Straight 8

And so it was with a sense of relief, joy, and honestly, good old-fashioned excitement that I watched Supernature, the recently released mosaic of miniature portraits of the natural world, gathered, guided, and narrated by a diverse array of filmmakers, all shooting on the age-old format of Super 8.

Helming the project is Ed Sayers, a long-term fan of the analogue format who previously founded the Straight 8 competition, where entrants create short films using a single cartridge of celluloid, lasting around two and a half minutes, and with all the editing done in camera.

I met up, digitally, with Ed to talk about Supernature, and I began by asking him why a format that was once considered past it and obsolete had proved the perfect tool to move the nature documentary into a bright new future.

Super 8, it's something that people have used since 1965 when they want to preserve a moment.