2013 poster

So we are pretty jazzed about our new poster, being screen printed as we speak and about to fly up on lightposts and supermarket bulletin boards in weeks to come. Much thanks to Merchguy for his continued solid work for our events.

Films are rolling in cameras as spring explodes in SK. With a full slate in Regina and a good first turn out in Saskatoon. A couple more weeks of shooting and we'll be seeing a bucket full of cartridges heading to the labs.

A shout out to Syracuse and Montreal for wrapping up fantastic OTS8 events in the past couple of weeks. We'll post participants and some stats here soon (and some pics if we can grab them).

Entry forms for Regina and Saskatoon

Here they are!

If you haven't already signed up you can find the forms below (if they won't print, send us an e-mail at onetakesuper8event(at)yahoo.com and we'll forward them to you as pdf files. Or just drop by the filmpool (Regina) or Paved Arts (Saskatoon) and you can fill out a form there.

Drop off your entry form and fee at the Filmpool or Paved Arts by the 30th (or before 25 other people beat you to it in each city) and start making your film!

Looking forward to this year's line up!

Saskatchewan, bigger than ever!

Well, the time is upon us and we are thrilled to announce the return of the One Take Super 8 Event to Regina and for the first time we will be hosting an event in Saskatoon.

We'll be accepting participants starting this week. We'll post the entry form on this blog.

Filmmakers will have a few weeks to shoot their films, and then we'll be premiering the Saskatoon participants at the Roxy Theatre on June 11, and the Regina films at the RPL theatre on June 13.

We are thrilled to be creating more super 8 films in Saskatchewan than we ever have before and are very excited to be working with new partners. All of this would not be possible without the support of the Saskatchewan Arts Board, Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative, Paved Arts, RPL theatre and the Roxy Theatre.

Looking forward to posting more news from the events in the weeks to come.

Syracuse coming up!

We're on the verge of Syracuse's 7th annual event with over 30 new super 8 films premiered at the Bank on April 20th. Exciting list of new and returning filmmakers to the event. Sure to be worth your $5, just for the free popcorn and soda alone.

In other OTS8 news, Jaimz and Karen Asmundson will be screening their WNDX 2012 OTS8 film Citizens Against Basswood at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto, which is a first for an OTS8 film! Congrats to Jaimz and Karen (and a great follow up to having their film Goths! On a Bus! screened at the Telefilm Canada's market in Cannes last year). For those in Toronto, they can see the film - playing with Winnipeg feature Special Ed - about animator  (and past OTS8 participant) Ed Ackerman April 29, April 30, and May 4.

 It will be a digital transfer screening at the festival, so seeing the original film remains a privilege to those who saw it at the Gas Station Theatre during WNDX last October in Winnipeg. And for those needing more of a super 8 fix at Hot Docs, I highly recommend seeing Our Nixon by director Penny Lane. An incredible assembly of footage shot by Nixon's aides during his time in office. The transfer looks amazing, and it's a fascinating look at how super 8 really was the original iPhone when it came to constant and instant motion picture making. And for recent super 8 filmmaking, Kelly O'brien's Softening reflects on super 8 as a home movie device in her incredibly personal and beautiful family diary film.

Big news coming later this week announcing another couple of OTS8 events :)

2013 update!

Wow, where do the months go.... Call it hibernating, but we're up from our slumber and ready to tackle 2013 with gusto.

Since we last checked in, Kodak has discontinued Ektachrome, leaving us monochromotically challenged and foraging for any color reversal stock. it's a sad day, but not all hope is lost, in a world of vinyl, polaroid and telephone books, all long since pronounced dead but then revived, we're fingers crossed that super 8 color reversal will have a second life. In the meantime, we're seeking stock for this year's event. A couple new things before a review of the last OTS8 event (from 2012). Celebrating their 7th year Syracuse is roaring ahead with it's annual event, to take place on April 20th! They've already got their 30 participants confirmed and shooting their films, so we can't wait to see them soon.



Montreal is back with another event hosted by our friends Double Negative. They're be unspooling their 30 new films at La Salla Rosa on May 2nd. They always deliver a fantastic slate of new work by some of Montreal's most exceptional film artists.

And finally, we have a lovely little wrap up remote by our most southern OTS8 event in Florida.

Last December the 1:1 Super 8 Cinema Soiree held their event and festival director Shane Eason sent us this dispatch:

December 7, 2012 Popcorn, Beer, Music & Super 8 Film @ The Bubble, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA 

Well the 2012 1:1 Super 8 Cinema Soirée finally hit the 5 year mark. Not sure if that's a good thing, considering the world's coming to an end, no? Anyway, we're still here at the bottom of the North American continent, making these awesome little movies on the ol' super 8 gauge, and we'll continue to do so in 2013. Hell yeah! This year's batch of films provided us with subject matter along the lines of economic struggles and political power; the happiness found in relationships; gatherings at holiday events; the desire to smoke cigarettes; Miami b-boys; pet dogs; and y'er Skunk Ape...or Big Foot, Yeti, or Sasquatch, pending where in the world you live. Footnote: It's a Skunk Ape here in Florida, and they live in the Everglades, or maybe it's the mangroves. I've never seen one, but saw two (on film) at the screening. So they must exist! 2012 filmmaker's included: Bryan Adams, David Aedo, Jennipher Aquino, Manny Estrella, Eric Fuhrmann, Mike Huet, Lacey Langlois, David Levine Ammar Marimutu, Marta Niagolova, Matt Perez, Van-Eric Prevalus, Nick Sacci, Aaron Sperling, Sean Stanley & Marlena Williams. The crowd was quite dynamic and enjoyed the films to the fullest. About 100 patrons tuned out on a cool December eve. Of course we had some competition with Art Basel. Later, the party moved from The Bubble to the Poor House, a great local music bar in downtown Ft. lauderdale. Live music was provided by some of the filmmakers and again, like every year, we got home at 4 a.m. Until next year!

