Amateur vacation film

The standard 8 mm film format was developed by the Eastman Kodak company during the Great Depression and released on the market in 1932 to create a home movie format that was less expensive than 16 mm. The film spools actually contain a 16 mm film with twice as many perforations along each edge than normal 16 mm film; on its first pass through the camera, the film is only exposed along half of its width. When the first the spools are flipped and swapped (pass is complete, the camera is opened and the same film is then exposed along its other edge, the edge left unexposed on the first pass. After processing, the film is split down the middle, resulting in two lengths of 8 mm film, each with a single row of perforations along one edge, thereby yielding four times as many frames from the same amount of 16 mm film — and hence the cost savings. Because of the two passes of the film, the format was sometimes called Double 8.