This history of the Sydney Super Eight Film Group was initiated as a response to the commissioning of an organisational history by
d/Lux/MediaArts (d/Lux), a screen and media arts organisation committed
to supporting the development, engagement and experience of Australian
screen and digital media culture.
The organisation was founded in 1982 as the Sydney Super 8 Film Group; in 1990 it became the Sydney Intermedia Network and finally, in 2000, d/Lux/MediaArts. The history draws on an archive of material that existed as printed ephemera, publications, artwork, diaries, photos, super 8 film, video and digital media, which together tracked the development and evolution of experimental screen media in Sydney dating back to 1981. The history examines the screening, production and promotion of amateur art-based super-8 filmmaking in Sydney from 1981-1990, with primary reference to the Sydney Super 8 Film Group.
“Sound silent, 18fps 24fps, good splice bad splice, polychrome monochrome, fact fiction, freeze frame jump cut. Generic perversity, oneiric multiplicity. The city machine. And the Bush. But, don’t get us wrong. It’s no super 8 Market-town. It’s just films from all locales – geographical, sexual, economic – contributing to a shaggy-cybernetic programme. Which is no auto-put-down. Some kind of strength lies in the disunity. Please yourself”.[38] The Super 8 Collective, 1982.
The Super 8 Collective and the rise of Super 8
Before, and after, the meeting at Mama Maria’s in late 1982 a loose artists’ collective made up of writers, painters, filmmakers and ‘general creative activity’[39] had began to form in connection with the Sydney Super 8 scene. The principle people involved were Deirdre Beck, Janet Burchill, Ross Gibson, Mark Titmarsh and Lindy Lee. The group, calling themselves the Super 8 Collective, were a microcosm of the strong sub-cultural scene that existed in Sydney at the time.
“It was mainly people who were either at art school or universities, there was a lot of inner city squatting, a lot of performance, live music in Sydney. A lot more of sub-cultural life. The network seemed to be broader. More to do with peripheral art activities rather than rock bands, etc, evenings of performance in warehouse squats, etc. A greater sense of community and cultural spirit at that time than perhaps there is now – it had a lot to do with the fact that there were so many young people virtually on the poverty line living in inner city Sydney, Newtown, Glebe, Woolloomooloo, Darlinghurst.”[40] Ross Gibson, 1990.
From early 1982 there was a proliferation of super-8 screenings across Sydney. There was Sydney In The Dark: The New Australian Cinema, a super-8 film program at the Footbridge Theatre, University of Sydney;[41] the Mackie Autumn Film Festival at Alexander Mackie College;[42] and the landmark Second Metro Television 1982 Studio Access Project Te Ve Tabu at Paddington Town Hall.[43] In June,[44] September[45] and December[46] student film and video nights were also held at the City Art Institute in Paddington and in July an AFI national screening program entitled The Super 8 Phenomenon: Local Colour,[47] curated by Geoff Weary, was screened at the Paddington Town Hall, the home of AFI screenings. The rapid increase in screenings marked the rise of super-8 as a phenomenon.
The previous generation’s detritus of super-8 home-movie making had become this generation’s tool for postmodern storytelling. These alternative stories by a younger turned-on generation would become a collective recording and visual reconstruction of 1980s Sydney counterculture. This collective super-8 phenomenon needed to be shared by the filmmakers, and super-8 screenings were regularly taking place in the Sydney squats, pubs, art colleges and artist-run galleries. They were also soon to move into selective commercial cinemas and State art galleries under the funding controls of the mainstream Australian film bureaucracies, such as the Australian Film Commission.
Launching pad three: A bohemian affair with bureaucracy - the Super 8 Collective sign a contract with the Australian Film Commission
The office of the Sydney Super 8 Collective, 64A Wigram Road, Glebe.
It is 8 June 1982 and the Sydney Super 8 Collective[49] has drafted a letter[49] to the Creative Development Branch of the Australian Film Commission (AFC) requesting financial assistance for the staging of a Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival planned to be held on 3-5 November 1983 at the National Film Theatre, Paddington Town Hall. The Collective consisted of Deidre Beck, Janet Burchill, Ross Gibson, Lindy lee and Mark Titmarsh.[50]
The Collective outlined their aim of wanting to: ‘promote an artistic medium which had not yet received the attention and support it deserved’ and stressed the surge of recent interest in super-8 filmmaking, including recent screenings at the first two Sydney super-8 film festivals, the AFI’s Super-8 Phenomenon and Local Colour seasons at the National Film Theatre, the inclusion of super-8 in the recent Melbourne Film Festival, and the Studio Access program in the 1982 Sydney Biennale. The Collective defended the quality of the super-8 image and sound, and promoted the ‘democratic nature of the medium’ - its low production costs and easy accessibility - and its ability to enable filmmakers to take more risks and have more freedom of expression than other film formats.[51]
Through staging the Festival the Collective aimed to, ‘make public the questions relating to Super 8; encourage discussion on the topics of film viewing and production; and gauge the possibility and/or desirability of forming a Super 8 filmmakers Co-op’ somewhat based on the model of the London Filmmakers Co-op.
“We went for funding straight off. We must have felt like something was happening here and that we would need a bigger venue, a catalogue and some promotion to get more works in. We advertised for contributions and printed a poster. Janet Burchill designed the poster, we got it screen-printed and stuck it up all around town. The Australian Film Institute offered us the use of their office, so I got on the phone for a couple of days and called people interstate, in Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne. I called Philip Brophy of Tch, Tch, Tch and other names I had got to know from screenings and writings”.[52] Mark Titmarsh, 1990.
Australian Film Commission Office, 8 West Street North Sydney
On 23 June 23 the application for funding of $1753 for the ‘purpose of staging the Third Annual Sydney Super 8 Film Festival’[53][54][55] was approved by the Director CBD AFC. From this date it could be said that the Sydney Super 8 Collective (soon to be renamed the Sydney Super 8 Film Group), through its ongoing funding relationship with the AFC, officially commenced its ‘bohemian affair with bureaucracy’ - an affair that was to last the next nine years and beyond.
Event one: The Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival
Chauvel Cinema (National Film Theatre), Paddington Town Hall, 249 Oxford Street, Paddington
On 4-6 November The Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival[56] was held in Paddington Town Hall. This was the first festival organised by the Sydney Super 8 Collective. Fourteen films opened the festival on the Thursday night. Over the three nights and one afternoon of the Festival sixty films were screened with a total of 539 paying patrons attending.[57]
“We were trying to make a big inclusive event that would run over four or five nights, with two or three hours of film each night … with a capacity of 300 hundred seats [the cinema] was full every night. And so it went for every annual festival throughout the eighties”.[58] Mark Titmarsh, 2007.
