“There are some projects you take on because they pay the bills — and then there are ones that feel like a gift.
This was the latter.
My good friend Zach Moore shot this Super 8 film over the course of many years. It’s a collection of quiet moments, intimate portraits, and fragments of time — all captured with that unmistakable warmth and imperfection that only film can give you. When I finally sat down to watch the cut, I was genuinely moved. Not just by the visuals, but by the emotion behind them. This wasn’t just nostalgia — it was something deeper. Something lived-in.
I knew immediately: I had to color this.
Honoring the Texture of Time
Super 8 is already a format soaked in emotion. The grain, the softness, the flicker — it all speaks a language of memory. So the last thing I wanted to do was over-polish or force it into a modern aesthetic. The goal was preservation, not transformation. I wanted to elevate what was already there without getting in its way.
I leaned into the natural tones of the footage, letting the color shifts and imperfections speak for themselves. Where needed, I gently guided the eye — enhancing warmth, shaping contrast, or helping a shot breathe a little more. But the touch was always light. The guiding principle was: treat this like a photograph someone held onto for 20 years.
Crafting the Look: A Love Letter to Imagined Nostalgia
When it came to shaping the overall look of the film, Zach and I tossed around a few reference points — old skate videos, film stills, photography books — but in the end, I found myself reaching deeper into something more instinctive. I started thinking about New York City during what I like to imagine was its cinematic golden era. Not the polished version you see in commercials, but the real thing — grainy, warm, a little hazy, full of soul.
I asked myself: If someone had wandered the streets with a Super 8 camera in the ’70s or ’80s — not for a project, but just to remember the feeling of being alive — what would that film look like today?
That question became the north star. The palette leaned toward golden ambers and soft blue shadows, with just enough contrast to give the images structure without feeling overworked. I wanted it to feel timeless — like it could’ve been developed last week or 40 years ago. The goal was to evoke memory, not mimic a specific reference.
There’s something powerful about crafting a look that doesn’t just match a time period — it taps into the feeling of a time that maybe never even existed, except in our collective imagination. That’s where the real magic lives.
When the Film Fights You
Of course, working with Super 8 also means embracing its limitations. There were a few shots where the lighting didn’t quite cooperate — too dim, too blown out, or just living in that unpredictable in-between space. That’s the nature of film: you don’t always get a second take, and you’re often flying blind until the footage is developed.
But that’s where years of grading experience come in. I leaned on some of my favorite tricks to recover and preserve as much detail as possible — using gentle isolation, contrast shaping, and tonal balancing to bring these moments back to life without losing their integrity. Zach was genuinely impressed with how those shots turned out. And honestly, so was I.
A Dialogue, Not Dictation
Working with Zach is always a creative dialogue. He trusts my eye, and I trust his instincts. We talked a lot about restraint, about emotion, about what we didn’t want to do. No artificial drama. No digital tricks. Just an honest presentation of what he captured — and why.
Some scenes leaned more golden, embracing that timeless, late-summer warmth. Others fell toward the cooler, desaturated end, letting silence and stillness take the lead. Every moment had its own emotional weight, and the grade followed that rhythm.
The Result
This film reminds me why I got into color in the first place — to help people feel something through image alone.
It’s not always about big budgets or fancy gear. Sometimes it’s about seeing the heart in a project and doing everything you can to let that shine.
Color isn’t just about fixing shots or adding a cool look — in the hands of someone who understands it, color becomes emotional architecture. It doesn’t just enhance an image… it shapes how we experience it. How we remember it. How we feel it, long after it’s gone.
You can watch the full piece here:
