll be blowing up a 4.01mm x 5.79mm (0.156” x 0.228”) frame to high definition and the image will look crisp, beautiful and timeless.  

The technology still astonishes me and physically working with it is absolutely gratifying.  In the next few weeks, the format will be a consideration as I plan out how I want to capture what I’m capturing.  That’s the beauty of film - it encourages you to reflect on how you’re actually going about shooting something.  That, in turn, encourages a type of risk taking that is based on your experience and wisdom.

~ü