So I got a super 8 camera last year both to expand my image-making capacity and also as a response to what I saw was the "hegemony of the digital." I just started to feel "unsatisfied" with digital imaging and wanted to re-connect with the reality of film and its processes. The historical legacy of super 8 as a populist medium, together with its relative low-cost, seemed like the obvious path to follow. Admittedly, I'm still working on the basics and have only experimented with shooting the black and white films and Kodachrome 40, but I have had fun and been satisfied with the preliminary results. After reading about the possible (?) discontinuance of K40 and considering some of the dire implications of this, I have become concerned and a little bit angry. I just went over to the Kodak website and I had never really noticed before but the 125 Ektachrome is listed as being discontinued as well. Does this mean that in the near future Kodak only plans to market the one color reversal stock, the Ektachrome 64? This is discouraging. Should I just face facts and realize that the fate of this format and medium is in the hands of Kodak? Is there ANYONE--person, company, or institution that has considered developing a niche boutique business supplying these products? If its not profitable for Kodak's scale of business, maybe it could be profitable for a smaller outfit. I understand that all of this has been debated before and I do appreciate all of the relevant points that are made in this discussion. I know about the cost factor, the (presently) limited scope of people using super 8, and the fact that times change. But I can?t help but wonder, what if all of a sudden there was a new, state of the art camera marketed, together with a full range of amazing sound film stocks that people could edit quickly and easily on their computers? So many people I know today are actually "discontent" with their videocameras and the movies they take but remain at a loss as to explain why. I've heard some people talk with frustration about how that the images seem lifeless and unfeeling somehow. And the immediacy and consequent disposability of the digital image has actually had the opposite effect that was intended. There's no real connection, nothing precious, about an images that you can simply delete and shoot over. Film, by its very material nature (not to mention the physical, psychological and psychic experience of watching real projected film), is crucially compatible with human experience in a way that digital media is not. Video has its place, that can't be denied. But I can't help but think that if super 8 was somehow "revisioned" for the 21st century, with proper state-of-the-art technology and marketing savvy, that it could be resurrected as a mainstream alternative for popular use. My final point here is that Kodak seems to be slowly strangling super 8 of its life not necessarily by some sinister design of corporate greed, but by simple lack of imagination. Out of necessity, the existing super 8 community knows about creative survival strategies. We should figure out how to convince those that presently control the crucial means of this medium to think creatively as well. Not just ?supporting? super 8 with meaningless gestures and convenient product marketing but to think about the economic possibilities inherent in reimagining this phenomenon of super 8 film for a whole new generation. Film is not the past, it?s the future.