About 5 years back I was handed a pile of 8mm home movies from my stepmother, all of which were set in the closet for almost that entire time. I remember wanting to know what was on them but not having any way to play with or capture what lay on the plastic.
As a filmmaker I have used multiple formats to create stories, each one having its limitations and capture process. As a filmmaker that began on digital, it has taken some time to move back into the analog process. When capturing these 8mm films from the '50s and 60's I couldn't help but think about what was going on in each silent 3-minute chunk.
I remember finding film at a young age with my father and loving the illusions and magic that came with each new film. Each summer we would spend the evenings staring into the dark abyss of a movie screen, either in a theatre or at home, and seeing how the artists captured emotions with each new angle. Even though I didn't understand how a film was made, I understood that someone was pulling the strings.
As I captured these films, some of which probably hadn't been seen in 40-plus years, I thought of how to take home movies and make them into a film. Using a Wolverine 8mm film scanner and a Krasnagorsk k-3 I began capturing my idea of home movies.
Fifty years later my family is now a movie star, just as they were when the camera clicked each frame in 1968...