Does anyone remember Super-8 movie film?

When I was working in the advertising business as the creative director of mid-sized agency in a mid-sized town we shot a fair number of television commercials and hired people to shoot industrial films.  The commercials were almost always done on 35mm movie film or Super-16 mm film.  We'd moved out of the dark ages by the time I started and once the footage was shot it would be color timed and converted to one inch or two inch videotape.  The really low budget stuff was shot on video.  But then something kind of wacky happened.

Film production went through its own Instagram Fad a couple of decades ago.  Suddenly everything got retro'd and degraded and grainy and choppy.  The culprit (or hero, depending on which side of the trend you embraced) was the re-embracing of what had been an amateur tool and re-inventing that tool as a professional style.  The vehicle of the new look was the Super8 camera buckled up with Super8 film.  Most of us liked it grainy and silvery so we chose Tri-X or maybe Plus-X black and white emulsions.  People who liked living on the edge used Kodachrome or Ektachrome color emulsions.

Since just about every company in the universe had stopped making Super-8 movie cameras years before the resurrection the race among auteurs and professionals in the moving picture market was to find and acquire the best of the best Super-8 cameras.  No other way to do it right.

This was my rig of choice.  A Nikon R10 Super with an f1.4 Cine Nikkor lens on the front.  It could shoot forward or reverse, you could sync high speed flash and you could synchronize sound with an outboard Nagra or Stellavox audio recorder.  You'll note that the camera had a stepped, motorized zoom control as well as manual zoom control with a grip stick for smoother zooms.

We got a ton of use out of this camera. And we did a lot of projects. I'd leave the house in the morning and my camera bag would be equally weighted between double "A" batteries and film cartridges. (Mostly Tri-X).  While I like shooting locked down on a fluid head tripod the style of the day was a jerky, hand held style that would have made the Jason Bourne DP happy.

There was one project I wrote and directed that really showed off the artistic capabilities of the R10 Super and contrasted it with the smooth color of Sony BetaCam video. It was an industrial film, custom made to be played at a MacWorld Expo back in the early 1990's.  In those days computer memory was expensive and computers without enough ram were dreadfully slow.  Our client, TechnologyWorks made memory and specialized in making the kind of memory that Apple MacIntosh computers liked to play with.  

Our premise was to start the film in color with footage of people looking bored and waiting for their computers to process important graphics jobs.  We'd cut to angry bosses looking at their watches and then to close ups of ticking clocks (slowed down) and back to beautiful designers looking frustrated and beautiful.  All of this waiting and frustration was film in grainy, handheld black and white on the R10 Super using black and white Tri-X.

Once the new memory was installed everything became more real. And that meant smooth, lush colors, camera moves on tracks or on fluid head tripods and really clean, happy lighting.

All of the Super8 film was developed, taped together and then run through a telecine machine that would convert the film, frame by frame, to 3/4 inch videotape so it could be included in the post production.  The film was a success. Our main model was egregiously cute.  The effects all worked and the grainy, jumpy black and white footage at the front two minutes of the piece attracted a huge crowd of Mac-Groovers wherever and whenever we showed it. And the film got used for several years.  Most importantly, I got paid. 

The R in R10 Super calls out a feature which allowed the user to rewind part of the film and shoot on it again for special effects. Nikon patented this.  The "10" in the name referred to the 10X Cine Zoom that the camera was built around.  The R10 Super 8 was the zenith of movie products for Nikon but sadly it was also the last of the breed for that company as video quickly started to take the place of film for family movies and low budget projects.

I came across my camera in a closet this morning.  It's been years since I fired it up and ran film through it but I was at least prescient enough to have taken the batteries out of the camera when I stored it.

I've worked on projects in 16mm and 35mm but Super 8 is my favorite because of its minimalist profile.  I'm rehabbing the camera this week and ordering some Super 8 just for fun.  I'd be curious to know how many of the VSL readers have had parallel interests in making movies and short films and how many have worked with Super8.  It's really a cool part of the evolution of multi-media.  And according to friends in the film business Super 8 is still going strong, with yearly film festivals and the use of Super8 for effect in TV commercials.  What a crazy career I've had so far...

Final fact:  In 1971 the airlines started showing in flight movies with Super8 film projectors.  Before 1971 all in flight movies were shown on 16mm film.  Amazing.

