Super 8 mm film
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Super 8mm film is a motion picture film format that was developed in the 1960s and released on the market in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older 8mm home movie format.
The film is 8mm wide, exactly the same as the older standard 8mm film, but it has one single, small sprocket hole per frame. This allows much more of the film to be used for the picture and soundtracks.
There are several different varieties of the film system used for shooting, but the final film is each case has the same dimensions. By far the most popular system was the Kodak system.
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The Kodak Super 8 system
Launched in 1965, the film comes in plastic light-proof cartridges containing coaxial supply and takeup spools loaded with 50 feet of film. This was enough for about 3 minutes of continuous filming at 18 frames per second. A 200-foot reel later became available which could be used in specifically-designed cameras, but it is no longer produced. Film was almost always a reversal stock.
The plastic cartridge could be loaded into the camera in seconds, without the need to directly thread or even touch the film. In addition, coded notches cut into the cartridge signalled the film speed to the camera to allow automatic film-speed setting.
Color stocks were generally available only in tungsten (3400K), and almost all Super 8 cameras come with a built-in 85A daylight conversion filter, allowing for both indoor and outdoor shooting.
The original release was a silent system only, but in 1973 a sync-sound version was released. The sound film had a magnetic soundtrack, and came in larger cartridges than the original so as to accommodate a longer film path (required for smoothing the film movement before it reached the recording head), and a second aperture for the recording head. Sound cameras were compatible with silent cartridges, but not vice versa. Sound film was typically filmed at a speed of 24 frames per second. Kodak discontinued the production of Super 8 sound film (http://www.super8filmmaking.com/kodak.htm) in 1997, citing environmental regulations as the reason.
Kodak (as of 2004) still manufactures several color and black-and-white Super 8 reversal film stocks, and even introduced new emulsions since year 2002. The most popular Kodak stocks usually have been either Kodachrome, a fine-grain color reversal stock or Ektachrome, and usually tend to be quite slow, usually around ISO 25, although there are known stocks that go up to ISO 100 and higher. Ektachrome VNF was discontinued by Kodak in 2004, again citing environmental reasons. At about that time, Kodak introduced a Super 8 negative stock, ISO 200. Kodak also reformulated the emulsions for the B&W reversal stocks Plus-X (ISO 100) and Tri-X (ISO 200), in order to give them more sharpness.
While Kodak Super 8 mm cartridges cannot be reloaded, a reloadable cartridge was manufactured in the former USSR.
The Fujifilm Single-8 system
Fujifilm of Japan developed an alternative format called Single 8, which was released in 1965 as an alternative to the Kodak Super 8 format.
Although the final film is dimensionally identical to the Kodak film, it is loaded into quite different cartridges and cameras. It has a polyester base that is thinner than the Kodak films, so splicing the two formats together in a finished film may require adjustment of the projector's focus at the join.
The Single 8 cartridge is B-shaped, with the film on two separate spools unlike the coaxial system of Kodak. As a result, Single 8 film offered unlimited rewind, in contrast to the Kodak system which was limited to several seconds and relied on there being sufficient empty space within the cartridge for the rewound film to pile up inside.
The Single 8 cartridge was designed to use the camera's film gate to hold the film in place during exposure, in contrast to the Kodak system which had a plastic gate built into the cartridge. As a result, Single 8 theoretically offers better image steadiness than Super 8.
Although never as popular as Super 8, the format continues to live in parallel. As of late 2004, Fuji still manufactures Single-8 film.
Double Super-8
Double Super 8 mm film is a 16 mm wide film but has Super 8 size sprockets. It is used in the same way as standard 8 film in that the film is run through the camera twice, exposing one side on each pass. During processing, the film is split down the middle and the two pieces spliced together to produce a single strip for projection in a Super 8 projector. Because it has sprockets on both sides of the film, the pin-registration is superior to Super 8 film and so picture stability is better.
Popularity
Amateur usage of Super 8 has been largely replaced by video, but the format is sometimes used by professionals trying to imitate the look of old home movies, or create a stylishly grainy look. Many independent filmmakers such as Derek Jarman have made extensive use of 8mm film, and it appears to have made something of a minor comeback in both the art and experimental film world. Oliver Stone, for example, loves to use it in his more recent films, such as The Doors, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, U Turn, and JFK where his DP Robert Richardson employed it to evoke a period or to give a different look to scenes.
Until 1999, the University of Southern California's famous School of Cinema-Television required students to shoot their initial projects using Super 8, but the dwindling availability of equipment and processing facilities eventually forced the school to switch these classes to Digital Video. However it is still used elsewhere by film students who wish to learn the basics of shooting and editing.de:Super 8 fr:Super 8 it:Super 8 millimetri de:8-mm-Film it:8 millimetri nl:8-mm-film