how seriously do YOU take film making

[AlexGfromUK]

scott,

It sounds like you're doing the same kind of research I am, trying to read every good book, watch every good film, and take every good bit of advice. And what you said about re writing your scripts, that is really a familiar feeling, only about three weeks ago I was doing rewrite after re write of the script for the film I'm waiting for now (being mailed back from processing).
By the way, redrice, are you a brit living in belgium? I'm wondering because of what you said about making a British movie.

Theres a probably a lot of people who stick by manual editing and a lot who swear by NL editing on this board, and to be honest I haven't had the time to fully get to grips with editing with adobe premier (6) at my college. I could talk about how I think it would probably make me lose sight of the creative ideas I first wanted to push, but to be honest, the main reasons are pretty down to earth, and specific to me

1. I have a love/hate relation ship with intricate manual jobs, that keeps drawing me back no matter how big my mistakes (like accidently disabling yaschica super 8 camera I picked up at an antique center for ?10 when I tried to fix a bad connection!)

2. I'm obsessed with quality, and transferring super8 to anything else inevitably causes loss of quality. So on that point, I'm sold on manual editing but I say good luck to anyone else with thier way of editing.

It's great that more people have responded now, and I'm people were willing to share thier origins in super 8. I think I will cut and paste this whole thread into "Word" and keep it!

[Scott Nocella]

Film is a beautiful medium to communicate messages.....and there are plenty that are needed in this time that we live in. I grew up on super 8mm and my childhood is preserved so that my children's children can see where they come from, but that's only a small part of what I want to leave behind. It's a time of responsibility and accountability, a time of action. Our website, WWW.Worldharmonyunlimited.com says it all. We document indigenous truths so that people can benefit from ancient knowledge now. FYI there are many native american festivals, and if you get a chance attend them, it's a good place to see good work. I'm not an indian, just somebody who cares, and sees that it's time to educate people about native americans through native americans telling their story in their own words.....it will help to heal times wounds. I really enjoy filming nature and it's an added bonus to show my child the way to live by doing it. I know it's kind of heavy but it's my truth on why I do what I do....and I take it very seriously.....the message of truth needs to be seen.

[ulrichsd]

I discovered how much fun filmmaking can be when I was 20 and my younger brother (by 2 years) and I made a short film for his film as literature class. Due to non-budget, we cast ourselves, friends, and parents. We filmed all of our footage in less than a 24 hour period on a borrowed hi-8 camcorder and edited on two VCRS from 8PM till 6AM straight (the film was due that next day). Anyway, his teacher selected a few of the movies to screen in class and he said that ours was the best he had ever recieved. My brother said afterwards everybody was asking him how he did some of the effects we used, if we edited on computer, if we planned to go into filmmaking, etc.

That was about 3 years ago and now I'm 23. I finished college exactly a year ago and have been working the last year as a chemist. But all this time I have always dreamed of making more movies. I've written a couple of scripts. I bought a super8 camera (Canon 1014E). My brother and I have talked to friends to act in our movie and we plan on shooting early this summer.

So am I serious about filmmaking? I read all the filmmaking books I can get my hands on, I read any info I can find on the web, I write and rewrite my scripts and I am always thinking about my stories and how I'll hopefully one day be able to put them on a screen. I look forward to a few weeks from now when my brother and I will be able to make our second film. I just want to learn and improve and do as much as I can.

scott u.

[Tormod Rossavik]

I feel that I should leave a word or two in here as well.
My reason for using Super 8 comes from the fact that I have worked in the tv and film industry for 8 years, starting as production assistant and via via lighting having ended up as a office rat in a large production company, making a saturday youth show. Quite fancy, but I'm leaving it in two weeks to take a Master of fine arts. I'm actually quite fed up with the large production crew that's instantly thought of when making a film, a tv show and so on. Therefore I use S8 to shot my own short films, documentaries... on S8. I do it to get back down to earth, to really make me think over what I'm doing. Yes, it really is meditation!
I've even gotten so minimalist that I try to avoid editing, but in the camera while shooting.
You've probably all tried it, but is surely gives me a kick.

Thanks again for all tips I've had.

Tormod

[redrice]

alex - yes, i'm british: born and brought up on tyneside, tho i've lived away now for the best part of 10 years.

scott - thanks for the link to your website. it sounds like what you're doing is quite close in some ways to what i want to do in my documentary work: looking forward to viewing the video clips once i get back home this evening!

stay well all,

peter

[capul8]

Great thread...
Don't have time for my own tale, but if you visit www.cinematography.com's Forum, there's a guy there named Dave Mullen who's now shooting very respectable 35mm features as DP. He mentioned awhile ago that he shot Super 8 for 10 years before moving to 16mm and then finally 35mm.
So take heart: it can provide the training ground for a serious career.
Cheers!
Bernie

[AlexGfromUK]

Excellent!!, any more replies?? I want one of those flaming folder icons next to my post and besides There must still be more people to say thier peice.

[AlexGfromUK]

Hello people,

I'm dragging this post of mine out of the later pages because I think it will answer some of the questions raised in the thread about chossing super 8 over video. This thread should give you an impression of how many people take super 8 very seriously, and if anyone just uses it for "home movies"

[filmsmyth]

Wow... a really good thread here. I'd really like to know how old a lot of you are because for myself, I really feel like an old fart sometimes because EVERYONE I know that's interested some aspect of filmmaking is so much younger...

How serious is my filmmaking? If you only knew. Well, I want to someday have my own "little" production company with just a close group of creative people (as I hope I am) and make films. I'm mainly interested in films for entertainment purposes with hopefully a message in there somewhere.

