Super 8’s still good business

MOVIES

New England labs work with pros, amateurs

November 27, 2011|By James Sullivan, Globe Correspondent

In “Super 8,’’ just out on DVD, some young teenagers become embroiled in an extraterrestrial mystery while filming their own low-budget zombie movie. The year is 1979.

It turned out to be a pivotal time for the format that gave the movie its name. Introduced in the 1960s as a user-friendly variation on the older 8mm film, Super 8 was quickly embraced by home-movie buffs. But its popularity was fleeting; by the early ’80s, it was already being pushed aside by the emergence of videocassettes. Yet Super 8 film, like movies about E.T.s and zombies, has retained a certain appeal. There are far fewer film labs working with old small-gauge film stock such as Super 8 than there were three decades ago. But those that remain still do considerable business with filmmakers, art students, and walk-ins from the general public who have uncovered troves of family footage.

Singapore native Myrtha Chang came to the Boston area to attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When she started a family here, she wanted a way to share her children’s upbringing with her parents overseas, so she began working with film and videotape. Soon she had her own video-transfer service in Boston. Last year she merged the business with Play It Again Video, formerly a “friendly competitor’’ of her service. Established in 1987 in Needham, Play It Again is now located in Newton.

Friends warned Chang about the business, which they saw as in decline. “People would say, ‘Careful, it’s a sunset industry,’ ’’ she says by phone during a recent visit to Singapore. Instead, she has seen consistently steady traffic, with advances in editing software inspiring people to haul out their old film, tapes, and cartridges so they can edit the footage into digital montages.

The holiday season is busy for shops such as Play It Again Video and Eclipse Video in Cambridge, with people converting family memories to DVD and hard drives. As recently as last year, Chang says, most people were still asking for DVD transfers. Now, the tendency is to save to hard drives, where footage can be retrieved and edited with programs such as iMovie and Final Cut Pro.