Homage to Victor Skrebneski.

 Lou ©2012 Kirk Tuck

See his work here: Victor Skrebneski.

I was in a discount bookstore an I came across a book of portraits by Victor Skrebneski.  I was stunned at what he'd done, bought the book and looked around for more copies.  Then I started to study him.  He is a fashion photographer who has been working in Chicago since the 1950's and is most famous for decades and decades of beautiful Estee Lauder ads.  Amazing skin tones and wonderful colors.

But the book I bought, Skrebneski Portraits, was filled with high contrast images of faces and torsos.  It was powerful and different from all the stuff I usually saw in photo magazines.  

More and more my work started to reference Skrebneski's.  I find the directness of his black and white technique very compelling.

Edit June 5:  Do you need a copy of one of my first two lighting books in Chinese?

Here's the link:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=kirk+tuck

Scroll down to items 10 and 11.

Internationally published.  Yes.

An interesting lens for the micro four thirds cameras.

The Sigma 30mm 2.8 lens for Micro Four Thirds.

I am sometimes at the mercy of my readers and my lust for fun stuff.  But I'm generally happy when someone points out a useful piece of gear that doesn't break the bank.  That's what the Sony DT lenses seem to be and that's what this particular lens seems to be.

As most of you know I've been using the MFT cameras since the introduction of the Olympus EP2 and the VF-2 finder.  I have both the 25mm f1.4 PanLeica lens and the very cute, cuddly and capable 45mm 1.8 lens but there are times when I'm looking for something more in the middle.  That's where the 60mm would come in handy.  It's just long enough to give me a better perspective than the 25mm but just short enough to give me more atmosphere than the 45mm.  From reports I've heard around the web it's a good performer and nicely sharp, even wide open. While some of my friends (Andy?) swear by the 20mm Panasonic I got rid of mine because I found it to be too wide for my tastes.  The performance of the lens was great but I found myself always wanting or needing to crop before it would start singing for me.  

The 25mm is just in the ball park and the 30mm focal length would seem to me to be ideal for street shooting.  I'm still deciding but in the meantime I'm getting great results from an old Olympus classic, the 38mm 1.8 for the Pen film cameras.  It's a nice performer an a decent focal length.

And there is a companion 19mm f2.8 for those who cringe at the Panasonic 20mm price: 

The Fake Baker.

©2012 Kirk Tuck

We were scheduled to photograph a baker for a shoot for Schlotzsky's Sandwich shops because they'd just added an assortment of breads to their original sour dough bread and they were going to use their "artisanal breads" as a marketing differentiator.  The image was to impart an "old world craftsman" look so the brief started by specifying black and white.  I immediately thought of the insightful yet straightforward work of August Sander, the German Photographer who documented various craftspeople in an amazing project that spanned decades.

The Pastry Chef ©August Sander.  

The photo shoot was the first image in the synthesis of the company's upcoming campaign so the company brass was there to oversee my work and the work of the ad agency.  In addition to the actual baker from one of their stores we also had, in attendance, both the CEO and the CFO.  The only problem for me was authenticity versus the right look.  While the baker they brought to the shoot had the right professional credentials he was also about 23 years old, had some tattoos and just didn't look the part.  

I pulled the art director aside and voiced my concerns and we decided to go ahead and photograph the baker and then find a second solution.  No sense hurting feelings on the set.  As soon as we made our decision it dawned on me that the CFO had just the right look.  A bit older and with more gravitas. The art director suggested that since it was my idea I won the job of persuading the man in the suit to make a temporary career change and don the chef whites.  

Once we finished photographing the younger (real) baker we thanked him and sent him on his way.  Now we got down to the real business.  We had the CFO put on the chef's coat, pinned the back so it fit right, put a little powder on his face to keep him in a nice "matte" finish and proceeded to photograph. We had a range of smiling, not smiling and permutations that mixed both but for some reason the consensus was that this shot was our keeper.

I made a straight black and white print with no toning or softening for the ad agency to use in print production.  Later I went back into the darkroom and printed on several different double weight papers before I finally settled on the look of Agfa Portriga paper, toned in a dilute selenium toner.  The version up above is the one I put into my portfolio. 

