straight 8 at 25: Boundary bending films

In 1999, a fresh-faced Ed Sayers, producer-soon-to-be-director at London production company Godman, started an experiment called straight 8 - a Super-8-loving challenge for anyone who had access to a camera.

25 years later things have got big. 

IMAX big.

To celebrate the quarter-century, the straight 8 team have taken on the largest screen the UK has to offer - the spectacular BFI IMAX - to showcase 25 homemade shorts from filmmakers around the globe.

You're too late to take part in that screening (apart from attending), but it’s not too late to get involved.

Basically, straight 8 offers creative types the sort of constraints they thrive under. No edit, no post, and no seeing your film before its premiere.

Within those boundaries, entrants can let their creativity go wild!

Details on how to enter this year are at the bottom of this article, but in the meantime, and for inspiration, here are five straight 8 films from over the years that really push the boundaries:

A Bad Day to Propose

A sublime combination of modern technology, Super 8, ambition and humour. 

All pulled off to a tee. 

This film was made for straight 8 2021 and made the coveted top 8, giving even straight 8’s jury of top filmmaking talent cause to scratch their heads, asking how did they do that?! 

Watch it and try and work it out. 

Then [spoiler alert] see how it was done here.

From Russia with Monsters 

Meta and self-reflexive may be words for the critics, but this timeline-busting cardboard and paint labour of love is just that.

A trailer for a movie that never was. Or will be. 

This playful film was made for straight 8 2011 and went down a storm at its Cannes Film Festival premiere. 

It was made by a consortium of OG straight 8ers who collaborated for this one under the moniker Cut & Paste. 

Playing to the straight 8 audience, who knows all too well that no editing or VFX is allowed, the film at one point stops, rewinds, FX are added on the cardboard timeline and a meltdown ensues.

I Am Justin Waite 

Many have tried, but is this the definitive film to play with the straight 8 rules that make synch sound nigh on impossible? 

Only time till tell. 

This Iris Gold-winning Shootout 2018 film fully delivers on comedy, which can only work if you know the rules. 

A man has chosen a life of seclusion since being struck with a condition that resulted in huge events good and bad. 

The condition? He talks out of synch. 

Iris Worldwide have now made nearly a dozen Shootout entries from different offices around the world. 

Iris Germany are taking the task on for straight 8 Shootout 2024 - you can compete too.

Time Stop 

You’d be forgiven for forgetting this hauntingly beautiful film is made without editing or post-production. 

Marvelling about how they did it can be for the second watch-through. 

Just enjoy it the first time around. 

Made as a straight 8 Shootout 2018 entry by Japanese production company, Taiyo Kikaku. 

It was such a strong year, it didn’t even pick up a trophy, but it brought magic to the screen by doing visual effects the old fashioned way - in the camera.

Deja Vu 

When a Czech directing duo [Sandalz] sets out to fool the audience into thinking they cheated at straight 8 and looped their edit. 

[Spoiler alert] 7 Skodas later, they succeed… 

This may be the ultimate attempt to bend the straight 8 dogma. 

So much so that at its Cannes Film Festival premiere in 2005, after a couple of (pretend) edit loops, some people started to BOOO loudly (you know about Cannes, and booing, right?)... 

Then, as the loops continued, people realised the filmmakers had not cheated and were playing with the audience. 

The boo-ers were now getting booed and shushed, and when the film ran out, still ‘looping’ there was a unanimous standing ovation that still gives us goose bumps! 

Watch the very witty making of - a rarity - here.

Noteworthy note: one half of directing duo Sandalz is Slavek Horak, now a notable Czech rising star in the movie world. Check out his IMDB.