Friday, January 11, 2013

The Launch Of The Home Movie Legacy Project Radio Show


Radio Show #1 Jan 9 2013

Show Title:  The Launch Of The Home Movie Legacy Project

Host:  Rhonda Vigeant

Guest:  Phil Vigeant, Owner of Pro8mm;

Author of The Power of Super 8 Film:  Insider Secrets Every Filmmaker Should Know


Summary:  The debut episode of The Home Movie LegacyProject was a content rich hour that addressed why home movies are such a vital part of our culture. They are the most organic form of physical evidence that we have about our families.  Home movies help us to shift our focus and transform our understanding of how our families lived.  They help us to access our memories in such a powerful way, often giving us huge breakthroughs so we can shift our focus and transform our understanding so we can move forward in our life.  They help us heal and connect with our departed loved ones. They create a legacy of story that we can hand down so our descendants will know how we lived.

The episode covered the evolution of the home movie, including formats such as 16mm film, regular 8 film, super 8 film, and the many formats of digital video. We talked about the digital dilemma we have in trying to bring all these many formats into our modern lives, so we can have access and share them in a modern platform, including sharing them on social media.


Guest Phil Vigeant is the business partner and husband of host Rhonda Vigeant.  Phil shared how his company, Pro8mm of Burbank, CA evolved, and the Super 8 film format being used by consumers to shoot home movies or a format widely used by students in film school, to one that provided solutions for the professional use of Super 8 film as a production format widely used in Hollywood.  The company was originally called Super8 Sound.  Founded in Cambridge, MA by Bob Doyle in 1973, Phil talks about the companies early professional jobs, including the famous commercial shot for Nike using the Beatles song  Revolutionin the early 80’s, to Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up” Music Video in 1988,  and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas as You” in 1994.

This began the evolution of Super 8 to be used professionally for thousands of jobs in main stream media jobs, including major motions pictures such as Argo, Super 8 and JFK, hundreds of jobs for MTV and VHI, commercials for major brands, and dozens of television shows.

For more information about Pro8mm, go to www.pro8mm.com 

 The episode concludes with how all the studio work inspired their clients to go back to their own families home movies and first films often shot on Super 8 (people such as Steve Spielberg, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams, Sam Rami, and Spike Lee) and why they wanted Pro8mm to handle their personal media assets the same way they have had their professional media assets handled, with the same level of integrity and on the same professional equipment.

 Rhonda and Phil wrap by sharing that this service is not just for the moguls, but for the masses, and that through the weekly radio show their goal is to teach and inspire people how to be head of their own studio, to give their home movie legacy the same red carpet treatment that famous people do and do it with urgency...before it’s too late!

 For more information to see related post, go to www.homemovielegacy.com

 The radio show airs every Wednesday at 4:00pm PST (6pm CST / 7pm EST) on the RockStar Radio Network 

Friday, December 14, 2012

Urban Outfitters Inc., releases Pro8mm's Rhonda CAM


Urban Outfitters Inc. Releases Pro8mm's Rhonda CAM - Dec. 17, 2012

The funky, fashion mega house Urban Outfitters Inc. is now selling Pro8mm's Rhonda CAM on line at www.urbanoutfitters.com. Additionally, they will carry the Pro8/19 (500T) super 8 film stock, inclusive of pre-processing and HD scanning to an Apple TV digital file.


In June 2012, Pro8mm, the super 8 experts for production and legacy  footage, released the Rhonda CAM, a trendy Super 8 film camera geared toward consumer use and personal story telling on film. Pro8mm co-owner Rhonda states, "I wanted to design something young and fun that would appeal to a next generation of filmmakers. I really wanted something that not only looked cool, but it was simple enough to use; a camera that they would be inclined to just pick up and shoot."  

Inspired by many of Pro8mm's Super 8 wedding clients and lifestyle filmmakers, the Rhonda CAM was designed to meet the demands of consumer and pro-sumer clients. The greatest appeal of the Rhonda CAM is its small size, light weight, and low-light filming conditions. Weighing only ½ a pound, the Rhonda Cam is the perfect choice for on-the-go lifestyle filmmaking. It is the lowest light Super 8 film camera on the market, which makes it great for indoor and outdoor use. It is the perfect entry level Super 8 camera.

