Similarly to Super 8, Super 16 consists of using the same stock gauge, exposing a larger surface of film. The new aspect ratio is different: instead of being 1.33:1 is now equivalent to standard 35mm, i.e. 1.66:1.

The greater frame width of Super 16 and the need for less cropping top and bottom gives Super 16 a 46% increase in image area over standard 16 when displayed in the widescreen 1.85:1 ratio. This means better quality pictures from 16mm film.

Super 16 was 'invented' by the swedish cameraman Rune Ericson back in the 1970s . He argued that the right-hand sprocket holes (which are not used by most 16mm cameras) would be much better replaced by an extended image, which in turn would give 16mm film a similar widescreen format to 35mm.

Ericson developed Super 16 with French engineer Beauviala. They wanted to find a method of filming low-budget and blowing up to 35mm. The first camera they modified was an Eclair, but Aaton – the camera produced by Beauviala –, from the very day the camera was conceived, in 1972, it was already designed to be a Super 16 camera. Super 16 was used to shoot Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman Contract, and some good low-budget feature films, but it didn't really inspire a lot of people. It was expensive because you needed special lenses, there was no Super 16 telecine available, and only one laboratory dealing with the format. But at the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s High Definition TV came by. A lot of people were making programmes in the 4:3 ratio and not 16:9. So it occurred to them that in order to make future-proof programmes they should resort to Super 16. At the same time other factors came into being as well: there were new Super 16 lenses available and Kodak brought out the new T-grain stock. Also a gate was made for the Rank Cintel Mark III (1990). It suddenly took off: from no Super 16 to everybody shooting in S16 in the space of two years. The first drama was Darling Buds of May for Yorkshire Television, and since then almsot everything is filmed in S16. The stock used to have two rows of perforations but today single perforation has become the standard (only high speed cameras have two claws)...

Full article published in Filmwaves - Issue 2, November 1997. Subscribe now!