Special events at the Festival included a talk by film theorist Ted Colless entitled, ‘The phenomenon turned eventful: The radical currency of Super 8. The memorials of a future film culture’, (later published in On The Beach, 1983); a discussion on the feasibility of setting up a Super 8 Co-op; and a talk by Phillip Brophy on ‘Super 8 Surrounded’, with wine and cheese, of course.[59]
James Kesteven’s review of the festival in Filmnews[60] was very positive and he noted, “that on and off the screen, activity was characterised by a diversity and energy that was exciting and which says that super 8 will not go away. The vast majority of the audience was between 15 and 30. He described Colless’ contribution as a very low key talk and discussion, on the ‘meta-discourse of Super 8’, as opposed to a talk by Brophy which argued that super-8 was about the meaning of the films, not about the medium itself, and was in fact very suited to the ‘leisure industry’ by way of pub screenings – a pragmatic remark that naturally led to a heated discussion.
Kesteven became the first of many reviewers to highlight the disunity in super 8 film styles and their seeming inability to be put into any set genre, a need that almost became a ‘game’ with super 8 film reviewers. Kesteven attempted to roughly group the films into three categories: ‘referential films’ such as Stephen Harrop’s Square bashing; ‘entertainment films’ such as Space invaders by Andrew Frost (Kesteven insightfully references these films back to their super 8 home-movie origin and aesthetics; and ‘specifically located films’ that had no self-referencing of film construction and which had a more direct connection between the audience, using conventional genres such as narrative drama (with no irony) and documentary.
Dialogue three: The Filmnews debate: the creation of a documentary history
Between 1981 and 1990 the ‘positioning of the Super 8 scene’[61] was played out in the pages of Filmnews and the Sydney Super 8 Film Group’s (the Group) offshoot art magazine On the Beach. These core articles were published in the 1981-1983 period and were subsequently published by the Group as a compendium in May 1984 as the Super Eight Reader.[62]
Super-8 films in Sydney needed a history, and the Super Eight Reader provided the beginnings of this documentary history, a history created, and avidly promoted, by the Group itself. Apart from critics such as Adrian Martin and Ted Colless, and a few newspaper and journal reviews, the filmmakers were actually writing most of this history. Barrett Hodson, a harsh critic of the Group, alerts us to the fact that this ‘internal’ history can serve to just act as ‘a feedback loop for commentators of the ‘Super 8 scene’.[63] To Hodson one of the consequences of this was an exaggeration of both the importance of the ‘Super 8 scene’ and the reality of a ‘Super 8’ essence as espoused by Titmarsh and Hutak in the early 1980s.
In Martin’s article, ‘What is this thing called ‘The Super-8 Phenomenon’’,[64] the concept of a super-8 ‘essence’ was rejected. Martin states that super-8, ‘is absolutely not a new medium, a new style, a new language or a new wave. Its filmmakers (with some exceptions) [again almost certainly a reference to Titmarsh and Hutak] don't want to claim anything specific or unique for the tools with which they work’.
In contrast, he also states that, ‘Super-8 films [have a] kind of strangeness about them - a function of their play with surfaces and layers, effects and meanings … It is as if, in these films, a convention¬ally untroubled flow — from an effect to its desired response, from a style to its intended audience, from a theory into its practice - goes horribly and hysterically wrong.’ This would coincide with Titmarsh’s manifesto of ‘radical incompetence’ and a general postmodern trend to smash the cinematic form. Martin concluded by placing the death-wish on the super 8 phenomenon even before it started: “The so-called "Super-8 phenomenon", a fiction created by a hopelessly parochial Australian film culture for the purposes of self-promotion is not likely to last very long. I, and others, will be glad when the fad passes”.[65]
However, the fad did not pass. In Sydney alone a ten year history of super-8 filmmaking practice went on to produce over 600 films and hold over 60 festival and screening events at local, state, national and international levels.
Film Two:
Square bashing
Stephen Harrop
(1982) B&W Sound 10:00 mins 18fps magnetic sound
Square bashing (1982) was groundbreaking both in its mechanics and in its approach. It blew apart what filmmakers could do with super 8 both, by smashing ‘the prohibition of re-filming super 8 cartridge[66] stock, by manually rewinding exposed footage into an empty super 8 cartridge’ and by the creation of ‘pulverised and reconstructed fragments’[67] filmed directly from the television screen. It was a visual deconstruction of classic Hollywood using the colonial images and brash sounds of World War II drill parades in northern Africa, taken from The Hill (1965), combined with the iconoclastic syncopated sounds and images of drummer Gene Kruper. It was post-modernity confronting post-colonialism head on. We see war and we see Hollywood’s heroines, such as Ethel Merman, dubbed and in slow motion, screaming animal cries of pain. Hollywood is deconstructed to expose its exploitative power and brutal treatment of Hollywood’s gender roles. The loud drumming of Krupa and the violent images of a speeding train provide a relentless background to an exercise in pop ‘mashing and bashing’. The audience’s view of the world is challenged by the sheer velocity and force of its images. Harrop’s editing is masterly and foreshadowed his career as a professional editor. This highly skilled editing was something sorely lacking in many of the early super-8 films either through design, one could cite ‘radical incompetence’, or simple inability.
Ross Gibson saw the film as a ‘stone cold masterpiece’ that stood out a mile from all other super 8 films being produced in the early 80s.
“The editing, the understanding of rhythm, a really deeply poignant understanding of a generation bored out of their head; no money, watching midday movies and thinking ‘well this is all I have got, this is the life I am having, can I find something beautiful in it’ and then [Harrop] just gathered all those thoughts together. It looks like some radioactive thing. It is about that terrible loneliness and terrible apathy, the midday movie - on the dole culture; and it its also about being 20 years old, being a boy very confused about everything, so all of that repression is in there.”[68] Ross Gibson, 2007.
“People like Stephen Harrop with found footage re-configured and very well cut. It’s no accident he went on to become a professional editor. And personally I think that’s what differentiates his stuff from that other group which hasn’t stood the test of time as far as I’m concerned."[69] Kate Richards, 2007.