 
Click for Urban Outfitters Rhonda CAM demo on UO TV 

A few months after the camera's release, a publicly traded American company that owns and operates over 400 retail locations across five retail brands: (Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain, and BHLDN), contacted Pro8mm about adding the Rhonda CAM to their growing film and camera line. Urban Outfitters originated as "The Free People's Store" in 1970 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, focusing on fashion and household products that include luxury brands and several designer collaborations. They are best known for catering to "hipster" culture, which incorporates an influence from past decades. (Wikipedia) It makes perfect sense that a Super 8 camera refurbished from the 1970's would fit entirely into their vision. It is an honor for Pro8mm that Urban Outfitters chose the Rhonda CAM as their first motion picture film camera for their film and camera department, among their many trendy still photography cameras.

As a small, family run business, Pro8mm is thrilled to have their products endorsed by a major retail store such at Urban Outfitters. Marketing coordinator, Jaclyn states, "We are very excited and honored to be a part of the Urban Outfitter's family."

Checkout the Rhonda CAM on Urban Outfitters.com!!!
RhondaCAM        RhondaRoll
Rhonda CAM on Urban Outfitters          Rhonda Roll on Urban Outfitters

Additional Releases about the Rhonda CAM:



Follow the Rhonda CAM on:

Pro8mm is applauded for being a one-stop shop where Super 8 and 16mm cameras, film, processing, digital mastering and treasured family archival services come together for production and archiving. Pro8mm is viewed as the leading experts in Super 8 film, whose products and services have been used in major motion pictures, music videos, television shows, commercials, documentaries, weddings and more. All of our services are performed in house, which allows our dedicated team to provide the fastest turn around times possible with the best quality control for your filmmaking needs.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

What makes the Super GR8 Film Festival Awesome!


What makes the Super GR8 Film Festival Awesome!
-by Rhonda Vigeant, Pro8mm


When you think about hubs for independent filmmaking, it is unlikely   Harrisonburg, Virginia would come to mind as a place where extraordinary film projects are being born by the dozens, but this is precisely what happens every fall when two local residents, AKA festival directors Paul Somers and Tim Estep announce that it is time again for the annual Super GR8 Film Festival.

The idea is to make a complete film on one 50-foot roll of Super 8 film with all the edits done in the camera. Filmmakers see their film for the first time on screening night, so the excitement and anticipation is intense, for not only the filmmaker, but the actors and audience as well.

While single roll super 8 film festivals have been around for a number of years, and have a popular following, what happens in Harrisonburg during October and November is a transformation of community rallying around the arts and creative process unlike anything I have ever seen or experienced before in my 30 years of working with the Super 8 medium. 

The awesomeness and uniqueness of Super GR8 is that the entire community gets involved with it.  As a small college town, home to James Madison University, as well as other near-by colleges, beautifully seated around a plethora of Civil War history, the sense of community in Harrisonburg extends well beyond the campus. The vibrant historic down town area is filled with unique non-commercial shopping, art galleries, hand made items and one of a kind eateries.  It is a very special place with very special people, and as one resident says, it is like “CHEERS” – a place where everyone really does know your name.

The elevated sense of community Paul and Tim have created with Super GR8 is a natural fit to a town that already has a sense of creative spirit and identity. A feeling of pride and cooperative, not competitive mindset touches every aspect of this amazingly successful festival, which has a tag line by the way “LIFE IS SUPER GR8”!

Super Gr8 entries are only solicited from local residents during an annual sign up night.  There are a coveted 48 spots, which are quickly spoken for every year.   24 films are made on Super 8 Tri-X Film, and 24 are made on Super 8 Color Negative. Each film type has its own screening night in the beautiful, historic down town Court Square Theatre.

The actors and crew are all local residents.  People in the community open up their homes and businesses to let the filmmakers use their locations.  Dozens of local businesses participate as sponsors.  Local artists design logos, t-shirts and posters for the publicity – which is prominently, displayed everywhere you go.  Innkeepers donate rooms to host festival judges and some of the invited out of town guests.  Even the amazing trophies (which are the only prizes) are amazingly hand crafted from “throw away” broken super 8 cameras, reels and super 8 projectors.  These in themselves are unique relics that rival the beauty of any cookie cutter Hollywood Emmy or Oscar! 