Fort Lauderdale 1:1 Super 8 Cinema Soiree

South Florida beckons all super 8 fans to shoot and show in Fort Lauderdale this December! Warm sun, great films, oranges.
I'm sold. It's a fantastic event now in its 5th year under the
fantastic guidance and direction of Shane Eason.
See below for more details and check out their facebook page . 

Greetings super 8 cinéastes! There is now an open call for partipants to be part of the 5th Annual 1:1 Super 8 Cinema Soirée. Yeah, you read that right. It's the 5th one! Please see PDF attachment for information and deadlines. Best, Shane Eason 1:1 Super 8 Cinema Soirée Director

1:1 Super 8 Cinema Soirée Local filmmakers and artists gleefully take part in this annual event, loading their cameras with 3m...

• 2012 1_1 Super 8 Entry Form.pdf

WNDX OTS8 Review

Thanks to Winnipeg filmmaker (and critic) Scott Fitzpatrick for this fantastic review of the WNDX OTS8 this past Sept. 30. It was a great night - which starts first and foremost with a projector that holds up and no mix ups on soundtracks (thanks Marcel, you nailed it). Beyond that it was another impressive year with a diverse mix of films. Though a couple of themes stood out. 2 films with ghosts as main protagonists (and neither made by Guy Maddin), and over half the films contained animals in some form, wild, domestic, dead, grilled.

Flawless festival overall by the WNDX team, and it's always a fun closing night with a great crowd at the Gas Station theatre.

Read on for Scott's recap:

the one-take super 8 has in a short time become my favourite event of the winnipeg year. i made my first film for the one-take in 2010, and have taken part every year since. overall 2012 was an incredibly strong year for the event, despite the absence of some of my favourite regular players (heidi, leslie, clint, damien, delf, noam, darcy – you better be back next year!). my film, (titled: gets braces) played second-to-last, and the 26 films that preceded it set the bar very, very high. here are my (5) favourite films from the show (in no particular order):

Living on the Edge – dir. Aaron Zeghers
a meditation on life and death via kingdom animalia. some beautiful long-exposure photography makes this one of zeghers’ most visually striking and restrained works to date, while he continues to refine his skill at crafting blissfully smothering atmospherics.

Blotto – dir. Mike Maryniuk
a dizzying dose of fun-formalism from mike maryniuk. splashes of paint succumb beautifully to centrifugal force. for about fifteen seconds i thought this one was a dud; problems with soft focus right off the hop. once the picture came through sharp however, this was a stunner. one of mike’s best one-takes yet – pro work, but still ragged and off-hand.

These Are Some of My Friends – dir. Stephane Oystryk
i know it’s not polite to pick favourites, but this was my favourite. i’ve been a pretty grizzly fan since before i knew who or what pretty grizzly was. this film, a series of portraits, friends musing over their tenuous places in life, is easily his strongest work to date. the one-take has continuously proven an ideal platform for oystryk’s particular brand of wide-eyed, lo-fi filmmaking. he has a style like linklater, but with a less rigid approach to form and unique in its disarmingly genuine sentimentality. here oystryk’s friends take turns discussing age, responsibility, and how time can get away from you if yr not careful. in the end i think steph’s cat gets the most screen-time, and our last friend is short-changed as a result. her narration carries on after the picture’s rolled out, into an elliptical ending somehow as content in its present as it is unsure of its future. talk about time getting away from us. yet another pretty grizzly short with legs enough to be a feature.

The Sneaky Snogger – dir. Cynthia Wolfe-Nolin
i insisted my pal cwn shoot a one-take this year. i got to help her out with her “i shot it on 16” film in 2011 and have been anxiously awaiting her next analog endeavor ever since. her film, a chaplin-esque kissing booth sketch, was constructed with razor-sharp precision and featured the most arresting photography of the evening. a lovely lilting soundtrack and a jarring ending as surreal as it was subtle made this one of my favourites of the lot. c-dubs may be a notorious wild-card IRL, but her filmmaking is surprisingly and refreshingly disciplined.

The Joy of Creating – dir. Ryan Simmons
could (should?) have been called ‘noam gonick makes something queer in the woods with goats’. i don’t remember any actual jokes in this one, but i did giggle throughout. chalk it up to simmons’ ascerbic wit and keen cinematic eye. josh marr as goat wrangler for my favourite performance of the night. so adorable!!

ALSO AWESOME:
Dave Barber – Hung Dry on a Meat Jag
Kelly Duke – Steel Petals, Bright Lights
Matheu Plouffe – El Diablo the Undefeated
Darren Young – Circles / Grey Man’s Gardens
Ian Bawa – Spectre
Karen + Jaimz Asmundson – Citizens Against Basswood
Sonya Ballantyne – Taking the Long Way Home