B&T and IC8: Little Film's Advocates
Our history might be encapsulated in the following series of "aha" moments that led us to invest our energy in 8mm filmmakers and artists while never straying too far from home movies:
We discovered the surprising utility of Super 8 film during the 1970s.
- We learned how to render small-gauge film on television and committed to this work in 1981.
- We responded to requests for information about Super 8 production from artists and media arts organizations and ended up writing a lot and teaching on the road.
- We decided how filmmakers could continue in the medium when the equipment manufacturers abandoned the Super 8 format during the early 1980s.
- We found ways to support the legacy of amateur filmmaking and its equipment and techniques in the 1990s.
- We moved on to the agenda of promoting and preserving 8mm film works in recent years.
Every case study for NAMAC means a serious look back. Our colleagues Morrie Warshawski and Helen De Michiel have applied the screws gently to get us to think about the lessons we ve learned. In the history we trace here, you can follow the specific choices we ve made and the trajectory that has brought us to the things we ve learned as an organization. In the meantime, we offer the following thoughts up front for readers who don t have the time to explore our story in depth :
- The person who answers the phones must be very knowledgeable about the services, the abilities of the staff, the calendar, and the kinds of aid provided by agencies in all allied fields, both for-profit and non-profit, who might better assist the caller. A skillful reference to a more appropriate source of help will save time and can net your organization two resources: a happy caller and happy colleague. Word-of-mouth is golden, so we try to make every contact work for us.
- In a two-person outfit, communication is direct; tasks divide quickly to get the work done. (With three or more people, communication needs to intensify so that one person doesn t go off on his own.) It helps if the two people are self-directed, passionate about their work, live under the same roof, can take risks, and don t gauge success by the usual trappings.
- Your board of directors needs to clearly understand and support your mission. They must have a light touch and be ready to accept assignments (and deliver on assignments). Otherwise, you end up working for them.
- If you take joy from your work and bend into each thing you do, you're able to put in long hours to see that the work actually gets done and done well.
- Support artists in every way you can.
- Beware of smooth talkers who are poseurs.
- Honor the elders, visit them. Play with children.
- Be kind to your technicians, for they are the most important component of a service organization. Nurture them and adjust to their needs. Expand your definition of them as nerds to include all the people who specialize in a service area, from hardware to distribution, from teaching to planning special events.
- Shoot Kodachrome film for posterity. Movies made on it will endure. Spread the word.
- Move along on all fronts at once. Preservation is as urgent as production or distribution or audience building or youth training. No one will do it for you. You must do it all every day, seizing all opportunities. Remember, you are making progress.
- Life is not fair. Quit yer bellyachin . Back to work.
- There just aren t enough hours in the day. Make time for hugs.
Super 8 Film in a Cold Time
Twenty-five years ago when we began producing films together, the international independent moving-image scene was quite different from what it is today. Theatrical films were virtually all shot on 35mm or 65mm film. Everything else that moved was pejoratively called either non-theatrical (meaning shot on 16mm) or amateur, with all intended disparaging connotations. The broadcast industry controlled television production and access to air time. There were no camcorders and most porta-pack video rigs were hidden in institutions where only a few fast guerrilla artists were able to make off with them. There were no affordable, portable three-tube cameras for an indy to use to jump the hurdles of broadcast engineers' "tech specs" (technical specifications like video blanking). The first fifty years of amateur or experimental work was shot on film: 16mm, 8mm, and also 9.5mm (mainly in Europe). Beginning in 1965, Super 8, an affordable film gauge with several major technical improvements, enrolled even more family and art filmmakers.