On the night prior to the screenings – the town is a buzz.  Everyone you meet knows about the festival, has either made a film, is in a film, crewed a film, wrote a music score for a film, or knows someone directly involved in some way. 

Paul and Tim prepare for the festival all year by looking for super 8 cameras that are in working condition.  A local camera shop fixes many, but Paul confesses he is learning more about the process himself so that all participants will have good working equipment.  Cameras are lent to anyone who needs one. You just stop by Tim or Paul’s’ house and check one out.  A majority of the people who enter the festival have never made a film before – or have only made one for a previous Super GR8 festival.  So the task falls on the shoulders of the festival directors to work with the newbie’s, sometimes for hours on end, teaching them how to use the camera, and always making themselves available, day or night to answer and questions.

The Festival was founded is 2010 with the first years films shot only on black and white film.  In 2011, Pro8mm was asked if they would like to jump on as a sponsor, so for the past two years, we have provided at cost both the black and white and color negative film, the processing and HD scanning. 

When we told Tim and Paul back in 2011 that we wanted to come to the festival, they were surprised but happy to have their efforts validated in this way.  This year, we returned again, and were asked to be judges.  When residents ask us why we have come all the way to Harrisonburg, Virginia from Burbank,CA, we tell them it is an extension of our love of super 8 and we want to be part of the love fest.  To be part of the magic created by this outrageously fun, grass roots Super 8 Spectacular, complete with after parties at local venues is for us, amazing!

So with our involvement, Super GR8 has added on a night before the festival where we present to the newbie’s and predominately non-filmmakers to help them to begin to understand some of the basic filmmaking process, and think where else they might want to use the medium in their life.

 
The amount of people giving time, effort and commitment that goes into not only the films, but also the sound tracks, the posters that each filmmaker made for their own film is immeasurable.   As the audience began to come in and settle in their seats, I looked around at the hundreds of people who attended this sold out event and it was extremely emotional for Phil and I on many levels. The house was packed. I thought to myself, when was the last time you could fill a room on a Tuesday night with 300 people who paid the price of admission to see something that is a complete unknown, just to support their friends, their community, and be part of something bigger than themselves?

Super 8 has been our life’s work for 30 years.  And here it is, the end of 2012. The future of film origination from where we sit in Hollywood is changing so fast.  And yet, as I looked around the room of predominately 20-30 something’s, it was clear to me that Super 8 has indeed come full circle and is going to have a new life, in the loving hands from where it came.  Some in the hands of aspiring filmmakers, but mostly in the hands of regular people. People who want to create art. People who want to collaborate, not compete.    People who are a bit counter culture, and thrive in that environment.

One event can change a community.  Two people, Paul Somers and Tim Estep through the Super GR8 Film Festival changed the way their community looks at themselves and as a result changed Harrisonburg in so many ways. Creating a sense of community is what most people want, but don’t always know how to create.  Yet, a 3 and a half-minute cartridge of 50 feet of Super 8 film had the power to move an entire town to have an abundant amount of  fun this fall and create an experience that is not just Super Gr8 but Super awesome!

As I felt the energy of the audience explode during the sold out two  screening nights, and found myself “all in” as both a judge and a “wannabe “Harrisonburg Groupie, I found myself wondering if everyone over at the multiplex down the road was having as much fun as we were. But I already knew the answer!

Monday, September 10, 2012

The Super 8 Film Summit! Climb to the Top of your Super 8 Game!


The Super 8 Film Summit 3-Day Workshop!
Climb to the Top of Your Super 8 Game! October 19-21, 2012

 
Pro8mm, of Burbank, CA is announcing their 3rd annual live Super 8 filmmaking weekend workshop! With a fresh new style, Pro8mm is taking you out of the classroom and onto the set. We have evolved our traditional boot camp style workshop into an intimate hands-on learning experience.   Give film a shot through hands-on Super 8 shooting with the experts!

