From the resurgence of movie franchises based on comic book characters to the growing trend of vinyl record sales and hi-fi audio, the demand for bringing back the past has never looked (or sounded) as good as it does today. For Fuseproject founder and designer Yves Béhar, this meant bringing back one of the most iconic and loved pieces of photo and video history ever created: the Kodak Super 8 camera.
“Super 8 taught me how to be a filmmaker,” explains legendary actor and director Steve McQueen. “At the time, it was all about expense, meaning that I had to know what I wanted to shoot or at least edit in my head what I wanted to shoot before I shot it. It taught me how precious an image is and can be. It taught me how to refine my technique in editing and, ultimately, how beautiful film is. To this day I still shoot on Super 8.”
Starting with the original Super 8 industrial design and film experience that was introduced in 1965, Béhar and his team of talented designers at Fuseproject worked directly with Kodak to combine the original quality of film production with more modern digital features and innovations that today’s smartphone and tablet users have come to expect.
“Our biggest challenge in reviving the Super 8 camera was to enable a seamless filmmaking experience despite the mere size and weight of the internal film cartridges and components,” explains the Fuseproject team. “More so, we needed to find a balance between the qualities that filmmakers love from the original camera with the experience of digital technologies and features. We decided to build the camera in an octagonal shape to create a slimming structure around the internals while using durable materials such as bent sheet metal.”
With the craft of analog photography and video continuing to make a sharp comeback – Instagram filters not included – this update to the Super 8 is a welcome surprise as we find new ways of blending the new with the old.
For those interested, the updated Kodak Super 8 is expected to launch in the Fall of 2016. Head over to Kodak to sign up for email updates.
