Wow, 8mm film is cool...

I recently started playing around with Super 8mm film. As a wedding videographer, I try to create cool new looks for my clients wedding videos. Since I'm in Tulsa, I draw on inspiration from a number of sources, many of which are on the east and west cost.

Last November I started thinking about the 2005 wedding season and how I would get my company, Take 5 Video, to maintain one of the top spots in wedding videography for Tulsa. To do this I took a cue from my colleagues on the costs and decided we would start offering actual Super 8mm film.

I didn't realize everything involved when we made the decision. For starters there is the actual film. You buy it directly from Kodak on 50 foot reels. Now a 50 ft reel is only 3 minutes. Next you have to get it developed and finally I have it transferred to DVCam for editing on my NLE.

With all of these steps it costs me about $15 per minute of footage. This isn't a cheap option for my clients, but I truly believe it is one of the coolest ways to capture your wedding day. What has amazed me is the quality of the film. This stuff is good, clean and clear. So often we believe film to have the stereotypical lines, scratches and grain.

While grain is present, freshly shot and developed film that has been taken care of does not have the scratches and lines we so after believe them to have. In fact I've been requested to add these artifacts in post production to "age" the look.

With the addition of film, we decided to redesign our website and provide a more contemporary feel while adding some retro elements. I really like what we've come up with and I'm looking forward to seeing how our clients like the new look and feel.

As for our new offering of Film we have established two new websites to help capture traffic.

We've added www.16mmweddingfilms.com and www.8mmweddingfilms.com. We hope these will help brides find that truly unique look they desire for a nostalgic wedding video. I'm looking forward to unveiling our new packaging options for weddings we film on Super 8. I won't talk about it now, but look forward to something really cool in the very near future.

If you stop by our site, be sure to drop us a note and tell us what you think.

--Jesse