The DIY fills category on the Try It page is meant to show what homemade cartridge content actually looks like, not polished vintage stock, but real footage someone loaded in themselves. A few notes if you’re thinking about sending something in:
- Landscape, and framed loosely. Every clip gets cropped to the real Super 8 gate ratio (5.46 × 4.01mm, close to 4:3) and then displayed inside a circular mat. Keep the subject away from the very edges of frame, since some of it disappears into the crop and the mat both.
- Short is fine. Short is normal. Clips run 3–4 atlases of 36 frames each, roughly 6–8 seconds of source at true 18fps. This was never meant to hold a whole scene; a single loopable moment is exactly right.
- Real Super 8, or something that reads like it, works best. The category exists to be honest about what’s actually achievable outside a vintage-cartridge respool. A phone video won’t be turned away, but grain, warmth, and a bit of gate wobble are what make a clip feel at home next to the vintage stock next to it.
- Rights matter. Only send footage you actually have the right to use. If it’s not yours, or you’re not sure, ask first. This applies the same to a family clip as it does to anything found online.
Right now the example clips in this category are placeholders: real Super 8 wedding footage found on YouTube, credited on the Try It page itself, standing in for what a real DIY-fill submission could look like. If you’d like yours to replace one of them, get in touch.