Brodsky and I are old enough to have lived through the cultural and technological revolutions of the sixties. We remember from different viewpoints (he was a minister turned filmmaker, I a student in journalism) the struggles for civil rights and the free-speech movement, then anti-war protests and sexual politics. In the midst of the churning social action, individual filmmakers worked but got little support. Later, in the mid-1970s, they tried to coalesce around mutual concerns and the sharing of hardware. Technical and professional societies existed for persons employed in the film and television industries (then still largely separate). Movie clubs and national competitions were active for serious amateurs or hobbyists, but they attracted participants largely along class lines. Media-arts organizations, built by media artists for media artists, were in their infancy in 1975. They tended to spring up in fertile spots where other cultural and social activities were taking place - around anti-poverty programs (Appalshop); in university centers, where students were separated from tech access after graduation (Boston, Boulder, Athens); through creative ethnic alliances (VC, minority consortia, DCTV); or in affinity groups, then growing in pride and momentum (Frameline, Women Make Movies, et al.). Meanwhile, Super 8 filmmakers making art worked at the margins - solo, way out there - and were not networked in the new media-arts field. Our strong focus became a magnet to them.
A Small and Serviceable Medium
Easy, cartridge-loading Super 8 film and a strong economy enrolled many more family moviemakers in 1965 than the 8mm gauge had in its previous thirty-three years in existence. The moviemaking curve perked up again with the introduction of sound in 1973. That s when visionary technical people and executives at Kodak created sound-on-film, with their eyes turned more to the industrial market than to families or artists. Kodak offered astounding film emulsions and great lab work, and even engineered a flying-spot scanner telecine for transfer of Super 8 to video. That telecine is now a collector s item; Kodak s movie film stock and lab service continue to be outstanding.
For the Community
After filming for six years with Fuji's great Single 8 system, Brodsky the tinkerer made a $30 modification to his Elmo ST1200 Super 8 projector. He inserted a MARC 350 short arc tube and sawed out two cooling veins to connect the lamp to his 16mm Eiki power supply. By 1973 he was regularly projecting Super 8 documentaries and dramas by and about the community in local theaters to large, enthusiastic, and cross-pollinated audiences. Other filmmakers like James Blue tinkered with arcs for the same reasons. It was movies for bridge building, a function that had interested Bob since his years as a minister, when he projected Bergman movies in the church basement as part of a self-defined cultural mission.
Best of all for Brodsky the filmmaker, Super 8 production was a lot more fun than making16mm films and slide shows for hire. In 1976, for the Bicentennial, Super 8 enabled him to make three motion-picture films (one for the hospital, one for the town historical society, the third for the art museum). These were films about the community, by the community, for the community, each made at one-tenth the budget of 16mm. The lightweight, unassuming Super 8 cameras allowed for more congeniality with clients, less stress, more intimacy, and more experimentation. That Bicentennial film year lead me to opine, "Why not focus on little film for the democratization of the media?" It made sense - so much so that, in retrospect, we now recognize how a number of filmmakers, artists, and activists who came of age in the same years brought their needs, politics, and abundant energy and good spirits to the work of media-arts centers, exhibition venues, teaching, new programming on television, and more. Why not, indeed? Ask any fifty-plus year old why she or he is in this low paid, frustrating, invigorating, challenging field and you will often find politics has a lot to do with it. Our generation was - and is - out to change the world.
Portrait of an Artist
During the summer of 1978, a film subject that could not be ignored presented itself to us. A biographical article about the photographer of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival appeared in the Boston Globe. It included astounding photos of dance greats from the 1930s onward. A tiny candid revealed the photogenic image-maker, and we tracked him down nearby in Boston. John Lindquist, whose passion was photographing dancers so we could enjoy their best moments, proved delighted to meet anyone interested in learning more about "the dance." His cold-water, combat-zone duplex was a documentarian s dream, strewn with mementos of a life in art: crystals and oriental carpets salvaged from wrecked hotels, set pieces from touring operas, a hot plate and cockroaches, and photos and negatives everywhere.
John taught us what it meant to be an amateur of the highest order, a man in love. He lived to enable dancers to enjoy their own gestures, and all his meager resources went into film, paper, and chemicals. Declining our invitation to make a film about him, he enlisted us in his bliss. We agreed, but then did some soul-searching: was Super 8 up to the task? This subject deserved the festivals and attention and wider distribution that 16mm, not Super 8, could achieve at that time. Although we still owned 16mm gear, our track-record in biography and with grantors was nonexistent. We would have to go fund-raising. The dance season at the Pillow would be over before any help arrived, and in spite of his astounding vigor, John was getting on: he was eighty-eight. We asked all the capable documentary filmmakers in New England we knew and found no one available or interested. But we did have Super 8 gear in hand; we had to jump in. Little did we suspect our commitment to little film would be tested so soon or so rigorously.
