Words by Monty Webber
Shooting and making surfing films in the olden days was a rare, expensive and labour intensive but rewarding hobby. The cheapest way to do it was by using Super 8 film stock produced by Kodak. News that Kodak is releasing a new Super 8 video camera coincides with a flurry of emails I have received from first time surf film makers who want to know what app I have been using to get “That old Super 8 film look”
“I got that old Super 8 look by using Super 8” I tell them as if I am as old as Methuselah. The idea that I am ancient enough to have shot on film (when it was largely replaced by video tape around 30 years ago) mesmerises them and gives me a street cred I never thought would exist.
The more scratched up, dirty and damaged the film the more they seem to like it. I reckon they would loved the old burn holes which occurred when we ‘freeze framed’ for too long or the film jammed and everyone watched on as the best frame from the movie burned from the middle out like a monster destroying the screen and required some quick re-splicing if you wanted to start watching again. No doubt there will be an app for all these ‘effects’ sooner than later.
It reminds me of when my young children told me they thought the whole world must have been in black and white when I was young, before colour television came in. Imagine that, the cameramen weren’t using black and white film in the old Hitchcock movies I forced them to watch, the actual whole planet was in black and white.
This new obsession with “That film look” not only correlates with the retro movement it also coincides with my family transferring most of our – almost twenty hours – of Super 8s to digital. So for the first time in decades we can watch what we filmed without putting the roll of celluloid through an old projector and sitting back and watching the brilliantly colourful moving pictures on the wall or one of those old roll up tripod screens accompanied by the sound of whatever album (usually Santana) and the whirring flickering rapid pulse of the projector.
In the old days a three minute roll of Super 8 film cost about $15 (which included processing) which was enough to buy a small block of land so we learned very quickly about not wasting film and became very conscious of light and focus as there was no ‘auto’ anything. We became disciplined with what we shot. We also learned to ‘edit in camera’ which means being able to make little three minute movies; Take for take surf films, comedy, drama or otherwise.
This helped not having to do to much splicing later; which is the actual cutting and taping or gluing together of the 8mm film to edit out the unwanted imagery. The film also had to be sent away to be developed; dropped off at the chemist (of all places) same as with one’s stills photography film and often took three weeks to boomerang home.
Looking back over the footage, which we started filming in earnest from 1973 through to 1988 has been fantastic. Working out what to do with it, now that every frame has been cleaned and scanned at great expense, is daunting.
Learning how to use the most recent Final Cut Pro editing program on my computer has been just as frightening. What I did piece together quite quickly though was a film which my brother John shot and spliced back in the day using an old school reel to reel editor and tape.
It’s of the 1977 Bells and Stubbies competitions and is around 15 minutes long and in slightly fast motion which adds such a classic look and makes that bunch of great surfers seem like they surfed way faster than they really did. Peterson surfs like he’d running toward or away from the demons in his mind, each turn a killer strike of his single-fin broad-sword. Westerly appears as her former self the handsome and enigmatic Peter Drouyn and one of Bondi’s best ever Ronny Ford makes more than one appearance.
There is also one of my favourite things in there, what critics refer to as a ‘an ill-advised dream sequence’ albeit the shortest one ever; where after falling asleep under a tree for a post lunch mid-day nap a friend by the name of John Adair dreams of struggling with his old home made leg-rope which had pulled through the rail as they often did back then.
The really intriguing thing about the look of Super 8 for me is it actually looks like memories; well mine anyway. Perhaps for younger generations the glitchy old mouldy VHS’ look will be like memories for them and an app will be available to get that ‘look’.
Another interesting thing about this Bells/Stubbies edit is how the new music by ‘Texas Tea’ from their album ‘Sad Summer Hits’ lands wherever it wants; just like in the old days when you put on an album and then turned on the projector and hoped for the best.
In the old days with Super 8 you didn’t cut the imagery to the sound very accurately, you just put on a music cassette or vinyl album and then started the projector; so every showing was a little bit different. This time I have laid down the edited film just as my brother John cut it almost 40 years ago and then laid the music under the Final Cut Pro film clip timeline; which seems appropriate. Some works well, other parts not so well. Overall though, it’s mostly just worth watching for how good the professional surfers were almost forty years ago.
The next little film was shot later in the same year at Spookies point, Angourie. I shot it and it stars my brothers Greg and John as well as Rod Dahlberg and Sir Kenneth Clarke. The little dude at the beginning sitting on the rock shooting stills is my brother Dan and the last guy getting closed out on is me. Almost everyone in it shaped their own boards.
I have slowed the footage down for this clip and edited it to the music which means there is more appropriate audio to go with the visuals. It has been fun chipping away at the mammoth task of editing all our old Super 8 to music. If anyone out there has any music they will let me use for free as did ‘Texas Tea’ please send it to me at: Monty Webber 7/39 Clarence Street, Yamba, 2464. Preferably on disc. Anyway as they used to say before introducing surf movies in cinemas 40 years ago “Sit back, relax and I hope you enjoy the show”.