Grab your Super 8 movie camera and get ready to watch, learn, and practice your Super 8 filmmaking. With some essential tips, tricks, and guidance from our expert Super 8 filmmakers and trainers, 30 like-minded Super 8 enthusiasts will get the opportunity to spend a weekend learning how to successful successfully shoot Super 8 film in a production-style capacity and incorporate it into a modern day state of the art workflow. 
 
“Essentially, so much has changed over the last few years. In fact, more has changed in filmmaking in the last two years, than the last 10 years.  The world of computers, hard drives, data files and encoding is changing so fast. But analog film still has an important place in our HD digital world.  There are many myths and facts surrounding the never ending film vs. digital debate.  But once you have a grasp on it, you can apply your Super 8 knowledge and shooting skill into that world. My goal for the Super 8 Film Summit is to not only get you up to speed by teaching you the technical information, but the practical knowledge needed to be a great all-around filmmaker and stand out from the competition,” says Phil Vigeant, owner of Pro8mm.


WHAT TO EXPECT
The weekend will kick off with tours of Pro8mm, where the workshop is taking place. You will get to spend some quality time in the processing lab, with the colorists, and the camera techs.
The next two days will be a mix of class-room style sessions, followed by instant field training where you can practice the concepts taught first hand.

“The previous Pro8mm boot camps were great, and so many filmmakers have collaborated and gone on to do amazing things from these events.  But there was a need to put the camera into the filmmaker’s hands.  We decided that our next workshop should to be hands-on, which is why a state of the art 4-roll Super 8 film package is included with every registration. We’ve also had to limit it to 30 people, so that the experts can give each filmmaker individual attention based on their experience level. The Summit isn’t just for new Super 8 filmmakers. Anyone looking to brush up on their skills can benefit from it,” says Vigeant. The weekend will end with a screening of some of the film participants shot, so you can see where you excel and where there is room for improvement.
MEET OUR EXPERTS!
Throughout the weekend our field experts will take filmmakers around shooting in small groups.  They include cinematographer Laura Merians, who has shot Super 8 spots for Whole Foods, and In Style’s Tia & Tamera, among other projects. Daniel Lir and Bayou Bennett, owners of Dolce Films who are award wining filmmakers and screenwriters.  They have done some fantastic Super 8 spots for Smashbox Cosmetics.  And filmmaker David Dibble, a rising Super 8 star who has done outstanding Super 8 work for The Going Green Film Festival, music videos such as PNKYSWR, and more. While these filmmakers also shoot digital, they have learned that digital can’t replace what film can do. And if you want your movies to look like film,  you have to originate on film. They have perfected their craft and are going to teach you the tools that are getting them hired!  The entire weekend will be lead by Super 8 expert Phil Vigeant, owner of Pro8mm who has been running a company that services small format film for over 30 years. He is author of the book “The Power of Super 8 Film.” Credited with inventing Max 8 16x9 shooting, and negative Super 8 film, Phil brings his technical expertise on film stocks, processing, and scanning options, which will be covered in detail at the Super 8 Film Summit.
 

Concepts you will learn and practice:
-All basic Super 8 camera features and functions; Lenses -- ultra wide, telephoto extenders, C-mount vs. fix-mount; Filters; Focus; Exposure; Transport; Off-speed shooting; Anamorphic; Max 8; Stabilization; eBay pos cameras; Specialty cameras; Back-up; Light meter; Testing before shooting; Sync sound, 18 vs. 24 fps, 85 filter.
-Types of Super 8 Film Stock -- Fuji vs. Kodak; Color temperature -- tungsten vs. daylight; Alternative processing methods -- DIY hand processing, Cross processing, Skip bleach, Push/pull; Custom film; Regular 8; 200 foot loads; Double Super 8; Screwing up on purpose -- Prep.
-Different types of scanners pros and cons of each -- Rank Cintel Mark 3 digi 4, Y-front Ursa Diamond, Millennium 2, Spirit, Projected on the wall, Frame by frame; Color Correction -- Scene by scene vs. one light; What are the P.E.C.s?; Gamma correction; Digital outputs such as 444.422.Prores, 10-bit un-compressed. 1080i vs. 1080 p workflows. Standard Def vs. High Def scanning.

