CHEAP BASTARD FILMWORKS - New Super-8 projects

Well, kinda 'new'; decided it was the time to find out what was on those rolls of unprocessed Super-8 that had been sitting around for years on end - early in the 2000s, I won a eBay auction of a lot of Ektachrome 160-G film cheap and promptly discovered the reason for that was that it was expired film (date on the boxes is 'DEC 79' and a type where one of the chemical ingredients used for developing was becoming very scarce) - and expensive to process, so 4 rolls sat in storage, along with a couple rolls of Tri-X, having forgotten exactly when & what I shot on them.

After some research, I decided to use Negativeland, a lab in Ridgewood, NY that could process it (as B/W negative; best option to get an image) & scan it, along w/a print of my 16mm film-school project to be scanned.

THE RESULTS:

The Super-8 was questionable - but it turned out Good; only one roll had serious deterioration, and even managed to pull an image from that - has the feel of footage shot over a century ago... 

 

Even better, it turns out that I shot these during production of THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN (in Wichita and Cottonwood Falls, KS) and the Traci Lords family comedy AU, PAIR KS [aka THE SOCCER NANNY] in Lindsborg, KS - I had completely forgotten that I brought the Super-8 with me.

The 16mm [empty, try another] looks pretty good, a 2K scan of a print. My interest in oblique metaphoring and love of musical minimalism probably has roots here - literally done with no money, which is why the credits were originally done orally (Director's Answer™® - "It's a Truffaut homage").

  

Thanks again to Ben Kufrin, Jon Knoll, Tracy Holliway-Wiggins, Jane Brockman and everyone else who lent a hand.

More personal excavation to come? Perhaps...