Harrop had already impressed with his films Hoard (1981), Iteth: Bound to be: Bathkervilleth (1981), Room to romp (1981) and Blind (1981), all screened at the Second Sydney Super 8 Film Festival in 1981. Square bashing was first screened at the Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival in 1982 and had the most exhibition screenings of any super 8 film. It was also included in the Independent Super 8 Films from Australia [1983], Follow the Sun [1986] and Metaphysical TV [1988] overseas touring programs. In 1982 Harrop also made the brilliant Down Diablo Way, a special effects ghost story from the West (employing classical Hollywood techniques of rear projection and song and dance) featuring ‘Hopalong Cassidy and The Mystery of the Haunted Goldmine’.[70]
“The whole process seemed to spontaneously happen to me and lots of people, particularly Stephen Harrop and that fantastic film of his Square bashing that was made in 1982 as a student at COFA, before the word post-modern had been properly formulated in the visual arts, and not even in use in architecture and literature for quite some time."[71] Mark Titmarsh, 2007.
1982: Australian Super 8 films in Sydney
at Sydney Super 8 Film Group screenings
(only first screenings listed)
Sydney In The Dark
University of Sydney
2-4 January 1982
Forbidden planet (1981) Mark Titmarsh
Hoard (1981) Stephen Harrop
Just browsing (1981) Theo Cremona
History lessons (1979) Mark Titmarsh
Mackie Autumn Festival
Alexander Mackie College
Autumn 1982
Baby in R.E.M. (1981) Aris Kartsonas
Bird in a cage (1981) Stephen Fearnley, et al
Washing (1982) Jon Cockle
Objects permanent (1982) Chris Betcher
Derelicts (1982) Jon Cockle
Samuri (1982) Adam Kosack
Hot air (1982) Margaret Smee
Emma (1982) Margaret Smee
Talking heads (1982) Ross Gibson
Cat (1981) Aris Kartsonas
Landslide (1982) Adam Kosack
Ways of being (1982) Lucy Torres
Raw meat (1982) Adam Kosack
The wall (1982) Foundation Students
Edvard Munch (1982) Adam Kosack
Scent of man (1982) Michael Walvis & Stephen Fearnley
Wondrous point in time (1982) Stephen Fearnley
Some people (1982) Lucy Torres
Australian picnic (1982) Margaret Smee
Doors (1982) Jon Gentle
Chrome (1982) Michael Walvis & S. Higson
Te Ve Tabu
Paddington Town Hall
19-24 April 1982
Zoologic (1981) David Nerlich
Space face (1981) David Nerlich
Mr. Tsuzuki comes to Australia (1981) Paul Fletcher
Second class passenger (1982) Duncan Anderson
Feint heart (1981) Debra Petrovitch
Royal visit (1981) Paul Fletcher
Lost in space (1980) David Chesworth
Self portrait (1980) David Nerlich
A voice over this, but what? (1981) Janet Burchill
Death by drowning (1981) Debra Petrovitch
Dolls (1981) Paul Fletcher
Some lost advertisements (1980) Tch Tch Tch
C.A.I. Students Film & Video Night
City Art Institute
29 June 1982
Marathon (1982) Aris Kartsonas
City of women (1982) Mark Titmarsh
Square bashing (1982) Stephen Harrop
Sydney (1982) Wendy Chandler
Big foot (1982) Stephen Fearnley
Jabberwocky (1982) G. Bennet
Pelican (1982) P. Wann
Lucky (1982) P. Wanny
Capturing the Shakespearean ethos (1982) P.C. Dooley
Biggles’ first case (1982) Andrew Frost
Grandma (1982) Margaret Smee
Sardine salvage (1982) M. Stauce
Red dance (1982) Wendy Chandler
Carousel (1982) K. Batha
Untitled (1982) R. Petschler
Untitled (1982) S. Voysey
Untitled (1982) L. Bibocini
Titilating muscles (1982) P. de Soto
Untitled (1982) L. Tate
The Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival
Paddington Town Hall
4-6 November 1982
No dance (1982) Tch, Tch, Tch
The opening ceremony of the 1980 Moscow
Olympics as televised by HSV channel 7 (1980) Tch, Tch, Tch
Celluloid self (1982) Tch, Tch, Tch
Romantic story (1982) Tch, Tch, Tch
Blue water (1982) Andrew Davie
Drop in the ocean (1982) Andrew Davie
Space invaders (1982) Nick Myers & Sean O’Brien
Foreign order (1982) Anon.
No more blood please (1982) Bronwyn Holland
Mouse mania (1982) C. Bamford
Cleaning film (1982) D. Beck
Still / movie (1982) D. Mizzi
Whoever would envy Sabrina (1982) G. Brownhill
Shorts 4475 (1982)9 Gary Warner
Shorts: colour (1982) Gary Warner
Colours of life (1982) J. Bogle
Italian boys (1982) Jane Stevenson
Reflections (1982) K. Jason-Smith
Suggestions (1982) K. Morton & David Chesworth
Phobia (1982) K. Vaitiekus
Reflection on an isolated cell (1982) K. Walshe
Just another day (1982) L. Monson
Vegemite and peanut butter (1982) Michael Lee
Le poussin sur l’herbe (1982) Michelle Luke
Sacrificial acts (1982) Michelle Luke
Dubbed in Venice (1982) Milton Reid
Misogyny, soap and candles and the
whole she-band (1982) Michelle (Mee) Riley
Eighteen Twenty-Four (18/24) (1982) Michael Wood
Snaps (1982) N. Vickers
3 views of t.v. (three views of television) (1981) Phillip Bannigan
Basic set for success (1982) Phillip Bannigan
Unedited thoughts (1982) Phillip Bannigan
Monster film (1982) Paul Fletcher
Untitled (1982) P. Todhunter
Reminiscently Rembrandt (1982) P.C. Dooley
Warhol’s 13 most beautiful women unseen (1982) Rolando Caputo
About each other (1982) R. Williams & A. Martin
Untitled (1982) Stephen Fearnley
Il faut pas tuer les passions (1982) S. Jackson & P. Lindley
Couple no. 2 (1982) T. Cremona
We got it all for you (1982) Toby Zoates
Chasin’ rainbows (1982) V. Brincat & P. Brincat
Film by (1982) Wendy Chandler
The beginning the end (1982) Wendy Chandler
US rancher gals is always fixin’ sumpin’ (1982) Michelle Riley
Untitled (1982) David Nerlich
Dreams come true (1982) Jane Stevenson
Film, Video, Multi-Media Evening
City Art Institute
3 December 1982
Down Diablo Way (1982) Stephen Harrop &
Stephen Fearnley
Undercurrent (1982) Mark Titmarsh
Something visual something mental (1982) Wendy Chandler
Fantasy on Ball’s Head (1982) Margaret Smee
Tattoo (1982) Shan Short
Onshore (1982) Michael Walvis &
Laura Tate
Fish out of milk (1982) Mary Jane Welch St Vincent
Love like anthrax (1982) George Evatt
Culture Line of Events, Films and Publications1982
2-4 January
Sydney in The Dark: The New Australian Cinema: Super-8 Film Program, Footbridge Theatre, University of Sydney.
