Success! I've bottled up memories from 8mm film.


I just finished digitizing 12 rolls of 8mm film. Before I share my process, let's quickly talk about the rewarding parts. Overall, I think my eyes welled up over a dozen times. There's something about coupling music with sentimental videos that touches the heart. Selecting music, tweaking the exposure, coloring, and minor video edits made me feel part of the final product.


On the flip side, it was time-consuming, expensive, and there are professional services that will take care of this for you. However, I was not willing to send these videos in the mail to a service. I could not take the risk of losing the only copy of the footage.


Now on to the process:

Total investment = 373 dollars

Total time needed = 16 working hours

Requirements = 8mm or Super8 film in good condition. I personally feel if your film is damaged and needs restoration, you will need to get a professional involved. 


Step 1: Purchase the Wolverine Data Film2Digital MovieMaker-Pro. I purchased it from B&H for a total of 373.

Step 2: Follow the instructions to convert your 8mm and Super8 film. Save to the SD card.

Step 3: Get a subscription to Epidemicsound.com to download 3-minute songs. They list songs by mood and type.

Step 4: Use VideoProc Vlogger, it's free, import the video from the SD card, and import your audio downloaded from Epidemicsound.com.

Step 5: Create a new project in VideoProc Vlogger and set the project to export iPad format since it's close to a 4:3 ratio. 

Step 6: Adjust your video. Crop the video to remove any bad areas from the scan, and slightly adjust the exposure, Contrast, and Saturation. Then to remove grain, turn on 'Image Blurring & Smoothing' and adjust Deviation, Coefficient, and Edge Threshold. I used 5.00, 1.0, and 0.5.

Step 7: Adjust your audio with fade in and fade-outs and trim the length as needed.

Step 8 Export video. Ensure to save your project in VideoProc Vlogger if you need to make any minor tweaks and re-export.


I've also included a short sample of the final video below.