The weekend workshop costs $400. This is an incredible value since you are getting a 4 roll film package as part of the price of admission, which retails at $368.00. Essentially you are getting a 3-day workshop for $32!! You can bring your own Super 8 camera, or borrow one from Pro8mm.

THE SUPER 8 FILM SUMMIT IS LIMITED TO ONLY 30 PEOPLE so that we can keep it intimate and give every filmmaker the opportunity to work closely with our experts.

"My husband and I attended Pro8mm's Power of Super 8 Film Boot Camp, and those couple of days of instruction and inspiration helped springboard our business! We learned a lot, got to ask questions, and meet other professionals in the industry. It was an essential piece of getting started for us and gave us the confidence to really grow Nostalgia Film." - Shanna Pharis, Boot Camp Attendee
Click for more info or to register for the Super 8 Film Summit! October 19-21, 2012
The Super 8 Film Summit is presented by Pro8mm
2805 West Magnolia Blvd. Burbank, CA 91505 Ph: 818-848-5522 www.pro8mm.com

Monday, July 16, 2012

5 Cool Things You Can (and Should!) Do with Your Home Movies!


Tech Talk: 5 NEW Cool Things You can (and should!) Do with your Home Movies!

We already share pictures with friends over the internet and upload instantly from our electronic devices. Why not do the same with your home movies?

The ability to bring cinema into the home for personal story telling changed us as a culture and continues to impact us today. These aren’t just “some old home movies” to watch on an old projector at Thanksgiving! They are the stories of our lives that can provide insight, enjoyment and humor to our families all year long. Technology has given us the ability to share our legacy in a way never before possible. Here are some ideas to get you started:

1) Upload your home movies to cloud via YouTube or Vimeo: Since being found in 2005, YouTube is the world’s most popular online video community, allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally created videos, and bring personal stories out of the living room and onto the worldwide web. It is free and easy to set up a YouTube or Vimeo site dedicated to your home movies. It is a simple as signing up with your email address, and start uploading! You will get a dedicated web page (i.e.: www.youtube.com/VigeantHomeMovies) that you can cut and paste virtually anywhere. Home movie clips can be set as private or public, with password protection if you only want certain family members to have access to them. If you are looking to share publicly, you can “tag” names, places, dates and events in the clip. These key words will come up in the Google search. Bonus! When a video clip lives on “the cloud,” it makes a great back up of your home movie files in case of a catastrophe. Floods, Fires, Hard Drive crashes; you name it, it has happened! By storing your files on the World Wide Web in the cloud they are protected even if a disaster occurs.

2) Burn Them to Disc- Blu-Ray with WiFi:
Since 2008, the cost of Blu-ray players has come down significantly, even for a very high quality player. The manufactures have added new features that make the players more universal. A new Sony BDP-S390, (is around $100) plays: BD-R (Recordable Blu-Ray) in perfect FULL HD 1080p at amazing quality, regular DVD, and has Wi-Fi capabilities with applications such as NetFlix, YouTube, Pandora and more built directly into the player! (This is another great way to watch that YouTube channel you just created on your television instead of the computer! J) Many of the newer players also have a USB 2.0 universal flash drive component, allowing you to play virtually any media such as music, photos and films, through your Blu-Ray player. If you are thinking about putting your home movies on Blu-Ray to share with the family, a new Blu-Ray player is essential to making these components run smoothly.

3) G-connect- Wireless storage for your iPad: It may not be feasible to carry your new Blu-Ray player around wherever you go, but if you have an iPad, you already know that the portability of this device is one of its greatest assets. In order to play your home movies on an iPad, they have to be recorded in an Apple TV (.m4v) file format. You then have to upload the file to your computer from your hard drive, connect the iPad, and down load the file. But at-last! G-Technology has just come out with a portable, wireless storage device for your iPad or iPhone. It is designed for “on-the-go” access to your content, by streaming it directly into your iPad using WiFi, without ever downloading the files to your computer or the iPad itself. Upload your home movies to the G-connect device (instead of a hard drive) and you are ready to go. Very cool! You will knock the socks off grandma with this one!
http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-connect.cfm


4) Edit: Imagine yourself as head of your own studio, editing your home movies to tell a specific story. Just like in the studios, the editor has the power to bring a story together in a creative and emotional way. With all the tools readily available on your home computer, it is easy to repurpose your original films into edited story telling.