1982
19-25 April
Te Ve Tabu: Second Metro Televison Studio Access Project, Paddington Town Hall.
1982
16 June – 22 July
POPISM Exhibition National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Paddington.
1982
29 June
C.A.I. Students Film & Video Night: City Art Institute, Paddington.
Marathon,
Aris Kartsonas
1982
‘Life, analogous to running a marathon is constructed visually around ‘Creed’, a poem by Stephen Turner that sardonically charts the contradictions of modern man. Marathon uses multiple exposures, computer text, audio textures and the heavy voice of a marathon runner in full flight to narrate’. Independent Super 8 Films From Australia, Touring Exhibition Program, October 1983.
1982
9-10 July
The Super 8 Phenomenon: Local Colour, Paddington Town Hall.
1982
August
Adrian Martin, ‘What is this ‘The Super-8 Phenomenon’’ Filmnews, August 1982.
1982
August
Ross Gibson, “ … seen as a child’s toy, but …” from Filmnews, August 1982.
1982
August
Gabrielle Finnane & Jenny McAmley, ‘All things have their measure – 8mm film at NFTA’, Filmnews, August 1982.
Misogyny, soap and candles and the whole she-band,
Michelle Riley
1982
‘Elegiac rendering of the feminine eye and ear. The camera tracks slowly over marble sculptures, women in lace and a fully clothed figure in a bath-tub. A barely audible voice speaks of personal concerns’. Independent Super 8 Films From Australia, Touring Exhibition Program, October 1983.
1982
September
C.A.I. Students Film & Video Night: City Art Institute, Paddington.
1982
October
Mark Titmarsh, ‘Xtra 8 fx’. Filmnews, October 1982.
1982
October
Mark Titmarsh, ‘Super 8 the unconscious of film’ Filmnews, October 1982.
1982
November
James Kesteven, ‘3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 review’, Filmnews, Nov-Dec 1982.
Concerned with something else,
Wendy Chandler
1982
‘Concerned with the cultural pressure on women to be thin. Introduces a series of women in perfect thin pose, while the voice-over moans ‘I want to be thin’. Independent Super 8 Films From Australia, Touring Exhibition Program, October 1983.
1982
27 October
Alexander McGregor, ‘Super-8 films come of age, Sydney Morning Herald.
1982
4-6 November
The Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival, Paddington Town Hall.
1982
3 December
C.A.I. Students Film & Video Night: City Art Institute, Paddington.
1982
16 December
Super Eight Films, Heffron Hall, Darlinghurst.
Untitled,
Davis Nerlich
1982
‘A static camera set up in the street at night records the activities of the city’s strangest inhabitants who are irresistably drawn to the light and the need to perform’. Independent Super 8 Films From Australia, Touring Exhibition Program, October 1983.
Footnotes
[38] The Super 8 Collective. 3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 [program notes], The Super 8 Collective, Sydney 1982, inside cover.
[39] Warner, Gary. Unpublished interview by the Ben Crawford, 1990.
[40] Gibson, Ross. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[41] Sydney University Filmmakers Society. Sydney In The Dark: The New Australian Cinema [program notes], Sydney University Filmmakers Society, Sydney, 1982.
[42] Unknown. Mackie Autumn Film Festival, Sydney,1982.
[43] Studio Access Project 1982. Te Ve Tabu [program notes], Studio Access Project 1982, Sydney,1982. 11 pp.
[44] Mark Titmarsh Archive.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] dLux Archive.
[48] The Sydney Super 8 Collective Collective [64A Wigram Road, Glebe] consisted of Deidre Beck, Janet Burchill, Ross Gibson, Stephen Harrop and Mark Titmarsh.
[49] dLux Archive.
[50] Lindy Lee, artist and girlfriend of Mark was part of the original Super 8 Collective but was not a signatory of the application letter. The amount requested is $1753, which includes a $5 honorarium to each of the 40 filmmakers and $100 to each of the five organisers.
[51] Leading practitioners mentioned are Tch, Tch, Tch; Tim Burns, Juan Davila and David Chesworth.
[52] Titmarsh, Mark. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[53] [54] Waiting approval
[55] dLux Archive.
[56] Super 8 Film Group. 3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 [program notes], Super 8 Film Group, Sydney, 1982. 12 pp.
[57] dLux Archive.
[58] Titmarsh, Mark. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[59] Super 8 Film Group. 3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 [program notes], Super 8 Film Group, Sydney, 1982, p. 2
[60] Kesteven, James. ‘3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 review’, Filmnews, Nov-Dec 1982.
[61] Hodson, Barrett. ‘The ‘80s: The Super Scene: The Age of Cultural Abundance – Signs Without Meaning’ in Straight Roads and Crossed Lines: The Quest For Film Culture in Australia, Bernt Porridge Group, Western Australia, 2001, p. 112.
[62] Super 8 Film Group (eds). Super Eight Reader, Spot Press, Sydney, 1984
[63] Hodson, Barrett. ‘The ‘80s: The Super Scene: The Age of Cultural Abundance – Signs Without Meaning’ in Straight Roads and Crossed Lines: The Quest For Film Culture in Australia, Bernt Porridge Group, Western Australia, 2001, p. 112.
[64] Martin, Adrian. ‘What is this thing called ‘The Super-8 Phenomenon’’, Filmnews, July 1982.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Richards, Kate. ‘Some comments on two Super 8 film festivals’, Filmnews, Nov/Dec 1981.
[67] Titmarsh, Mark. ‘Stickin’ it to the man’, in Titmarsh, Mark (ed). SynCity: remixing three generations of sample culture, d/Lux/MediaArts, Sydney 2006.