John s preferred method of photographing dancers was to invite them to the south-facing stage he had built behind the old Ted Shawn Theatre, immediately after their performance while they were still in costume and covered with sweat. There, under the Berkshire clouds framed with birch trees or immense white-fabric backdrops, he would work his magic with Rolleiflex and Leica, Plus-X and Kodachrome. It was an ideal location for us to film the dancers performing for John.
Super 8 is Not Serious
Trouble arrived almost immediately on two fronts. One of John s oldest friends felt we were exploiting him and "going about the project all wrong." Then one of the professional dancers challenged our seriousness. The natives knew what serious filmmaking looked like, and it wasn t Super 8. We held our ground and before long were accepted. At some level, the artist in most people respects scissors, paste, and paper. Within two years, John was dead and the film s first screening was for his friends at his memorial service, a tough audience. Along with two devoted young artists, we had cared for John during his final illness, an illness that had not precluded his presence, Leica in hand, in the theater wings only two months before his death. We had hustled hot pea soup with garlic through the turnstiles in the Boston subway to visit John at home. He saw our progress on the edit on a rear-screen projector atop his hospital bed-tray. Now, a single strand of spliced, original Super 8 film sat threaded in the Elmo arc projector in the darkness of the old Ted Shawn Theatre, with a mixed soundtrack embedded on a pulsed 1/4" tape.
When the finished film finally rolled, John's friends rallied around his decision to put up with us. Many in the audience wanted to know when PBS would telecast the piece so they could tape it. They had forgotten that the film was finished on Super 8. Television distribution of Super 8 images was quite rare in 1980; even 16mm documentary often got the door slammed in its face. Gatekeepers at PBS would raise the bar on "tech specs" when independent work came in. That s the time that fed the movement that later produced the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Point of View (P.O.V.), and other discrete doors for independent work. In 1980 PBS air was scarce for indies, and when offered a PBS slot, they were usually unpaid and buried in the schedule with no publicity.
Low Cost, Self-funded
The expenses incurred in making John Lindquist: Photographer of the Dancehad come to slightly more than $2000 for a thirty-minute documentary film. This included travel and food in the Berkshires (we slept in our VW bus until it expired). He needed film prints to enter festivals and begin distribution, however, so we made a series of impulsive decisions, both for this film and for our research into the state of Super 8: blow-up the film to 35mm for best copy at festivals and distribute it on 16mm; get a high-quality video transfer and approach PBS with no mention of the gauge it was shot on. Each of these items ended up costing more than the production itself. The journey booted us into what limelight there was shining on little film production.
Twice the Lindquist project was a finalist for funding. Once, during the editing, we even lugged an Elmo to WNET so a panel could view excerpts of the original Super 8 film. But other projects were more important or larger budget, and hence needier. The worst of our Calvinist ancestry came out: we persevered. In the 35mm format the film looked almost as good as the Super 8 original, but with a lot more light for the big screens. In the Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House, the buzz among the techies and Kodak retirees was about the good quality of Super 8 s single-system sound, which dominated most scenes. They took the Super 8-to-35mm image quality right in stride. Almost twenty years later, while meeting with archives on the issues surrounding small gauge film preservation, I remember Lindquist when the experienced technicians at the archives vouch that the resolution will be better on a direct blow-up from 8mm to 35mm, if the money is available.
Rendering Super 8 on Video
Transferring the Lindquist film to television was a baroque endeavor, however instructive. Tests and aid came from many sides. SMPTE manager Paul Beck could wring neither good color nor acceptable steadiness on a Kodak flying-spot scanner in a high-tech corporate video studio. His test on one-inch Type C tape glorified the little film s artifacts rather than offering up its strengths. Next we tried National Video s Bill Willig (in Manhattan), who valiantly but similarly failed to satisfactorily render the edited, original Super 8 on videotape. Had the film arrived unedited (that is, just as camera rolls) he might have succeeded in making an adequate transfer that could later be edited on tape. But the economy of Super 8 would have been lost, as access to video editing was still not cheap; and the process would have short-circuited the option of showing a film blow-up. A third attempt used the first Rank Cintel in the U.S. equipped with a Super 8 gate. The tension so stretched the little film s tape splices that the entire original required resplicing by hand.