My portrait of the CFO/Baker was lit with one very large soft box (4x6 feet) which was further softened by an extra layer of white, silk diffusion in front.  A sheet of white foamcore placed about ten feet to the opposite side provided fill light for the left side of the subject's face.

The camera was a Pentax 6x7 with a 165mm lens. The film was Ilford FP-4.

If you don't know the work of August Sander you might want to do some web research.  I find his work amazing not only for the extreme quality he brought to location lighting so many decades ago but also for the anthropological interest it kindles.  You really feel as though you have a window into the past.  You might also be interested in Irving Penn's book on photographing trades.

Oh Dear God, I Need The Latest Camera...

Renee Zellweger. ©1992 Kirk Tuck.

Shot on Kodak Panatomic X, 32 ISO black and white film (no, I did not leave off zeros..) using a 500 Watt Light Bulb shining through a translucent (and battered) 40 inch white umbrella using a Canon FTb camera and a Manually focused 135mm lens. Hand processed film. Enlarger print. No digital post processing.  No digital "enhancement."  How did I ever survive?

A Random Portrait for a Sunday Afternoon.

I've got my Nikon F loaded with ISO 100 color negative film.  I have an ancient 50mm 1.4 Nikkor latched on to the front.  I'm headed out the door to walk around my city and see what's new since last time.  While it's very un-Zen-like of me I do have a goal that's more like a consistent, subconscious pulse.  I'd like to see who is out there.  The portrait subjects I've worked with over the years of doing this for myself generally are strangers that I've met somewhere.  Something about them (a kind of beauty that falls outside the American mainstream?) that is different and hard to describe helps to guide me to meet them and invite them to sit for a portrait.  Not everyone wants to participate and I understand that.  But you'll never see who's out there unless you spend some time looking.

I don't know what or whom I will find today.  I don't know if I'll even click a frame.  But the process of walking (good exercise for the body and the brain) will be fun and I'll stop in at all the places that make us feel welcome.

When I come back to the studio I have to confront the renovation I'm about to embark on.  I'm trying to get rid of as many useless treasures as I can.  Empty camera boxes, extra filing cabinets the contents of which could be compressed into other filing cabinets or discarded. Papers from decades ago.  Prints I've come to hate and a curious assortment of black picture frames that take up way too much space.

I've replaced the air conditioning and that's made me want to repaint the interior of my space for the first time in fifteen years.  That means everything has to come down off the walls and up off the floor.  All the ghastly, giant filing cabinets have to be moved out from the walls.  Another coat of white paint.  And while we're painting I guess it makes sense to repaint the red door to the studio.  It's looking worn, faded and (thanks to my little dog) well scratched.  After we paint I'll add a kick plate that I bought years ago as a prop....

No wonder I'd rather go and wander the streets with an ancient camera, a pocket full of film and an incident light meter.  Looking for my next portrait subject.

Camera Inconsequential.

This is a frame from a 35mm portrait sitting.  I'm sure I used a 90mm or 105mm lens to take the image.  I don't remember what camera it came from and I don't really care.  At the time I was experimenting in the darkroom with a technique that involved the use of a device called a Pictrol.  You used it in between the enlarging lens and your printing paper.  Was essentially an iris with bubbly, distorted, plastic blades that could be dialed in or out making sections of the print softer or even haloed. Used to aggressively it destroyed all the sharpness in a printed image.  Used with discretion it took the edge off the details and made for very flattering skin tones.  The shadows would "bleed" into the highlights and the effect was also one of cutting down highlights that were printing too bright.

Given that I was actively reducing sharpness and contrast in pursuit of a specific kind of image, to speak about the pristine and scientific qualities of whatever lens I was using seems... churlish.

What I like about the photograph is the calm and direct engagement that Michelle gives the camera, and by extension, me.  I also like, from a design point of view, the exquisite contrast between the light skin tone, her white tank top and the inky dark shadows to one side.  The result of one big light used at what I considered to be just the right angle. 

Even before PhotoShop existed photographers have manipulated their images to fit their vision. Especially in the black and white darkroom. 

This is my Pictrol (which stands for Pictorial Control).

I couldn't bear to get rid of it when I closed

my darkroom.  

Interestingly enough, it fits on the front of  my Olympus

45mm 1.8 lenses.  I'll have to do some portraits with that.....