[68] Gibson, Ross. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[69] Richards, Kate. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[70] Titmarsh, Mark (compiled by), Independent Super 8 Films From Australia Programme Notes, Spot Press, Sydney, October 1983.
[71] Titmarsh, Mark. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
The organisation was founded in 1982 as the Sydney Super 8 Film Group; in 1990 it became the Sydney Intermedia Network and finally, in 2000, d/Lux/MediaArts. The history draws on an archive of material that existed as printed ephemera, publications, artwork, diaries, photos, super 8 film, video and digital media, which together tracked the development and evolution of experimental screen media in Sydney dating back to 1981. The history examines the screening, production and promotion of amateur art-based super-8 filmmaking in Sydney from 1981-1990, with primary reference to the Sydney Super 8 Film Group.
**********************************
The Super 8 Collective and the rise of Super 8
Before, and after, the meeting at Mama Maria’s in late 1982 a loose artists’ collective made up of writers, painters, filmmakers and ‘general creative activity’[39] had began to form in connection with the Sydney Super 8 scene. The principle people involved were Deirdre Beck, Janet Burchill, Ross Gibson, Mark Titmarsh and Lindy Lee. The group, calling themselves the Super 8 Collective, were a microcosm of the strong sub-cultural scene that existed in Sydney at the time.
“It was mainly people who were either at art school or universities, there was a lot of inner city squatting, a lot of performance, live music in Sydney. A lot more of sub-cultural life. The network seemed to be broader. More to do with peripheral art activities rather than rock bands, etc, evenings of performance in warehouse squats, etc. A greater sense of community and cultural spirit at that time than perhaps there is now – it had a lot to do with the fact that there were so many young people virtually on the poverty line living in inner city Sydney, Newtown, Glebe, Woolloomooloo, Darlinghurst.”[40] Ross Gibson, 1990.
From early 1982 there was a proliferation of super-8 screenings across Sydney. There was Sydney In The Dark: The New Australian Cinema, a super-8 film program at the Footbridge Theatre, University of Sydney;[41] the Mackie Autumn Film Festival at Alexander Mackie College;[42] and the landmark Second Metro Television 1982 Studio Access Project Te Ve Tabu at Paddington Town Hall.[43] In June,[44] September[45] and December[46] student film and video nights were also held at the City Art Institute in Paddington and in July an AFI national screening program entitled The Super 8 Phenomenon: Local Colour,[47] curated by Geoff Weary, was screened at the Paddington Town Hall, the home of AFI screenings. The rapid increase in screenings marked the rise of super-8 as a phenomenon.
The previous generation’s detritus of super-8 home-movie making had become this generation’s tool for postmodern storytelling. These alternative stories by a younger turned-on generation would become a collective recording and visual reconstruction of 1980s Sydney counterculture. This collective super-8 phenomenon needed to be shared by the filmmakers, and super-8 screenings were regularly taking place in the Sydney squats, pubs, art colleges and artist-run galleries. They were also soon to move into selective commercial cinemas and State art galleries under the funding controls of the mainstream Australian film bureaucracies, such as the Australian Film Commission.
Launching pad three: A bohemian affair with bureaucracy - the Super 8 Collective sign a contract with the Australian Film Commission
The office of the Sydney Super 8 Collective, 64A Wigram Road, Glebe.
It is 8 June 1982 and the Sydney Super 8 Collective[49] has drafted a letter[49] to the Creative Development Branch of the Australian Film Commission (AFC) requesting financial assistance for the staging of a Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival planned to be held on 3-5 November 1983 at the National Film Theatre, Paddington Town Hall. The Collective consisted of Deidre Beck, Janet Burchill, Ross Gibson, Lindy lee and Mark Titmarsh.[50]
The Collective outlined their aim of wanting to: ‘promote an artistic medium which had not yet received the attention and support it deserved’ and stressed the surge of recent interest in super-8 filmmaking, including recent screenings at the first two Sydney super-8 film festivals, the AFI’s Super-8 Phenomenon and Local Colour seasons at the National Film Theatre, the inclusion of super-8 in the recent Melbourne Film Festival, and the Studio Access program in the 1982 Sydney Biennale. The Collective defended the quality of the super-8 image and sound, and promoted the ‘democratic nature of the medium’ - its low production costs and easy accessibility - and its ability to enable filmmakers to take more risks and have more freedom of expression than other film formats.[51]
Through staging the Festival the Collective aimed to, ‘make public the questions relating to Super 8; encourage discussion on the topics of film viewing and production; and gauge the possibility and/or desirability of forming a Super 8 filmmakers Co-op’ somewhat based on the model of the London Filmmakers Co-op.
“We went for funding straight off. We must have felt like something was happening here and that we would need a bigger venue, a catalogue and some promotion to get more works in. We advertised for contributions and printed a poster. Janet Burchill designed the poster, we got it screen-printed and stuck it up all around town. The Australian Film Institute offered us the use of their office, so I got on the phone for a couple of days and called people interstate, in Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne. I called Philip Brophy of Tch, Tch, Tch and other names I had got to know from screenings and writings”.[52] Mark Titmarsh, 1990.
Australian Film Commission Office, 8 West Street North Sydney
On 23 June 23 the application for funding of $1753 for the ‘purpose of staging the Third Annual Sydney Super 8 Film Festival’[53][54][55] was approved by the Director CBD AFC. From this date it could be said that the Sydney Super 8 Collective (soon to be renamed the Sydney Super 8 Film Group), through its ongoing funding relationship with the AFC, officially commenced its ‘bohemian affair with bureaucracy’ - an affair that was to last the next nine years and beyond.
Event one: The Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival
Chauvel Cinema (National Film Theatre), Paddington Town Hall, 249 Oxford Street, Paddington
On 4-6 November The Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival[56] was held in Paddington Town Hall. This was the first festival organised by the Sydney Super 8 Collective. Fourteen films opened the festival on the Thursday night. Over the three nights and one afternoon of the Festival sixty films were screened with a total of 539 paying patrons attending.[57]
“We were trying to make a big inclusive event that would run over four or five nights, with two or three hours of film each night … with a capacity of 300 hundred seats [the cinema] was full every night. And so it went for every annual festival throughout the eighties”.[58] Mark Titmarsh, 2007.
