An Old Flame Finds its Way Back into My Life

This year marks the 20th anniversary of FOTW Audio Productions. I don’t have many other milestones in my life, so this one for me, is worth celebrating. I set it up one night in the backyard garden of a rented flat in Petersham, by telling the two people closest to me in my life at the time, that this was what I wanted to do.

Now, twenty years later, it has not made a ton of money (in fact, not much money). But it has helped me come close to achieving some of my creative life goals, to get technically better at a particular medium, and create an outlet for stories. And I’m now working as a college teacher, trying to pass on some of the technical skills I have learnt to others.

One of the reasons I chose to focus on audio, was after a friend and I did a radio show together for three years after highschool (which I’ve written about before), and we listened to the film soundtrack to ‘Blue’ by Derek Jarman, which was essentially an ‘audio story’ tied to a blue screen. And I realised that this was something that I might actually have a chance of making — compared to the feature film ambitions I’d had through my teenage years, which maybe weren’t so achievable, given the cost and size of the industry in Oz (anyway, that’s what I told myself at the time).

Strangely, though, filmmaking has made a return to my life, particularly over the last couple of months.

Back in the 90s (during that same radio time) I had a Super-8 camera, which I shot a few films with, and then later gave it away to someone, which I always regretted doing. I still had one of the reels, which I got transferred during COVID. I later used this for a course project, creating a soundtrack for it (it was silent to begin with).

Then a couple of years ago, I started to look into the fact that my Scottish Grandfather had a movie camera back in the 1930s, and I became curious as to what kind it may be. I found that Kodak made a Standard 8 camera back in 1932, called the Cine Kodak, Model 8. I started writing this up as a blog post, which I didn’t finish.

Then, about a month ago, I was looking at digital cameras on an Australian online auction site, and I saw one of these cameras – which I immediately bid on – and won!

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even completely remember that this was the camera I had been researching a few years ago. It wasn’t until I picked it up, and had a look again at the old article, to see that it was the same camera. But the model that I had, had actually been manufactured in Kopenick, Germany.

Even more interesting was that there was still a film in there, which I have sent off to be developed. And am waiting for it to come back.

But the condition of this camera is amazing. Model 8s are not particularly rare, as Kodak made many of them and there are still a lot floating around in the second-hand market. But the fact that mine still works, all the parts seem to be moving perfectly, and it also looks good, is very surprising to me — and it almost feels like a gift from God!

I know that last statement might sound ridiculous, but I had been secretly wanting to get a camera like this again, I just didn’t really know it. I had been pining over what I used to do in the early 90s, filming around Sydney, at a time when I had also worked as a film projectionist at a little cinema, and spent a lot of my time reading film books.

There is one more thing that kind of kicked me back into this film phase.

My college head teacher knew that I had taught classes on audio storytelling, and she asked me to pair up with a colleague, to help teach storytelling for video, about three semesters ago. When I started to teach it, I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed it, and how much of my film knowledge I could pour into it. All through my thirties and forties, I read books of interviews with screenwriters, and early Hollywood history; and of course, all of this I could funnel into the lectures.

I’m not a proper filmmaker, in the sense of an industry professional; my professional expertise is still on the audio side.

But I felt completely at home getting the opportunity to teach this. It was like going back to a genuine love that I had neglected for a while, but that deep down, I still loved very strongly.

And so now I have a little movie camera to keep experimenting with, and who knows where that will go.