Bob Brodsky first made movies in 1944 with a Risden 16mm camera and war surplus film from gunsight cameras. A McCarthy-era detour lead him to another career but he got to New England and then by 1967 back to his first love photography and filmmaking as an independent producer. Making 16mm films and slide shows for many uses in a New England mill city, he embraced Fuji's Single 8mm, then Kodak's Super 8mm film as an accessible moving image tool for community films.
Toni Treadway joined Bob in film work and in 1976, we made 4 documentaries on the Bicentennial, one in 16mm, 3 in Super 8. We launched the film-to-tape studio in 1980 because we were dissatisfied with available transfer services and industry prejudice towards Super 8 film. Thankfully, after years of singing the merits of 8mm film, we find attitudes have changed.
We wrote a monthly column in Filmmakers magazine from 1978-1980 and went on to write ten years of monthly articles for The Independent. (Forthcoming, an archive of them inside the website.) We criss-crossed the country giving workshops on small NEA grants in the early 1980's as advocates for Super 8 film. This activity was at a time when 8mm, Super 8 and film itself were perceived as dead media because of the onslaught of home video and camcorders.
In recognition of quality technical services and our actions as advocates for 8mm filmmakers, we received an INDY in 1988. Our set of bookends reads "AIVF Eastman Kodak Award for Excellence for setting internationally recognized standards for work in Super 8 film."
In 1983 we wrote a Super 8 filmmaking book of systems called "Super 8 in the Video Age" to answer frequently asked questions and address appropriate uses of Super 8. At present the book is excerpted in the website but out-of-print; it may re-appear in a revised edition here). In 1986 we also founded the non-profit organization IC8© The International Center for 8mm Film. IC8, through donations from readers, publishes the newsletter "B&T's Little Film Notebook"© and offers the community website littlefilm.org. IC8 is a 501(c)3 organization with FEID # 042785437 and donations are US tax deductible in most cases.