A final attempt in Canada was tried using brand new Sony technology - an 8mm telecine not yet introduced to the U.S. This netted better results but still had problems. The technicians in professional telecine houses were used to handling negative, so it was hard for them to reproduce the broad contrast inherent in the direct-projection reversal film. Our technical mentor at this last trial in 1980 was Wilson Chao, then a pioneer of low-cost independent field production with the JVC KY-2000. He was equally sensitive to the prejudice of the industry toward Super 8 film and non-broadcast video projects. He told us, "You ve now seen what the industry is willing to do for Super 8. If you want to do better, you re going to have to do it yourselves. You already know more about Super 8 than most of these guys; you can learn the video."
The Big Leap
Those words Brodsky could hear. Lying awake in a bed in the Dakar Hotel, listening to roosters crow before the dawn, he decided to do it himself. He figured, "Little film is a fragile medium. If it is going to reach wider audiences it must be handled with the kind of care that no corporation can afford to give it. Blow-ups are restrictively expensive and inappropriate to most Super 8 films. Video transfer to a quality tape format from the reversal film original, edited majorly or minorly or not at all, is most in keeping with the simplicity of little film and it opens up many distribution avenues to reach more audiences." He pulled money out of savings and boldly made the leap. He did not ask anyone, sensing that no known non-profit would be interested. Twenty years later he is still transferring 8mm film to video, albeit with new and improved tools he s added year by year.
When he made the leap, Brodsky did not foresee how access to good 8mm film-to-video transfers would invigorate independent media. The first visitors to the studio were filmmakers wanting copies of films for their audiences, then artists wishing to edit on video, then artists with schemes for installations. With the birth of MTV came filmmakers helping musician friends launch bands, then bands with strong aesthetic preferences, and later the ad guys looking for wild and weird imagery. Some days Bob fine-tuned wacky images with an avant-garde artist; other days he might sit alone in the basement, trying his best to render images of ravaged towns and people in 1945 Europe.
Threading through the artists and occasional curator in line for film-to-tape transfers were serious documentary makers, whose research on their subjects had led them to cans of family films. When television documentary became more widespread and stock footage more expensive, producers wanted sections of old home movies transferred to enhance their subjects. Those who could afford good research - the ones who were open-minded toward gauges and sources - came with images as yet undiscovered, often unlicensed and free. Lots of people shooting home movies had filmed imagery that added to the culture. These movies shot by nonprofessionals are very different from newsreel footage, even when they are of the same event. Films made first in 16mm, then 8mm, and later in Super 8 were passionate - the products of ardent amateurs pointing cameras at things they loved and noticed, from the kids in the backyard to the mayor parading down Main Street on July 4. If the kid or the mayor has become famous, or if the process or place has changed, this footage is priceless.
The Lindquist film's learning curve was augmented with ongoing research into ways of dealing with Super 8 that would parallel systems designed for 16mm. We looked into double-system sync-sound filming; passed by work-printing, edge-numbering, and conforming originals; tried printing on Estar and then cartridge-loading for rear-screen projection; and tested a number of hybrid systems before throwing everything out. We came to the conclusion that Super 8 filmmaking must remain close to the original film for the best quality image and that the directness of single-system sound-on-film outweighed the limitations it imposed on editing. Independent filmmakers badly needed ways to produce good quality films while saving money, so we developed techniques that would enable the production and editing of the original film and sound and would preserve its image and sound quality. Nobody would pay us to study these things, but once we had the practical experience learned in the streets on those community films, we laid out the protocols. Filmmakers and film teachers were hungry for the help, even as VHS and Betamax were being introduced and kick-starting what would come to be the video-camcorder ride.
