Good morning, friends, it’s Big Sky Brigit here.

One thing you might have noticed in the past year is how we at the Sickos are bringing in more mediums for capturing games and special events. Namely, we’re doing a lot of film photography and videography. That’s not just because film is an amazing medium but also because it’s the single most Sickos way to capture something.

Let me explain.

Film is like if you wanted to bevel a photo right as you took it. There’s a beautiful grain to the photos or the video footage. It’s real, it’s raw, it’s not overly produced. You either get the shot right in camera or you don’t. And that feels very in line with what we do here as the Sickos Committee — especially the part about being not overly produced. Even as we expand our video offerings or collaborate with more schools and other college football concerns, we’re deeply committed to being authentic and not overly produced.

Let’s talk about what makes film so Sickos and how we use very Sickos cameras to capture sports on film. I won’t talk too much about the technical aspects (though I do have a video planned on how to do the technical stuff for capturing sports on both digital and film) but more about how we do what we do.

This was taken on a little toy camera called a Holga 120N. It’s literally made of plastic, it costs about $60, and it has a very limited aperture range. Basically if it’s not full sun, it’s not gonna look very good. The back doesn’t fully keep light out unless you use a ton of gaffer’s tape.

But it’s fun. Look how cute it is.

It’s just a little guy. You can’t not have fun taking photos with this lil guy. (If you’ve ever wanted to jump into medium format film, this is a great entry point. Challenging, but great).

Now let’s talk Mayo Bowl.

I know I just went through this whole thing about how we’re not overly produced, but I did go a little bit (a lot) into Sicko Mode when picking out film for the Mayo Bowl. The above (35mm) photo was shot on CIneStill 50D which is a still film respooled from Kodak motion picture film. Put more plainly, I wanted the still photos to match the videos I was going to take.

You might remember that I shot Super 8 at the Idaho game that Commish and I attended but that only part of it came back. The long and the short of it is that Kodak changed their cartridges just enough that big fancy cameras where the film loads in the back rather than the side like the Canon one I have don’t advance the film correctly.

So all we were left with was this even though I was taking videos literally all day.

So for the Mayo Bowl, I decided to once again turn to A Lil Guy. Enter the Bell & Howell Optronic.

It’s a side-loading film camera (meaning the film cartridge issue won’t be as much of a problem). It has neither bells nor whistles. In fact, the only button it has is the shutter.

The platonic ideal of a Sickos Super 8 camera.

Digression: Before we continue, let’s talk about what Super 8 is. If you remember old timey home movies, they were likely shot on Super 8. Super 8 cameras are the precursors to the camcorder, allowing regular folks to be able to capture their memories on video. They used to capture audio but due to the way Kodak manufactures the film now, all they capture is video.

Which is how you end up with this.

Now when I say film is Sickos, this is also what I mean. You can have your nice, standard cameras (the 35mm Canon and the Sony for digital) and you can have your fun, silly, extremely Sickos cameras (the Yashica D medium format and the Super 8).

One thing I’ve loved about getting to be part of the Sickos and go to games and events is getting to both challenge myself and play around. When I do client work, I have to be very dialed in on what I’m shooting and how. That’s not to say I don’t do the same as part of the Sickos but I can experiment more.

So thank you to all of you who come along with us as we experiment and expand our visual offerings. If you have questions about how we do this stuff, please drop it in the comments or @ me on Bluesky and I’ll do my best to answer.

Until next time, friends.

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