I was inspired to create a short video of our family adventure down the Chestatee River this year in the style of a Super 8 home video.

The black box on the left of your screen is intentional, the “sprocket hole” of the Super 8 film. In Super 8 cameras you use only a half frame of the film at a time, thereby doubling your captured images with the same roll. Depending on how the film is then scanned into a digital format, you can then capture the entire half side of that film (revealing the sprocket hole) or not.

Super 8 home movies tend to only linger on a shot for 5 seconds or less (due to the short duration of the film roll overall), are often a bit shaky due to the handheld nature of the filming, and frequently involve the subjects smiling directly into the camera (vs ignoring the camera).

This is not real Super 8 footage, but the editing and footage were inspired by that overall look. I wanted it to have the feel of a vintage home movie, a family memory on celluloid.