A creative feature by Amy Colman
The analogue filmmaking industry has seen a huge revival in recent years. Alongside film photography and vinyl records, the medium has seduced a new generation with its grainy texture and nostalgic aesthetic. Despite the resurgence, the sustainability of the trend is a question that looms atop the heads of analogue lovers and those working in the industry.
After going through a dry spell from the early noughties until the late tens, the medium has been dug out of attics and basements by a generation raised in a mostly digital era, fascinated by the machines’ complete separation from the digital world. With buttons that make noise when pushed and capture images with a quality of softness, they provide a more tactile experience than that of their digital opposition.
Edmund Ward, Managing Director of On8Mil, a motion picture film lab based in London, resonates with the medium due to its ability to capture memories in an authentic way, that maintains a quality of nostalgia from the moment that they are shot. The grainy quality of the picture and fuzzy-edged image is reminiscent of its fallibility as a medium and as Ward states, “it’s fallibility speaks to the human condition, because we are all equally as fallible.” Having filmed on analogue cameras since the nineties, Edmund often brings a camera along on family outings, capturing his children growing up and collecting these memories through the years.
Enamoured with the medium, he spends his days blissful and busy processing orders sent in, his stress at the volume of orders dissipating with his appreciation of the art which he facilitates. The business has seen a steady incline in orders since it was founded in 2014, yet from 2018 onwards was when Edmund saw a noticeable difference.
Worldwide sales of Super 8 films in 2019 were the highest since 2011, with some suggesting that social media could be a contributing factor to its revival. Apps have been invented to allow users to capture videos with a vintage and dusty effect inspired by that of Super 8, in turn creating a demand for the original protagonist of the trend. This surge in demand but lack of supply from the cameras no longer being manufactured has led to it being a rather expensive hobby. With film costs high and developing costs higher, the audience who can afford to take it up is limited.
Despite its current success, the question of the sustainability of the trend of analogue filmmaking must be asked. Edmund wholeheartedly believes in the trend's sustainability, offering the reasoning “well, someone, somewhere is still making chainmail.” Elaborating on this, he compared it with the revival of vinyl records which have made a huge comeback with generations who grew up listening to music on CD’s or Cassettes. The tactility of the creative experience acquired with film, he explains, is why it is a lasting medium.
At 51, he considers himself to have seen up to 10 format changes in technology in his lifetime, with each advancement making the former obsolete. He explains the lesson to be learned through this, “analogue technology by nature is not digital and so isn’t prone to that massive rate of change,” rooting for himself and other appreciators of the medium that it will be around again for a long time.
22-year-old Communication Design student Sam Fleetwood is a lover of analogue filmmaking, having picked up the hobby in 2020 alongside a passion for film photography. Digging around in his parents' cupboards during lockdown was when he happened upon the Super 8 camera that he uses, a wedding gift from his father to his mother and now back to use in his own hands. Sam believes that the medium will always be around, granted that the chemicals needed to develop the film are still available. Sam’s parents filmed on the original Kodak Super 8 when he was a child, yet a roll of childhood memories remain undeveloped due to the lack of chemicals available.
Another consideration if the trend was to continue on an upward trajectory is the maintenance of the cameras which are typically no longer being made. Sam himself had to fashion a makeshift battery out of coin cell batteries, a five pence piece and electrical tape, all down to the fact that the original Super 8 batteries were no longer produced. A large part of the film camera industry comes under the umbrella of ‘repairs’, with thousands of how-to guides and DIY videos online teaching analogue lovers how to do it at home. Yet, with the original parts, chemicals and cameras no longer being manufactured and only an alternative 8mm film still being sold, the market to fill this void with specialist expertise and albeit clever tricks is substantial.
Edmund, who is a former graphic designer, has been experimenting with 3D design and printing, designing parts to repair old analogue cameras to find a solution to a crack in the industry. As he states, “if the cameras are forty to fifty years old, they need to be kept going to keep business going,” which means potentially the whole industry relies on the function of the cameras themselves. Using modern technology in innovative ways to maintain analogue formats, may be the answer to sustaining an art that is still highly valued by many creatives around the world.
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