Boom to Bust
In the 1970s hardware manufacturers were competing heavily for the huge numbers of home moviemakers and hobbyists that existed at the time. They offered a vast array of fancy film hardware until - BOOM - one day home video was everywhere. By about 1982, the market was super-saturated with Super 8 film and manufacturers began to dump it. Proclaiming home video the greatest, video marketers started to advertise heavily to the home moviemakers.
During the period of intense introduction of new hardware we had researched and written about the developments and invented systems and techniques appropriate to low-budget, lightweight, accessible, affordable moving-image making. The writing led to calls for sharing the information, first in person or by phone with other filmmakers, then in the "Superserious 8" column in the early indy magazine Filmmakers Film and Video Monthly. When Filmmakers stopped publication we wrote monthly articles on Super 8 in AIVF's magazine, The Independent, for ten years. The visibility led us to the filmmaking community and to Kodak itself.
Publishing
While writing a column brought visibility in the independent filmmaking sector, the resulting phone inquiries became such a burden that a book eventually seemed the only efficient way to answer questions for filmmakers. I could say, "Read the book, then call us if you need to know more." No trade publisher was interested in a production manual on a dying medium, one they knew was being replaced by video. So, in keeping with little-film methodology, we did it ourselves. Based on questions I outlined, Bob wrote and rewrote the text on a rented Selectric typewriter and we screened our own photos. Super 8 in the Video Age was initially bound by artists as barter for video transfers and was always self-distributed - one sure way to start a mailing list. Over the course of seventeen years it went through three editions and numerous tweaked reprints. Printing runs of 100 to 500 copies met the needs of a few odd university film courses, but most copies were shipped to individuals. At last count I have packed up more than 8,000 copies.
Recently I let the book go out of print (it felt like abandoning a child) because the equipment described in the production systems had disappeared from inventories and I had no time to rewrite it. Requests continue to come in and I feel guilty because, even outdated, there seems to be an underlying spirit that draws filmmakers to that book. Now I refer filmmakers to Shot by Shot, the useful production book from John Cantine, Susan Howard, and Brady Lewis at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, or to British filmmaker Giles Musitano s Super 8 Guide, forthcoming from Focal Press. Or I tell them to search for a used Lenny Lipton Super 8 book on the Internet.
In an age of expanding possibilities and alternative routes for doing almost everything, the underlying strategy of our book and our advice remains basically the same: ask "what do I want as the end product?" (or final impact of the film) and work back from there. Chart a way that is within your budget and suited to your working style. Stay close to your subject and never forget your audience.
Newsletter in Hand
The Super 8 production book was not enough. I could not keep it up to date with the dwindling supply of equipment, the changing status of film stocks, and the location and quality of processing facilities, much less cover noteworthy activity across the field. In 1989 I printed the first occasional newsletter called B&T's Little Film Notebook to keep filmmakers and academics abreast of changing events. Filmmakers soon counted on it for reliable lists of suppliers and labs. The growth of Web pages has expanded the amount of information available, but much of the information for fledgling filmmakers is misleading, lightweight, unproven, or pie-in-the-sky. Filmmakers say they still want the LFN, especially as a tangible paper booklet but also as a will-be-launched-when-I-finish-the-FAQs Web site.
International Connections
When Kino Garcia offered to translate our book into Spanish, we established close bonds with the Puerto Rican group Taller del Cine La Red. Printing and distribution costs were overed by the Ford Foundation and Kino Garcia helped reach alternative media sites in Latin America. Taller La Red was a group of Superochistas (Super 8 filmmakers) dedicated to the propagation of alternative media through teaching, making, and exhibition. We often wonder if Taller s decade of shenanigans and festivals may have influenced the 1990s' Flicker film movement - local artists making and showing Super 8 films in clubs in Durham, Athens, Los Angeles, and other cine hot spots.
