The Brown Bunny

Question: I recently rented a movie called The Dead Next Door, whose liner notes claimed it was "the most expensive 8mm film ever shot." This reminded me of an interview with Vincent Gallo, who made Buffalo '66 and The Brown Bunny, in which he talked about wanting to film in 16mm, Super-16mm and 35mm, but they were too expensive. So my question is this: What do those numbers mean? How do they affect a director and more important, what do they mean to us, the filmgoers?

Answer: The numbers refer to film gauge: 8mm film, which is what people used for home movies in the pre-video era, is 8 millimeters wide (about a third of an inch); 16mm and Super-16 are twice that and 35mm, the standard professional film gauge size, is 1 1/3 inches across. Super-8 and Super-16 use more of the film's useful width (the area between the sprocket holes on either side) to record images than 8mm or 16mm; bigger image, read more