Super 8 Against the Grain // Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine Nº 55

In the heart of the Cold War, the sixties were one of the moments of greatest colonial expansion, including in cultural terms, of the U.S.A. In 1965 the American company Eastman Kodak launched its “revolutionary super 8 film system” on the market. It was a technological package consisting of, among other devices, three camera models, six projectors and the innovative Kodapak cartridges. From the beginning, although the developers of Super 8 had in mind the benefits of the new format in the educational sector, its exploitation in the context of home-made cinema and the production of amateur images, which until then had been dominated by 35mm photography, was imposed. Kodak’s plan worked with little interference during the first years, thanks in part to the fact that from the very beginning, other companies outside the USA, such as Fuji, Bell & Howell, Beaulieu, Afga, Pathé or Eumig, contributed to the spread of the format to the homes of the global middle classes. However, the Super 8 device as an apparatus for family, tourist and leisure film production by the global urban middle classes was soon overtaken by new trends of use.

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