Special events at the Festival included a talk by film theorist Ted Colless entitled, ‘The phenomenon turned eventful: The radical currency of Super 8. The memorials of a future film culture’, (later published in On The Beach, 1983); a discussion on the feasibility of setting up a Super 8 Co-op; and a talk by Phillip Brophy on ‘Super 8 Surrounded’, with wine and cheese, of course.[59]
James Kesteven’s review of the festival in Filmnews[60] was very positive and he noted, “that on and off the screen, activity was characterised by a diversity and energy that was exciting and which says that super 8 will not go away. The vast majority of the audience was between 15 and 30. He described Colless’ contribution as a very low key talk and discussion, on the ‘meta-discourse of Super 8’, as opposed to a talk by Brophy which argued that super-8 was about the meaning of the films, not about the medium itself, and was in fact very suited to the ‘leisure industry’ by way of pub screenings – a pragmatic remark that naturally led to a heated discussion.
Kesteven became the first of many reviewers to highlight the disunity in super 8 film styles and their seeming inability to be put into any set genre, a need that almost became a ‘game’ with super 8 film reviewers. Kesteven attempted to roughly group the films into three categories: ‘referential films’ such as Stephen Harrop’s Square bashing; ‘entertainment films’ such as Space invaders by Andrew Frost (Kesteven insightfully references these films back to their super 8 home-movie origin and aesthetics; and ‘specifically located films’ that had no self-referencing of film construction and which had a more direct connection between the audience, using conventional genres such as narrative drama (with no irony) and documentary.
Dialogue three: The Filmnews debate: the creation of a documentary history
Between 1981 and 1990 the ‘positioning of the Super 8 scene’[61] was played out in the pages of Filmnews and the Sydney Super 8 Film Group’s (the Group) offshoot art magazine On the Beach. These core articles were published in the 1981-1983 period and were subsequently published by the Group as a compendium in May 1984 as the Super Eight Reader.[62]
Super-8 films in Sydney needed a history, and the Super Eight Reader provided the beginnings of this documentary history, a history created, and avidly promoted, by the Group itself. Apart from critics such as Adrian Martin and Ted Colless, and a few newspaper and journal reviews, the filmmakers were actually writing most of this history. Barrett Hodson, a harsh critic of the Group, alerts us to the fact that this ‘internal’ history can serve to just act as ‘a feedback loop for commentators of the ‘Super 8 scene’.[63] To Hodson one of the consequences of this was an exaggeration of both the importance of the ‘Super 8 scene’ and the reality of a ‘Super 8’ essence as espoused by Titmarsh and Hutak in the early 1980s.
In Martin’s article, ‘What is this thing called ‘The Super-8 Phenomenon’’,[64] the concept of a super-8 ‘essence’ was rejected. Martin states that super-8, ‘is absolutely not a new medium, a new style, a new language or a new wave. Its filmmakers (with some exceptions) [again almost certainly a reference to Titmarsh and Hutak] don't want to claim anything specific or unique for the tools with which they work’.
In contrast, he also states that, ‘Super-8 films [have a] kind of strangeness about them - a function of their play with surfaces and layers, effects and meanings … It is as if, in these films, a convention¬ally untroubled flow — from an effect to its desired response, from a style to its intended audience, from a theory into its practice - goes horribly and hysterically wrong.’ This would coincide with Titmarsh’s manifesto of ‘radical incompetence’ and a general postmodern trend to smash the cinematic form. Martin concluded by placing the death-wish on the super 8 phenomenon even before it started: “The so-called "Super-8 phenomenon", a fiction created by a hopelessly parochial Australian film culture for the purposes of self-promotion is not likely to last very long. I, and others, will be glad when the fad passes”.[65]
However, the fad did not pass. In Sydney alone a ten year history of super-8 filmmaking practice went on to produce over 600 films and hold over 60 festival and screening events at local, state, national and international levels.
Film Two:
Square bashing
Stephen Harrop
(1982) B&W Sound 10:00 mins 18fps magnetic sound
Square bashing (1982) was groundbreaking both in its mechanics and in its approach. It blew apart what filmmakers could do with super 8 both, by smashing ‘the prohibition of re-filming super 8 cartridge[66] stock, by manually rewinding exposed footage into an empty super 8 cartridge’ and by the creation of ‘pulverised and reconstructed fragments’[67] filmed directly from the television screen. It was a visual deconstruction of classic Hollywood using the colonial images and brash sounds of World War II drill parades in northern Africa, taken from The Hill (1965), combined with the iconoclastic syncopated sounds and images of drummer Gene Kruper. It was post-modernity confronting post-colonialism head on. We see war and we see Hollywood’s heroines, such as Ethel Merman, dubbed and in slow motion, screaming animal cries of pain. Hollywood is deconstructed to expose its exploitative power and brutal treatment of Hollywood’s gender roles. The loud drumming of Krupa and the violent images of a speeding train provide a relentless background to an exercise in pop ‘mashing and bashing’. The audience’s view of the world is challenged by the sheer velocity and force of its images. Harrop’s editing is masterly and foreshadowed his career as a professional editor. This highly skilled editing was something sorely lacking in many of the early super-8 films either through design, one could cite ‘radical incompetence’, or simple inability.
Ross Gibson saw the film as a ‘stone cold masterpiece’ that stood out a mile from all other super 8 films being produced in the early 80s.
“The editing, the understanding of rhythm, a really deeply poignant understanding of a generation bored out of their head; no money, watching midday movies and thinking ‘well this is all I have got, this is the life I am having, can I find something beautiful in it’ and then [Harrop] just gathered all those thoughts together. It looks like some radioactive thing. It is about that terrible loneliness and terrible apathy, the midday movie - on the dole culture; and it its also about being 20 years old, being a boy very confused about everything, so all of that repression is in there.”[68] Ross Gibson, 2007.
“People like Stephen Harrop with found footage re-configured and very well cut. It’s no accident he went on to become a professional editor. And personally I think that’s what differentiates his stuff from that other group which hasn’t stood the test of time as far as I’m concerned."[69] Kate Richards, 2007.
Harrop had already impressed with his films Hoard (1981), Iteth: Bound to be: Bathkervilleth (1981), Room to romp (1981) and Blind (1981), all screened at the Second Sydney Super 8 Film Festival in 1981. Square bashing was first screened at the Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival in 1982 and had the most exhibition screenings of any super 8 film. It was also included in the Independent Super 8 Films from Australia [1983], Follow the Sun [1986] and Metaphysical TV [1988] overseas touring programs. In 1982 Harrop also made the brilliant Down Diablo Way, a special effects ghost story from the West (employing classical Hollywood techniques of rear projection and song and dance) featuring ‘Hopalong Cassidy and The Mystery of the Haunted Goldmine’.[70]
“The whole process seemed to spontaneously happen to me and lots of people, particularly Stephen Harrop and that fantastic film of his Square bashing that was made in 1982 as a student at COFA, before the word post-modern had been properly formulated in the visual arts, and not even in use in architecture and literature for quite some time."[71] Mark Titmarsh, 2007.