While the 1980s saw Super 8 retreat to avant-garde trenches in the U.S., it was showcased at festivals in Canada, France, the U.K., Belgium, Venezuela, Brazil, Tunisia, and Australia. We were sometimes invited to attend and bring films, for networks were not in place for the far-flung American Super 8 filmmakers to connect directly. We tried all genres but soon found that American avant-garde works were seen as curiosities or weird - not to the taste of audiences in many of the big festivals overseas, who were used to short narratives or comedy. The experience stands today, for when I speak to audiences and show clips I often have to explain that many experimental works can be difficult and that it will take many viewings and much reading and discussion to appreciate them.
Conversations with Big Yellow
The visibility of our articles provided access to Kodak time and again. Super 8 is fragile in its dependence on one manufacturer, and that is why we have tried to sustain a running dialogue at all levels with the company. In 1982 we set up an advocacy-and-information visit to Kodak, where Super 8 film was losing ground under the video onslaught. The higher-ups met with us and listened to our ideas on increasing sales and outreach to new, younger filmmakers. When they responded with their excitement about the launch of their 8mm video camera, we saw it as a detour away from film, the company s strong suit. It took more than ten years and fierce competition from Fuji in 35mm filmmaking before Kodak understood the advantage of being proactive toward Super 8 film. We suggested a letter-writing campaign in 1996 to add strength with numbers and stars. Letters from artists as diverse as Jem Cohen and Gus VanSant may have had something to do with Kodak's renewed appreciation of Super 8. There were friends of little film all over Kodak, legions of retirees, and - very important to such an action - "graduates" of Super 8 film all over Hollywood. To their credit, the people in Kodak s professional motion picture division were the ones who understood. They have embraced the small gauge, Kodachrome and all, put out good information, given filmmakers new stocks, added Super 8 to student outreach, and generally tried to make up for cuts of products the filmmakers loved.
The IC8
While it was clear to us twenty years ago that the word about Super 8 filmmaking needed to get out, it was not so clear that any media-arts organization would jump in to take up the task. Both Bob and I furthermore knew we were not temperamentally suited to collaborating with staffs and boards. My contacts with the budding media-arts organizations and many avant-garde artists in the field nevertheless led to a visit from Virgil Grillo, then on leave to the National Endowment for the Arts from his professorship at the University of Colorado. Grillo was impressed with our initial efforts to transfer little film to the little electronic screen and urged us to apply to the NEA for a grant to teach Super 8 at the media-arts centers. His quick mind and long view of the field also allowed him to see the potential for us to set up transfer systems around the country. This would increase independent production and make scarce funds go further. Since we needed to apply under the wing of a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, I set up the International Center for 8mm Film with a very small board (Bob and me and two others), a volunteer staff of one (me), and the surprise acronym IC8 - eye see eight!
The first of our several NEA grants to travel to media-arts centers to teach netted $5,000. I believe that all our grant applications to the NEA and to our state were successful because I always asked the staff to explain their mandate and what they needed to see. We also didn't attempt anything we couldn t deliver. I found 21-day unlimited travel on Eastern Airlines, which meant we crisscrossed states and cultures giving workshops at ten to twenty media centers a year. We talked tech, lugged gear, taught tricks with duct tape and Radio Shack mics, told tales, screened artists' work, and laid out production methods custom made to the attendees needs and equipment. We got to know the pioneering staffs of the media centers: a real joy. Wherever we encountered hypercritical techies and uptight media artists (and there were some, despite the field s youth) we tried to forge them into lyric practitioners of film craft. Only Image in Atlanta was ready to try their own film-to-video transfer studio. No one else seemed willing to climb the steep learning curve required to render the extremely high contrast of Kodachrome reversal film to videotape. Artists were delighted to shoot film or edit moving images and pursue their vision; but they preferred to leave the hard parts (either technical, like transfer to video, or administrative, like distribution or building audiences or stimulating new funders) to someone - anyone - else.
Underground
During the period that smaller, easy-to-use video was coming in and Super 8 equipment was disappearing from manufacture, Super 8 began to thrive in schools, colleges, and media-arts centers as people got the message and the Super 8 avant-garde moved into teaching jobs to support their filmmaking. But no one seemed concerned with the channels of distribution; it was as if little audiences were enough for little film. Those were the years I
