As part of my ongoing quest for more mystery, I bought myself a Super 8 camera this summer. It’s a Canon 310xl and my new favorite thing.
It asks nothing of me.
There are no notifications, no alerts, and no messages to respond to. There’s no LCD screen, so I’m less focused on what I’m shooting and more focused on enjoying the moment.
That being said, shooting with Super 8 is quite the undertaking.
First you have to find a camera. I found mine on Etsy. I’d had it bookmarked for awhile and finally pulled the trigger. It’s been refurbished and I knew when I ordered it that it was still in working order. It took over a week for my camera to arrive.
Then, you have to learn to use it. The old manual wasn’t too helpful, but I got the gist of it. When you don’t have an LCD screen to check your work, though, it’s hard to know if you’re getting it right. That means that every single roll of film will be a learning experience.
Oh yeah, about that film… Every roll of film costs $38. I’m shooting on Kodak VISION3 50D Color Negative Film. (Yes, they still make it!) Each roll of film is 50 feet long, which comes out to about three and a half minutes of video.
Since you can only shoot a few minutes worth of footage you have to prioritize what you want to capture. It’s not like your phone where you can shoot bursts of however many photos you want and send them to the cloud. There’s an importance to what you choose to shoot because you can feel the dollars moving through the camera as you hold the trigger down. All 38 of them!
Ah, the trigger! When you squeeze the trigger the camera begins to hum and vibrate in your hands. It’s a tactile experience that so many of our modern technological devices lack.
Eventually, the film cartridge says “EXPOSED” and you know you’re out of film. An exposed roll of film is a very mysterious thing. Your mind races with questions: Did it turn out? Was it any good? What will it look like?! But there’s no immediate answers when you’re shooting on film. You have to wait.
The final step is to have the film developed and/or digitized. I sent mine to Pro8mm, a company in Burbank. It took over two weeks before an envelope arrived in the mail with my footage. Watching it back gave me an incredible feeling of nostalgia for every moment of this summer.
Here’s my Summer 2020 Super 8 Short. I think it turned out pretty great:
Watching it back, I could picture every moment that I captured in vivid detail. I remembered where we were and what we were doing. It was magical. Things that I might have shot on my phone — food, selfies, random signs, silly things — none of those made the cut for my first Super 8 reel. Instead it was a representation of where we are now during this strange time in 2020. I’ll never forget it.
I’m not saying you should buy one of these cameras, too, although it has been quite fun and I plan on continuing to shoot with it as often as possible. But I do think there is a lot to be learned from how a Super 8 camera forces you to interact with the world around you.
It makes you slow down and value individual moments. It makes you wait and gives you the joy that comes from delayed gratification. And, if you want to share your work with someone it makes you work for it. Those are all things we could use a little more of these days.
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About Mark Toland
Mark Toland is an award-winning mind reader and two-time TEDx Speaker. His mind blowing skills have been featured on NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS, NPR, WGN, Sirius XM, and more. Mark’s blog is a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a professional entertainer, full of creative thoughts for creative people. Sign up below so you’ll never miss a post.