Schlagwort: super 8

A Flock Of Flickers – An Invitation

Online webinars from January 2025 regularly (if I can manage it) every last Sunday of the month, starting in January 2025.

“We love Super 8 / we are at the very beginning and don’t know much / we are in the middle and are enchanted / we want to know everything about Caffenol and ecological developing, cameras and film stock / we have experience and specific questions … let’s connect!

We meet every last Sunday of the month! On the ZOHO platform, which is similar to ZOOM. I moderate and tell and show tricks and film examples … you have the opportunity to bring in your own topic / problem / question. It’s something like a virtual mini workshop, a webinar in a small group, with personalised advice and assistance.

The entrance fee is 30 € / $ via PayPal, you will be emailed an access code. You can register your topic / problem / special interest in advance.
Time: Europe 19:00, USA around noon, but this can be flexible if someone from other regions of the world wants to participate. The duration will be 1 hour, probably longer. Language: English.

Let’s flicker!”

A Flock Of Flickers #1 will take place on 26 January 2025!

A Bag of Fleas

Another workshop … but: this time my students were very young teens between 12 and 14 years old! Something I never did before …

(my 2 days super 8 filming and eco developing was part of a 4 days advanced training course for film curators who introduce young people to filmmaking, hosted by the Düsseldorf Film Museum!)

A wild bunch! A bag of fleas! Exhausting but also fascinating how the young got into it: watching experimental short films, collecting ideas, writing into their copybooks, learning how to use a super 8 camera, filming their ideas … with the help of us 6 adults of course … and then mixing coffee and fruit juice developer!

Honestly … I prefer students in their twenties, but it was an awesome experience!!!

Im blassen und nassen Hochmoor / Wuthering Heights

Jedes Jahr gibt es an verschiedenen Orten auf der Erde einen Kate-Bush-Flashmob. Leute verkleiden sich wie sie in ihrem Video: rotes Kleid, schwarzer Gürtel, rote Blume. Und tanzen die lustige Choreographie zu “Wuthering Heights”, ihrem ersten Hit, den sie schon mit 16 geschrieben hat und der mich immer wieder von den Socken haut. Ich tanze alleine. Oh Heathcliff! Hat mal eine das Buch (von Emily Brontë) gelesen? Grandios dramatisch! Hooo it gets dark …

Every year there is a Kate Bush flash mob in various places around the world. People dress up like her in her video: red dress, black belt, red flower. And dance the funny choreography to ‘Wuthering Heights’, her first hit, which she wrote when she was 16 and which always knocks my socks off. I dance alone. Oh Heathcliff! Has anyone ever read the book (by Emily Brontë)? It’s terrificly dramatic! Hooo it gets dark …

Filmed with super 8 (expired Agfa Moviechrome)

The link to the film on YouTube

Gesäuse!

And this is what happened in Austria recently:
For days now it has been raining permanently night and day and snowing 100 m higher …
I am here in the wetlands haha part of a small family-like minifestival (called »Enchanted Garden«) giving a workshop. All was supposed to happen outside in the huge natural park called »Gesäuse« but all is now happening inside … feeling sorry for the festival but people are in a good mood (we’re talking about 15 people, not more, it’s really nice and tiny).
How can I translate »Gesäuse«? Something making a whispering sound like the running water of the river, of the falling rain, of the wind in the leaves …
We’re filming in a small group, just 6 people and me, developing in a soup of what nature gives us. Cheers!
You can see some results here on YouTube!

Stein! Berg! Kirche!

So at some point, when I was looking at the village sign where my parents live, I thought: “Stein! Berg! Kirche! … Stone! Mountain! Church! … Rock! Paper! Scissors!” …
and a new film idea was born.

3 women playing it, simply having fun. Mountain beats stone, stone beats Jesus (Church) and Jesus divides the mountain.

They played it, I filmed it. Super 8 of course, black and white. It’s been developed and right now waiting to be digitized, then edited. I recorded voices and laughter.

Let’s see what I can tinker!

Thank you, Mama and Antje and Birgit (and my brother who is holding the subtitles!!)

Ode An Juni 2023

Now I start editing my 11th Ode an Juni / Ode to June film!

“In diesem Monat werde ich sehr viel unterwegs sein, Workshops und Filmfestival und Bokel, wo der geheimnisvolle Zirkuswagen steht und seinen Zauber voll entfaltet und wo ich eigentlich hauptsächlich die coolen netten Hühnchen abfilme!
I will be on the road a lot this month … a workshop, a film festival and Bokel, the Bokel, place of the mysterious gypsy caravan which is unfolding its magic … the place of funny and friendly free running chicken!
Und wo es das schönste Freibad von ganz Norddeutschland gibt! They have the most beautiful public pool of North Germany there!”

Shot completely on super 8 (what else …) … it will be about 20 minutes long. Here is some info about all my June films.

So Sachen / Such Things

This is a report about how things can go awfully wrong and in the end can become something beautiful and just … magically matching somehow.
Maybe it will be a bit too chemical and diving deep in photographical layers … but it will be funny too, promised!

I spent a week at my friend’s spot on the countryside and we had some very cool film and story ideas. Yes, sometimes I am not totally self-centered … with the right person there can be a swinging mood in the air vibes!!

We took a black&white TriX film (fresh from Kodak), filmed our ideas and then decided to develop it reversal. Meaning: positive. It is much more complicated than developing it negative. Which I do all the time using coffee and my breakfast remains and such things.

Reversal developing needs a very strong bleach to get rid of the first developed black silver. Then there’s a second exposure to light (the first exposure happened when the film was, well, exposed in the camera!) to activate the sleeping silver salt molecules which will then turn black when they get in contact with the second developer. Phew!
We used FOMA chemicals. FOMA is a czech factory that produces lovely stuff like foto paper, films and chemicals.

First developer, bleach bath, clear bath, and then: the moment when you shiver and open the tank lid and see: YES! Pictures! (a film that has just come out of a bleach bath looks milky-white with clear images). The rest of the procedure can be done in daylight.

So we rinsed it and then poured the second developer over the 15 meters of well-bleached film … and then Yell and Shriek: the emulsion began to fall off! To peel off! To run away in flakes!!! The images that we just saw just slipped away under our fingers! Out with you, developer! Some seconds in fix, no rinsing, just carefully hanging the long spaghetto to dry … and then scanned it the next day.

Now what happened here? I know that this bleach made from permanganate and sulfuric acid gives a lot of stress to the emulsion … softens it and makes it very sensitive and vulnerable – better not touch or rub too much! So was it the harsh and strong second developer that crushed it? Is the Czech soup too strong for a TriX?

Next day brings freshness in mind and mood. Somehow the two-third destroyed film appeared miraculous to us … and to the film story. We thought about defocussing, about stuff that happens in the corners of your eyes, of your consciousness, about second sight … and the film and the story melt, kiss and prosper!

This is just a little glimpse into it, I think the real film will be a longer one than usual and it will take a while. I am happy.

Watch a little Trailer on Youtube!!

Yksi Kaksi Kolme

Sometimes films just fall from heaven. I was ready, trees were sugared, friend was happy to help with camera, the dung heap – all odor and vapor. I count to three, yksi kaksi kolme in Finnish, so beautiful words, resembling to nothing else!
And the film came.
Double, triple exposed, two Dagies, three Dagies and my ever questioning how the hell does the universe ticktocktackle??

Here’s the film (German)

Here’s the film (English)