1982: Australian Super 8 films in Sydney
at Sydney Super 8 Film Group screenings
(only first screenings listed)
Sydney In The Dark
University of Sydney
2-4 January 1982
Forbidden planet (1981) Mark Titmarsh
Hoard (1981) Stephen Harrop
Just browsing (1981) Theo Cremona
History lessons (1979) Mark Titmarsh
Mackie Autumn Festival
Alexander Mackie College
Autumn 1982
Baby in R.E.M. (1981) Aris Kartsonas
Bird in a cage (1981) Stephen Fearnley, et al
Washing (1982) Jon Cockle
Objects permanent (1982) Chris Betcher
Derelicts (1982) Jon Cockle
Samuri (1982) Adam Kosack
Hot air (1982) Margaret Smee
Emma (1982) Margaret Smee
Talking heads (1982) Ross Gibson
Cat (1981) Aris Kartsonas
Landslide (1982) Adam Kosack
Ways of being (1982) Lucy Torres
Raw meat (1982) Adam Kosack
The wall (1982) Foundation Students
Edvard Munch (1982) Adam Kosack
Scent of man (1982) Michael Walvis & Stephen Fearnley
Wondrous point in time (1982) Stephen Fearnley
Some people (1982) Lucy Torres
Australian picnic (1982) Margaret Smee
Doors (1982) Jon Gentle
Chrome (1982) Michael Walvis & S. Higson
Te Ve Tabu
Paddington Town Hall
19-24 April 1982
Zoologic (1981) David Nerlich
Space face (1981) David Nerlich
Mr. Tsuzuki comes to Australia (1981) Paul Fletcher
Second class passenger (1982) Duncan Anderson
Feint heart (1981) Debra Petrovitch
Royal visit (1981) Paul Fletcher
Lost in space (1980) David Chesworth
Self portrait (1980) David Nerlich
A voice over this, but what? (1981) Janet Burchill
Death by drowning (1981) Debra Petrovitch
Dolls (1981) Paul Fletcher
Some lost advertisements (1980) Tch Tch Tch
C.A.I. Students Film & Video Night
City Art Institute
29 June 1982
Marathon (1982) Aris Kartsonas
City of women (1982) Mark Titmarsh
Square bashing (1982) Stephen Harrop
Sydney (1982) Wendy Chandler
Big foot (1982) Stephen Fearnley
Jabberwocky (1982) G. Bennet
Pelican (1982) P. Wann
Lucky (1982) P. Wanny
Capturing the Shakespearean ethos (1982) P.C. Dooley
Biggles’ first case (1982) Andrew Frost
Grandma (1982) Margaret Smee
Sardine salvage (1982) M. Stauce
Red dance (1982) Wendy Chandler
Carousel (1982) K. Batha
Untitled (1982) R. Petschler
Untitled (1982) S. Voysey
Untitled (1982) L. Bibocini
Titilating muscles (1982) P. de Soto
Untitled (1982) L. Tate
The Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival
Paddington Town Hall
4-6 November 1982
No dance (1982) Tch, Tch, Tch
The opening ceremony of the 1980 Moscow
Olympics as televised by HSV channel 7 (1980) Tch, Tch, Tch
Celluloid self (1982) Tch, Tch, Tch
Romantic story (1982) Tch, Tch, Tch
Blue water (1982) Andrew Davie
Drop in the ocean (1982) Andrew Davie
Space invaders (1982) Nick Myers & Sean O’Brien
Foreign order (1982) Anon.
No more blood please (1982) Bronwyn Holland
Mouse mania (1982) C. Bamford
Cleaning film (1982) D. Beck
Still / movie (1982) D. Mizzi
Whoever would envy Sabrina (1982) G. Brownhill
Shorts 4475 (1982)9 Gary Warner
Shorts: colour (1982) Gary Warner
Colours of life (1982) J. Bogle
Italian boys (1982) Jane Stevenson
Reflections (1982) K. Jason-Smith
Suggestions (1982) K. Morton & David Chesworth
Phobia (1982) K. Vaitiekus
Reflection on an isolated cell (1982) K. Walshe
Just another day (1982) L. Monson
Vegemite and peanut butter (1982) Michael Lee
Le poussin sur l’herbe (1982) Michelle Luke
Sacrificial acts (1982) Michelle Luke
Dubbed in Venice (1982) Milton Reid
Misogyny, soap and candles and the
whole she-band (1982) Michelle (Mee) Riley
Eighteen Twenty-Four (18/24) (1982) Michael Wood
Snaps (1982) N. Vickers
3 views of t.v. (three views of television) (1981) Phillip Bannigan
Basic set for success (1982) Phillip Bannigan
Unedited thoughts (1982) Phillip Bannigan
Monster film (1982) Paul Fletcher
Untitled (1982) P. Todhunter
Reminiscently Rembrandt (1982) P.C. Dooley
Warhol’s 13 most beautiful women unseen (1982) Rolando Caputo
About each other (1982) R. Williams & A. Martin
Untitled (1982) Stephen Fearnley
Il faut pas tuer les passions (1982) S. Jackson & P. Lindley
Couple no. 2 (1982) T. Cremona
We got it all for you (1982) Toby Zoates
Chasin’ rainbows (1982) V. Brincat & P. Brincat
Film by (1982) Wendy Chandler
The beginning the end (1982) Wendy Chandler
US rancher gals is always fixin’ sumpin’ (1982) Michelle Riley
Untitled (1982) David Nerlich
Dreams come true (1982) Jane Stevenson
Film, Video, Multi-Media Evening
City Art Institute
3 December 1982
Down Diablo Way (1982) Stephen Harrop &
Stephen Fearnley
Undercurrent (1982) Mark Titmarsh
Something visual something mental (1982) Wendy Chandler
Fantasy on Ball’s Head (1982) Margaret Smee
Tattoo (1982) Shan Short
Onshore (1982) Michael Walvis &
Laura Tate
Fish out of milk (1982) Mary Jane Welch St Vincent
Love like anthrax (1982) George Evatt
Culture Line of Events, Films and Publications1982
2-4 January
Sydney in The Dark: The New Australian Cinema: Super-8 Film Program, Footbridge Theatre, University of Sydney.
