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I’ve been shooting Super 8MM since my brother David started us off on it in the mid-90’s when we began filming DIG! I immediately fell in love with it and incorporated it in all of my films and music videos etc where I might need a textured, esoteric, ethereal, nostalgic feeling (which is almost always unless I’m making something about the future/tech like WE LIVE IN PUBLIC or THE NEW AMERICANS!) I have, ironically, always described it as “perfectly imperfect” as I order boxes of it and explain why. I believe it captures the magic that exists all around us and makes it perceptible.
When I was shooting MAPPLETHORPE, I knew it would be impossible to capture the script in only 19 shoot days, so to make sure there was peanut butter to hold the sandwich together at the end of the day, I kept a Super 8MM camera on my directors chair and would take the actors out or let them play on the set as Nancy Schreiber and there team were finishing lighting, so I could film them as if they were documenting each other! It added such texture and beauty to the film, as it brought the jungle alive in my series JUNGLETOWN, and brings an important dimension to the two films I am currently making.Â
Jan 16, 2025
Related Recs
sure your last roll was 4 years ago and it may have gotten sun exposed but this new roll has some neat shots
Sep 19, 2024
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Sending your film out and waiting patiently for the moment when the negatives arrive and you get to look through the frames in the daylight. Even then, you aren't really sure what they'll look like when they're scanned in, but it's fun to recall the memories you may have forgotten about if the roll was in the camera for months before that. The final task of scanning isn't always fun, but it can be meditative in itself as you see each image come to life one by one.
Mar 27, 2024
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I used to love shooting 35mm film on my little point-and-shoot Canon, but my local film developer closed. Then the price of film began to skyrocket, which led to me dropping all types of photography for years.
Two months ago I reignited my enjoyment of photography with the vlog-girlie-approved Canon G7X, but something was missing. I found myself giving the photos a film-look in post. There had to be a digital camera that could do a film look in-camera right?
Enter the Fujifilm X Series, which have this insane thing called "film simulation" that I was completely unaware of until the algorithm started serving me tons of videos about it.
This gives one the ability to essentially pre-edit a photo automatically in camera. Have you ever wanted to shoot 8 different film stocks in one day that you can then zap directly into your Photos app afterwards? Seriously, get Fuji-pilled like me and check out these cameras.
Nov 1, 2023
Top Recs from @ondi-timoner
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If you have a dog, walk them! If not, walk anyway! I have found my whole life that walking is the best way to feed my mind, body, and soul simultaneously… and to see and discover any new city. I travel a lot with my films, and sometimes I clock in 13 miles in a day… On any day at home, it’s a sacred time, as the sun sets and we walk our dogs. But if I can take care of phone calls, listen to podcasts, do Zooms and catch up with my partner and friends while moving my feet down the street, waving at neighbors and taking in the natural beauty that is waiting to be discovered around every corner - I will choose that any day. Wandering around a city is also our favorite way to experience any city in the world.
Jan 16, 2025
This is a book by Austrian psychologist, Viktor Frankl, about his observations of the human condition, recorded while surviving the Holocaust. He identified work, love and suffering as the three ways we can find meaning in life - while suffering is how we can reach our highest potential, because it tests us the most. He observed how vital hope was for survival, and how some people were profoundly graceful and generous in their suffering… like those who gave away their meager piece of bread, or even how a starving woman made the last days on this earth count by appreciating a single track against a blue sky she was able to see through a slit in the wood… It is really the best guide to living I have found.
A few years after reading it, I was approached to direct a documentary about the writers of Netflix’s Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” as they adapt Man’s Search for Meaning into a screenplay. They are a power couple facing the biggest challenge of a lifetime: After 22 years of marriage and partnership, sports psychologist Simon Marshall, and 5X World Champion Triathlete, Lesley Paterson, get their dream job to adapt their favorite book Man’s Search for Meaning, but the same day they get the job, Simon receives a call from his doctor telling him that he has Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer. The film we’ve been shooting follows their journey across the world, retracing Frankl’s life journey while pursuing cures for this deadly form of cancer. Our documentary is shaping up to be a modern Man’s Search of Meaning, because it is all about turning something devastating into a triumph by making it meaningful - and it has changed my life forever to take on the challenge of telling this essential story. Â
Jan 16, 2025
Staying at the Roxy in NY (formerly the Tribeca Grand) is akin to being on an elegant cruise in Manhattan. It’s my home away from home in the city. Everything is there: from live jazz in the massive atrium lobby with the glass elevator zipping up and down and the divine food and drinks (I recommend the lobster roll and a mescal cocktail) in recessed leather booths shaped like teacups, to the gorgeous red velvet theater below - which offers the best films on screen in Manhattan - curated by the brilliant Illyse Singer. After attending a killer film and fascinating Q&A, retreat to the Django, the speakeasy next door, which stays open til 4AM and is often where the hottest underground music acts play… What else could you ask for?Â
Jan 16, 2025