We want to encourage your support of the new independent feature film “Mermaid”, to be shot this fall/winter in and around Prague, Czech Republic. It takes place in 1977 Czechoslovakia. It will be shot all on super 8 (actually Max8) for a relatively small budget. The trailer is posted below. You can also add the film on Facebook or follow the film on twitter, or Czech out the blog at www.mermaidfilm.com

Some of you may know about the general unavailability of Max 8/Super Duper 8 services in the USA, and even the rest of the world.

If you don’t know what Super Duper 8 is, please see this example supplied by its inventors, Friendly Fire Films from Canada:

In the example, you can see that the area where the sound strip used to be on the right (sound film is no longer made) is blank on super 8, and taken advantage of on the lower picture, which is Super Duper 8.

Now, a few transfer houses offer this service. I know of one in Germany (screenshot-ag.de), one in Canada (framediscreet.com), Pro8 in Burbank (who I’d rather not link to because of their reputation for poor service), and a brand new one in Los Angeles called Cinelicious (cinelicious.tv). Cinelicious being the most convenient to Los Angeles, Frame Discreet probably being the least costly, and Screenshot being the most convenient when shooting in Europe.

But if you just don’t want to spend the money, either because you haven’t got any (this is film school after all), or because you can’t justify the cost for a less than serious project, I’m going to let you in on just how simple a DIY max 8/Super Duper 8 home telecine can be.

First, I’m actually going to begin with the camera. If you don’t have a Max 8/super duper 8 camera, you can get a widened gate a few ways. One option is to go to Mitch Perkins’ website and send him an email – he’s one of the inventors from Friendly Fire Films: photoplays.ca(Update: Mitch doesn’t really do the mods anymore, just film transfers now)

They’ve actually written a few important technical warnings about the format, copied below for you. The first one is important to me personally, because Pro8 didn’t warn me about it when I purchased a Max 8 camera from them:

Technically. the system is slightly off-centre, but because it’s such a small gauge it does not appear “off” to the eye and no realignment is necessary.

Second, the camera was not designed to “see” the wider frame. (The extra 13% is on the right-hand side when looking in the viewfinder.) Therefore, you have to compose the shots with this unseen area in mind.

Also, some camera lenses are subject to vignetting on the right-hand side. This may restrict lens settings, whereby you have to avoid focusing too close or going too far to the end of the zoom ring.

But here’s what I found out that inspired me to do this write-up. Go to a local jeweler, ask them to remove the gate from the camera (you’ll have to show them what the gate is) and ask them to expand the camera’s gate inward (as opposed to outward, which is the side facing the film door) about one millimeter. This is the part that is not under the sprocket holes. The default super 8 image is about 6mm, while the space that used to contain sound is about 1mm and the space containing the sprockets is another 1mm. So after this modification, the new image area grows to about 7mm. When the jeweler did this, it took him two minutes while I waited, and he did not even charge me. Before putting the gate back on, have the jeweler (or yourself) use a black sharpie to color the inside of the metal gate that was just filed away. Otherwise, light will reflect off of it and fog your images (thanks Mitch).

Now for the telecine. You can essentially do the same thing with a super 8 projector gate that you did with that camera gate. Just take it down to a jeweler and get it filed. I haven’t heard of any other way to do a DIY super duper 8 telecine, but feel free to leave a comment if you know of another option. The jeweler actually didn’t charge me for those either, but he did mention that the projector parts were steel and much harder to file than the aluminum gate from the camera. Be warned, the projector can be tricky to disassemble and reassemble, so I really suggest taking a picture of it so you know how to put it back together.

I haven’t yet purchased a film transfer box like this one…..but it will improve the quality over a wall projection.

But I did a rough handheld test by projecting on a wall (it should be on a tripod and a perfectly white wall). Also you’ll be able to see that the edges of the filing aren’t perfectly smooth and some metal shavings are flying around. But it’s a nice proof of concept. Check it out:

Here’s the “before” version of the same projector:

This is a comparison of the those videos side by side…