2013 Regina & Saskatoon Participants

So here it is.... the list of filmmakers taking part in this year's events!

Saskatoon:
Amalie Atkins, Callen Diederichs, Jennifer Sparrowhawk, Dave Turcotte, Chris Fischer, Katherine Hounjet, Bryn Rawlyk, Karen Polowich, Cameron Muir, Theresa Campbell, Katherine Skelton, Alex Rogalski, Marcel Petit, Matt Voyno

Regina:
Ken Wilson, Berny Hi, Kristine Dowler, Noelle Duddridge, Sarah Huber, Amber Christensen, Gerald Saul, Colby Richardson, Ian Campbell, Gordon Pepper, Mike Rollo, Amber Goodwyn, Dianne Ouellette, Eric Hill, Charlie Hill, Luke Black, Jade Duckett, Ryan Hill, Amber Phelps Bondaroff, Adrienne Adams, Tricia Martin, Matthieu Belanger, Madeline Sheridan, Vanda Schmockel, Geremy Lague

Projector Repairs

Well, it's June, which means we're only 10 days away from our Saskatchewan One Take Super 8 Events. While our films are still at the lab (after being held up by Fed-Ex in tornado weather in Memphis - just glad they didn't make it to OZ), it was time to tackle a long overdue project that was making me a little bit stressed.

Both of the One Take Super  8 Event projectors were due for major maintenance having serviced many events in many locations over many years. They've been jostled in cars, buses, airplanes. Crossed borders and time zones and finally were showing their age.

A couple years back I had a friend order some replacement belts off Ebay, fingers crossed that it would solve the problem (both projectors would no longer play films at speed), but when I opened up the backs of the ST-1200 and ST-600 today I really had no idea what I was doing. Thank goodness for the internet which provided me with a fantastic pdf of the original ST-1200 manual on how to replace parts, which I have now permanently saved to my hard drive for future reference. As you can see in the photo one belt (from the ST-600) was snapped and beginning to disintegrate, turning sort of jelly like. I'm glad I got it out before it got all over the inside of the project. Voila! 18fps perfection. Onto the ST-1200 which was a bit more intricate to remove the belt (turns out it was just stretched too much so wouldn't run off the motor). Thanks to the manual schematics telling me which screws to remove to get access to the belt drive, within minutes a new belt was in and VOILA again, 2 projectors running smooth as can be. If I was more tech savvy, there would be play by play pictures and videos demonstrating the process for others to reference. But I'm just not built that way.

Now just the decision, which one will make the trek to 2 cities to show at the inaugural event in Saskatoon, and the 11th Annual in Regina. (Just a hint, likely the brighter projector I have a spare bulb for :) Hope it can make the trip, but glad that I might get another 30 years use out of these 2 tanks. Elmo sure knew what they were doing when they produced these models. No cell phone will ever work this long.

Films off to lab!

Very exciting moment as all the films have been shot and we'll be shipping 40 new films to the lab as 40 collective breaths are held waiting to see if magical images will appear.

Later this week, we'll be announcing all of our participants in Saskatoon and Regina and you'll start spotting our posters hanging up around town(s).

Filmmakers are busy putting together soundtracks and we're finalizing all of our screening details and prepping our projectors.

And in fantastic news, as we started this year's OTS8 we witnessed Kodak cancelling the last colour reversal stock, but I am happy to announce that Pro8mm has revived our hopes of continuing our OTS8 events! Their 200ISO reversal stock will be available in a couple of months. Very much looking forward to shooting and showing it at future events! You can read their full press release here.

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 :)