1982
19-25 April
Te Ve Tabu: Second Metro Televison Studio Access Project, Paddington Town Hall.
1982
16 June – 22 July
POPISM Exhibition National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Paddington.
1982
29 June
C.A.I. Students Film & Video Night: City Art Institute, Paddington.
Marathon,
Aris Kartsonas
1982
‘Life, analogous to running a marathon is constructed visually around ‘Creed’, a poem by Stephen Turner that sardonically charts the contradictions of modern man. Marathon uses multiple exposures, computer text, audio textures and the heavy voice of a marathon runner in full flight to narrate’. Independent Super 8 Films From Australia, Touring Exhibition Program, October 1983.
1982
9-10 July
The Super 8 Phenomenon: Local Colour, Paddington Town Hall.
1982
August
Adrian Martin, ‘What is this ‘The Super-8 Phenomenon’’ Filmnews, August 1982.
1982
August
Ross Gibson, “ … seen as a child’s toy, but …” from Filmnews, August 1982.
1982
August
Gabrielle Finnane & Jenny McAmley, ‘All things have their measure – 8mm film at NFTA’, Filmnews, August 1982.
Misogyny, soap and candles and the whole she-band,
Michelle Riley
1982
‘Elegiac rendering of the feminine eye and ear. The camera tracks slowly over marble sculptures, women in lace and a fully clothed figure in a bath-tub. A barely audible voice speaks of personal concerns’. Independent Super 8 Films From Australia, Touring Exhibition Program, October 1983.
1982
September
C.A.I. Students Film & Video Night: City Art Institute, Paddington.
1982
October
Mark Titmarsh, ‘Xtra 8 fx’. Filmnews, October 1982.
1982
October
Mark Titmarsh, ‘Super 8 the unconscious of film’ Filmnews, October 1982.
1982
November
James Kesteven, ‘3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 review’, Filmnews, Nov-Dec 1982.
Concerned with something else,
Wendy Chandler
1982
‘Concerned with the cultural pressure on women to be thin. Introduces a series of women in perfect thin pose, while the voice-over moans ‘I want to be thin’. Independent Super 8 Films From Australia, Touring Exhibition Program, October 1983.
1982
27 October
Alexander McGregor, ‘Super-8 films come of age, Sydney Morning Herald.
1982
4-6 November
The Third Sydney Super 8 Film Festival, Paddington Town Hall.
1982
3 December
C.A.I. Students Film & Video Night: City Art Institute, Paddington.
1982
16 December
Super Eight Films, Heffron Hall, Darlinghurst.
Untitled,
Davis Nerlich
1982
‘A static camera set up in the street at night records the activities of the city’s strangest inhabitants who are irresistably drawn to the light and the need to perform’. Independent Super 8 Films From Australia, Touring Exhibition Program, October 1983.
Footnotes
[38] The Super 8 Collective. 3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 [program notes], The Super 8 Collective, Sydney 1982, inside cover.
[39] Warner, Gary. Unpublished interview by the Ben Crawford, 1990.
[40] Gibson, Ross. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[41] Sydney University Filmmakers Society. Sydney In The Dark: The New Australian Cinema [program notes], Sydney University Filmmakers Society, Sydney, 1982.
[42] Unknown. Mackie Autumn Film Festival, Sydney,1982.
[43] Studio Access Project 1982. Te Ve Tabu [program notes], Studio Access Project 1982, Sydney,1982. 11 pp.
[44] Mark Titmarsh Archive.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] dLux Archive.
[48] The Sydney Super 8 Collective Collective [64A Wigram Road, Glebe] consisted of Deidre Beck, Janet Burchill, Ross Gibson, Stephen Harrop and Mark Titmarsh.
[49] dLux Archive.
[50] Lindy Lee, artist and girlfriend of Mark was part of the original Super 8 Collective but was not a signatory of the application letter. The amount requested is $1753, which includes a $5 honorarium to each of the 40 filmmakers and $100 to each of the five organisers.
[51] Leading practitioners mentioned are Tch, Tch, Tch; Tim Burns, Juan Davila and David Chesworth.
[52] Titmarsh, Mark. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[53] [54] Waiting approval
[55] dLux Archive.
[56] Super 8 Film Group. 3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 [program notes], Super 8 Film Group, Sydney, 1982. 12 pp.
[57] dLux Archive.
[58] Titmarsh, Mark. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[59] Super 8 Film Group. 3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 [program notes], Super 8 Film Group, Sydney, 1982, p. 2
[60] Kesteven, James. ‘3rd Sydney Super 8 Film Festival 1982 review’, Filmnews, Nov-Dec 1982.
[61] Hodson, Barrett. ‘The ‘80s: The Super Scene: The Age of Cultural Abundance – Signs Without Meaning’ in Straight Roads and Crossed Lines: The Quest For Film Culture in Australia, Bernt Porridge Group, Western Australia, 2001, p. 112.
[62] Super 8 Film Group (eds). Super Eight Reader, Spot Press, Sydney, 1984
[63] Hodson, Barrett. ‘The ‘80s: The Super Scene: The Age of Cultural Abundance – Signs Without Meaning’ in Straight Roads and Crossed Lines: The Quest For Film Culture in Australia, Bernt Porridge Group, Western Australia, 2001, p. 112.
[64] Martin, Adrian. ‘What is this thing called ‘The Super-8 Phenomenon’’, Filmnews, July 1982.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Richards, Kate. ‘Some comments on two Super 8 film festivals’, Filmnews, Nov/Dec 1981.
[67] Titmarsh, Mark. ‘Stickin’ it to the man’, in Titmarsh, Mark (ed). SynCity: remixing three generations of sample culture, d/Lux/MediaArts, Sydney 2006.
[68] Gibson, Ross. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[69] Richards, Kate. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
[70] Titmarsh, Mark (compiled by), Independent Super 8 Films From Australia Programme Notes, Spot Press, Sydney, October 1983.
[71] Titmarsh, Mark. Unpublished interview by the author, 2006.
Can we just get this straight, for Barret Hodson's sake: I never claimed any specificity or essence for super 8. In fact I claimed that the only thing that kept it going was the seduction of the scene, the desire of the people involved, not the format or gauge itself.
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