8 Mm Film - Standard 8

Standard 8

The standard 8 mm (also known as regular 8) film format was developed by the Eastman Kodak company during the Great Depression and released on the market in 1932 to create a home movie format that was less expensive than 16 mm. The film spools actually contain a 16 mm film with twice as many perforations along each edge than normal 16 mm film; on its first pass through the camera, the film is only exposed along half of its width. When the first pass is complete, the camera is opened and the spools are flipped and swapped (the design of the spool hole ensures that this happens properly) and the same film is then exposed along its other edge, the edge left unexposed on the first pass. After processing, the film is split down the middle, resulting in two lengths of 8 mm film, each with a single row of perforations along one edge, thereby yielding four times as many frames from the same amount of 16 mm film — and hence the cost savings. Because of the two passes of the film, the format was sometimes called Double 8. The frame size of regular 8 mm is 4.8 mm x 3.5 mm and 1 meter of film contains 264 pictures. Normally Double 8 is filmed at 16 frames per second.

Common length film spools allowed filming of about 3 minutes to 4.5 minutes at 12, 15, 16 and 18 frames per second.

Kodak ceased sales of standard 8 mm film in the early 1990s, but continued to manufacture the film, which was sold via independent film stores. Black-and-white 8 mm film is still manufactured in the Czech Republic, and several companies buy bulk quantities of 16 mm film to make regular 8 mm by re-perforating the stock, cutting it into 25 foot (7.6 m) lengths, and collecting it into special standard 8 mm spools which they then sell. Re-perforation requires special equipment. Some specialists also produce Super 8 mm film from existing 16 mm, or even 35 mm film stock.