Hello!
I'm currently in London setting up shop over here. We've been busy busy busy getting all of our promotional materials ready to get the word out about Super 8 films!
Super 8 wedding films are relatively unknown over here so we've got our work cut out for us getting people hip to the fact that they can have their wedding filmed in a cool way! Cheesy videos are still the norm here but we're ready to SHOUT FROM THE ROOFTOPS, letting people know that there IS a way to have your day beautifully shot, in an artful, cool and fun way.
A couple weeks ago, I spent my Saturday learning how to hand-process super 8 film at this very cool place called
no.w.here. They are a of individuals dedicated to art of the moving image. The instructor, James Holcombe was a very passionate film artist and educator who really knew his stuff. He mainly worked with experimental film processing and showed us some super exciting examples... mostly French artists who had messed with different processes and got really cool results. Granted, I don't think many brides would want to see their wedding in bright green tones or ultra contrasty almost unrecognizable black and white but as art pieces they were very cool and super inspiring!
We went out shot a few rolls around Shoreditch, then came back and learned how to take the film from the cartridge onto spools in a dark room, then added a 3 chemical process, and then let the film dry on antiquated wire racks with clothes pins. It was so hands-on and I LOVED IT! Just like my old dark room days of photography. Granted, it's much easier to drop off your film to a lab and have it come back on a cool little mini-DV and pop it into the computer, BUT learning how it's done and doing it ourselves was fascinating.
After the film was dry, we threaded our masterpieces into an old projector and watched our films. It was lovely to have that "instant" gratification. Not quite DIGITAL but shooting that day and watching it in a few hours was amazing. Bright red London buses, gorgeous fluffy white clouds against blue skies, flapping wings of pigeons with a quarter open shutter, a cyclist in slow motion moving down Brick Lane, a florescent green kabab stand all in saturated grainy gorgeousness. I HEART SUPER 8! And so should you. :)
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