A Story….Last Christmas one of my family members made me a 5 minute montage of all the family Christmas, starting with my grandparents in the 1950’s through my own adulthood. Edited to ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,’ I saw 3 generations- my grandparents, my parents, and myself as children opening our gifts and playing with our new toys on Christmas morning. It was so fun to see how the traditions of our family Christmas have stayed true through so many years.

Today all Mac computers come with a program called iMovie, which allows you to cut clips and put your films to music. PC’s also typically come with some type of editing software such as Windows Movie Maker. For the more ambitious or experienced editor, you can purchase an editing software program such as Adobe Premier (PC editing) or Final Cut Pro X (Mac editing.) These have many more options for creating special effects that punch up your editing.

Creating your own short story or music video can be amazingly fun, easy, and a great way to re-purpose original content into funny, serious, or loving stories to share with your family.  Gift it to family members for birthdays or holidays. On a more serious note, edited clips of an individual could also been used devotedly to portray ones life and help families heal through hard times when a loved one passes. A montage clip of the person’s life can play at a wake or funeral, giving friends and family comfort through the moving images and happy times of a person’s life.

5) Funding: Technology has given us the ability to share our legacy in a way never before possible, and there couldn’t be a more exciting time. Many families are overwhelmed by the expense of treating their home movies like the studios would, even though in their hearts, they know that is what they would like to do. There are now several options to get funding for your home movie transfer!

Crowd Funding: There are now several websites where you create a fundraising campaign, called crowdfunding,’ to raise money for personal projects. Someone in your family may want to propose that everyone in the family makes a donation, which could be used to digitize everyone’s material, and then everyone in the family could get the entire library on a hard drive and edit their own story. Project goals might include organizing the entire library on a hard drive, iPad, Blu-Ray or uploaded to the cloud. Some examples of Crowd Funding platforms include Kickstarter.com, GoFundMe.com, IndieGoGo.com, ChipIn.com

Stock Footage: Could your family home movies be worth money? You bet they can! A single clip of 8mm film sold on Getty Images for over $5,000! How is that possible you may ask? Filmmakers are often looking for authentic 8mm clips that capture specific events, people, time periods and so much more so that they don’t have to go to the added expense of re-creating them. These clips are called Stock Footage, and are made available to the public by posting short clips onto the web. When transferred professionally, there is greater likelihood that your clips could be purchased and downloaded to be re-purposed in documentaries, films, television shows, and more.   As long as the films are your original material, your home movies could be the most valuable asset in your attic! Stock Footage platforms include GettyImages.com, Pond5.com, istockphoto.com and many more!

Thanks for reading 5 NEW Cool Things you can (and should!) do with your Home Movies!! As you may have figured out, this is just a short list among hundreds of applications for watching, editing, playing and funding your home movie project. So what are you waiting for!

Have a home movie idea you would like to share? Post it here or email us at info@pro8mm.com to share your idea in our next newsletter!


© Pro8mm 2012. www.pro8mm.com

Thursday, May 17, 2012

It’s “Showtime” for a Low Budget “Rock-umentry” Made About a High Profile Musician!


May 15, 2012 For Immediate Release from Pro8mm, Burbank, CA
Media Contact:  Rhonda Vigeant Rhonda@pro8mm.com

It’s “Showtime” for a Low Budget “Rock-umentry” Made About a High Profile Musician!
 
Kurt Markus with his Super 8 Camera

The true spirit of independent filmmaking makes history this week with the premier of “It’s About You” on Showtime! Featuring legendary singer/songwriter John Mellencamp, “It’s About You,” is a 90-minute documentary shot entirely on Super 8 Film by award winning Montana based photographer Kurt Markus and his son Ian. The filmmakers followed Mellencamp for six-weeks in the summer of 2009 where he was performing in small outdoor stadiums across America along with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. During the tour, Mellencamp recorded his new album, “No Better Than This,” which included a session at legendary Sun Studios in Memphis.

