Below you can find a very short partial content as presented in the masterclass for Super 8 mm filmmaking according to the 8sploitation Grindhouse Cinema style and principles. The full masterclass is about 1 hour. If you are interested in this full masterclass, contact us at 8sploitation@gmail.com. For Holland, Germany and Belgium we are open for personal masterclasses. Online masterclasses are available for all the other countries.  

Super 8 mm film

History and now
You probably know them well, those grainy bits of footage that immediately give you that nostalgic vibe: that's Super8-mm film. Super 8 was released in 1965...

Camera’s and film stock
Super 8 film camera’s are pretty recognizable. They are the only portable film camera... 

 

Development of your film
Obviously, when you work with film, this film eventually has to be developed for you to be able to see what you have filmed... 

Telecine & editing
In the past when projecting your film with a projector to see it, it would wear out the film and it could damage the film everytime you put it in the projector and play it. Now you can make a digital scan of your film and store your original roll of film as your master... 

Super 8 mm filmmaking

One take principle
If there is one thing that you can say about this kind of filmmaking that is pure, authentic and respectable, is the one take principle. It simply means that everything you film, you have 1 chance for it to get it right... 

Characters as the foundation for your script
So writing the script, the casting and acting are very tightly connected in this approach. 
Never start your script without characters... 

Dialogues
In your script, you will leave one step out, the dialogues and working out your scenes. This sets a treatment apart from a script. The way we write our scripts, are actually treatments and we stop at that phase... 

Explaining situations beforehand instead of directing during shooting
So what you do when you have your treatment, is have one on one sessions with each perfomer you have casted for your characters... 

Tag method
You can choose to film with two camera’s... 

Audio
This kind of filmmaking is an example of ‘do it yourself’ style. In all fields, so also in audio... 

The Remodernist Film Manifesto

Some quotes that are in par with the kind of filmmaking 8sploitation Grindhouse Cinema supports.
 

Charles Burnett quote (about the narrative)
“You can’t really make a film about people. You can only put together some sort of narrative that somehow tells a story, without you manipulating it in a certain way. It’s all manipulative of course, but it isn’t so obvious in a way. So it’s nothing that I made up. I just put things that I saw in the community in a narrative and let that speak for itself in a certain sense.”

 

Diane Dorr-Dorynek, a friend of Jazz musician Charles Mingus, describing John Cassavetes approach to filmmaking. (about the script)
"The script formed the skeleton around which the actors might change or ad lib lines according to their response to the situation at the moment, so that each performance was slightly different. 
A jazz musician works in this way, using a given musical skeleton and creating out of it, building a musical whole related to a particular moment by listening to and interacting with his fellow musicians."

Andrei Tarkovsky quote (what is cinema?)
“I think film is the only art form that works with the concept of time. It’s not that it develops in time, because they all do: music, theatre, ballet and other artistic activities.
I refer to ‘time’ in the literal sense of the word. To what a shot is, from the moment you say ‘action’ until you say ‘cut’. What is that? It’s the fixing of reality, fixing of time’s essence. It is a way of preserving time which, in theory, gives us the possibility of moving forward and backwards freely for all eternity. No other art form is able to fix time as cinema does. Therefore, what is cinema? It’s a mosaic made with time.”

Jim Jarmusch
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."

Promotion

Branding as 8sploitation Grindhouse Cinema
8sploitation Grindhouse Cinema has 1 objective. Bringing back the double-bill feature film presentations... 

What is 8sploitation?
The word 8sploitation is a contraction of Super 8 and Exploitation film... 

The principles of Grindhouse Cinema
Low to no budget exploitation films, showing a variety of these films at low admission fees in small filmhouses instead of in big cinemas.

A Guerrilla method of promotion
This goes for all the stages of the Super 8 mm filmmaking process. From the concept to the promotion... 

 

The goal would be to have our films screened at local arthouse cinemas...

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This masterclass has been previously presented to:
 

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