Since I was 10 years old (I'm now 43) I wanted to be a filmmaker. My family was so poor though that this was never going to happen while I lived at home...

When I hit 20, I joined the Navy just to get out of my small little mountain town. All my old friends are now in prison or dead. Anyway, after a few years in the Navy, I read an article about a young filmmaker named Mark Pirro making "A POLISH VAMPIRE IN BURBANK" and "CURSE OF THE QUEERWOLF" --even then (late 70's/early 80's) the Navy did not nearly pay me enough money to really get into Super8... I did however get into Black and White Photography.

One day while checking out a little camera store in San Diego, I saw a Beaulieu 5008 for sale. I asked to look at it.

OH MY GOD!

This was the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE that I had ever picked up a movie camera. It felt so good in my hands. It looked used, but I like that fact. It made me feel different from just about anything else I'd ever experienced and I had never even shot any film.

Unfortunately, the camera was $895 which was way out of my league. --Pretty funny now when I think of it because I recently found a Beaulieu 6008 at a yard sale for $5.00 and just picked up a Chinon Pacific 12SMR for $55!

Anyway, I couldn't afford the 5008, so the store owner showed me a Sears Super8 camera (Bell & Howell 1237 if I remember correctly) and a Chinon projector with recording capabilities. I think he wanted $295 for both (still out of my league back then) but encouraged me to put the combo on layaway.

Which I did...

I remember the day I picked the combo up... I had already purchased some sound film and went around shooting anything and everything.

I then progressed to imitating the shots I really admired in certain movies. I would rent the movie, and storyboard the entire shot so I could see if I could duplicate it.

After some practice, I got pretty good at this... So I started making little one reel movies...

I kept doing this pretty much until 1990 when I went ahead and decided that I needed to get in gear if I wanted to make movies some day. So I wrote a script and went full on into making a Super8 feature... my idea being that maybe I could at least get a video distribution deal once completed.

What I thought would take a summer turned into 2 years when out of nowhere, my ex wife started fucking around with a neighbor and I proceeded to go through the divorce from hell.

The divorce from hell and still being in the Navy put my Super8 filmmaking career on the back burner --this was 1993.

Having to support two households now, I ended up losing almost all the filmmaking equipment I had accumulated throughout the years...i.e., All the shit from Super8 Sound that is now pretty much obsolete. I wouldn't buy shit from them now, but back in the 80's and early 90's when Mark Pirro worked there, it was a halfway decent place to buy from and even hang out for a day.

Oh well...

I finally retired from the Navy in 1998. About 5 years before I retired, I figured that I could at least be writing some screenplays rather than doing nothing at all.

So that's been my main focus since the mid 90's till now. I've not yet sold one yet, but I am really close now... maybe in another year or two...

Back to Super8...

Once I discovered eBay in 1996, I started looking for Super8 equipment again. I was pretty lucky and found some great stuff and was even able to turn it into a decent part time business --totally sticking to Super8 buying and selling equipment.

Then MiniDV popped up in 97 or so... I still couldn't afford to buy a digital camcorder, but I thought the idea of editing Ranked Super8 in the computer sounded like a great idea.

After I retired, I started my own business and busted my ass for two years to get the income level up to where I could take it a little easier and concentrate on screenwriting and hopefully filmmaking.

So now here I am... back into Super8 and MiniDV.

How serious am I? Well, I pretty much put my life on hold for the last 20 plus years with the future idea of FINALLY getting into filmmaking. Since I was pretty sure making a living from Super8 filmmaking would be difficult at best, I decided to create a different route so that I could support my filmmaking after retirement.

Sometimes I feel like I really lost out on a lot of good learning experiences by not chucking it all and simply go to SMELL-A and take any job I could get in the film industry, but I have to say now that I am 43 years old... I really do have a lot more life experience. I know that I could NOT have written the stuff I now write 10 or 15 years ago... The life experience I finally have is so rich with stories, that I think this was how it was meant to be for me.

Unfortunately, where I live now, there's really nobody around to collaborate with when it comes to making even a short film however, last year I went to New Mexico (Albuquerque) for the FLICKS ON 66 Digital Shootout --just as a spectator.

What an experience! So many people in that community want to make films! Lots of actors... lots of filmmakers... lots of enthusiastic wanna be's.

Even found a place called Field & Frame that rents Super8 equipment and is almost like a friggin hangout for Super8 freaks like us. I knew I was home --and I really hate the desert! But I'm definitely moving there... The community itself is so behind it's resident filmmakers it's unbelievable!

I met so many filmmakers there who were/are in the middle of making a low budget movie... who would have known? These filmmakers that I met encouraged me to move out there and get started. I shared ideas with several Albuquerque filmmakers who encouraged me to move out there immediately because they had plenty of contacts that I could use... Locations, equipment, help, etc.

Again... who would have known.

So that's my story. My dream is to someday make a mainstream film totally in Super8. Maybe one day...

filmy

[AppleCore24]

I'm pretty serious. I hope to someday move on to 16mm and eventually 35mm. But before any of that, or after all of that, I hope to open a super8 shop here in Dallas. There are so many wannna be filmmakers here, who just don't have the cash to do 16mm and are smart enough to realize that you had better be a GOD a filmmaking, or be incredibly lucky, to get anywhere with a "film" shot on video. I have a very small production company, 5 unofficial emplyees, and a big group of friends to act and crew (I am, by profession, an actor. I make money working at Starbucks, acting, and teaching others "how to act.")

But if by some chance God makes a path for me to make it big, I'm taking Super8 with me. Everyone will know that I love the "dead" format, and encourage any and every aspiring filmmaker who is shooting, or thinking of shooting, video to switch to super8.