With a premier at SXSW (South by South West Film Festival) in Austin in March 2011 (which Mellencamp attended) the film continued to screen at all of John’s live concert’s at venues around the country and in Europe. It brilliantly served as his opening act. This alone makes the film unique in that thousands of Mellencamps' die-hard fans screened it live prior to its theatrical or television debut. Often minimized as having “low production value” the Super 8 film stocks held up amazingly well being digitally projected on the big screens in the concert venues, and added to the nostalgic culture of seeing Mellencamp on the screen performing old and new favorites prior to his taking the stage.
The world premier theatrical release was in January of this year in New York and Los Angeles. But the real story here is that the film was not made by armies of people. It was made by a father and son with a creative vision to go solo. They filled their dream to go it alone.  While the films reviews were mixed, the technical merits and accomplishments of what this film says about independent filmmaking are cinematic feats. To make an Indy documentary worthy of a coveted spot of Showtime is reason alone to applaud Kurt and Ian Markus.
Kurt Markus Shoot John Mellencamp on Super 8 at Sun Studios

The filmmakers interfaced with one particular man at one particular company for their entire workflow. Philip Vigeant, owner of Pro8mm in Burbank, California has been pushing the Super 8 film format to it’s maximum potential for over 30 years. In preproduction meetings with Kurt Markus, they discussed what challenges would most likely arise and how they could be overcome. Kurt would often say, “we’re attached at the hip”, noting that the film could not have been made without the coaching and masterminding with Vigeant.
           
The film was shot entirely on 450 rolls of Pro8mm color negative (Kodak Vision 3 stocks) They had two Beaulieu 6008 Super 8 cameras that were modified for MAX 8 (a 16 x 9 widescreen aspect ratio) and Crystal Sync. The film was shot with just one camera at a time, with a second on hand for back up.  Pro8mm processed all the film in house at our Burbank lab, and scanned it in native 1080 HD to Pro Res 422 on a Millennium II HD state of the art scanner with full scene-to-scene color correction.  Vigeant, who was also the colorist on the project worked closely with Kurt Markus to overcome some the technical challenges faced on doing a project of this nature – shooting on the road over a 6 week period with no crew.
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In the scanning suite colorist Phil Vigeant performed a number of creative special effects. These included scanning photos that Kurt Markus shot of Mellencamp that were re-photographed on Super 8 film. This allowed the ability to add movement and interest. This technique permitted the film to stay true to the “shot entirely on Super 8” mantra. Some of the digital film back up shot by Ian Markus in the recording studio was also re-photographed on Super 8 film, which punctuated cinematic interest.

The choice of modern Super 8 film was perfect to achieve the “vintage look” that the filmmaker was going for, but with all the latitude that Kodak Vision 3 stocks offer. The grain structure held up amazingly well on the big screen, and the filmmakers were able to achieve their creative vision.

It’s About You is scheduled to play on SHOWTIME at these times, and “On Demand” It will also be available on DVD through Amazon.
Thu, May 17 7:30 PM             SHOWTIME
Fri, May 18 10:00 PM             SHO 2
Sat, May 19 8:30 PM            SHOWTIME SHOWCASE
Sun, May 20 12:00 PM           SHOWTIME
Tue, May 22 5:55 PM             SHOWTIME SHOWCASE
Wed, May 23 5:35 PM            SHO 2
Fri, May 25 5:00 PM              SHOWTIME
Sat, May 26 10:55 AM            SHO 2
Tue, May 29 5:30 PM         SHOWTIME
Wed, May 30 4:45 AM            SHOWTIME
Wed, May 30 5:00 PM            SHOWTIME SHOWCASE
Thu, May 31 6:30 PM            SHO 2
Sun, Jun 03 4:30 AM             SHOWTIME
Thu, Jun 07 4:00 AM             SHOWTIME

Kurt Markus’ photography has appeared in such leading publications as Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, GQ and The New York Times Magazine, and he has shot cutting-edge ad campaigns for BMW, Armani, Nike and other companies. His unique vision has been brought to bear on It's About You, which was shot on Super 8 and whose vintage Americana look is the cinematic equivalent of a well-worn pair of jeans.
RT: 80 Minutes
Rated: NR