The Videotape Revolution of the 1970s and 1980s supposedly brought movies in to the home for the first time. In fact you could already watch movies and your favourite television programmes at home - on film.
There were a number of companies releasing movies and TV shows in the smaller film gauges (sizes). Mostly 8mm or Super 8 for home use; and 16mm for commercial or industrial use.
Kodak introduced 8mm (later called Standard 8 or Regular 8) in 1932. It had large sprocket holes down one side of the film. Super 8 appeared in 1965. The film was the same size as before, but the sprocket holes were smaller, so the pictures were larger and of better quality when projected on to a screen.
Both were available in silent or sound versions, with the latter being more expensive. The equipment needed to run sound film was also more expensive.
Due to the limited running time of 8mm or Super 8 film, a full-length movie had to be put on several reels, which needed to be changed over during the programme. Annoying. Multi-reel films were also expensive.
Many films were therefore released in shortened Abridged, Condensed or Digest versions, on just one or two reels. Short subjects such as theatrical cartoons could be released full-length, but usually just one short subject per reel. After the arrival of television, a number of popular TV programmes also appeared on film. Usually there were only a handful of episodes available, rather than full seasons. Again, these were often shortened versions of full-length episodes.
Film was expensive. The equipment needed was also expensive, and technical. Film was therefore never as popular as videotape would become, which was simple and easy to use, as the tape player just plugged in to a normal TV set, which most people already had by the 1970s.
The running time of a videotape was also far longer than a reel of film, so a whole movie would usually fit on to a single cassette. No need to change tapes part way through a movie. Film libraries existed, where tapes could be rented, just as in a video store. There was also mail order rental.
Now to the actual subject of this article. I wanted to look up the video tape releases of The Avengers TV series, and turned to my copy of The Complete Avengers by Dave Rogers (1989, published by Boxtree in Britain, and St Martin's Press in the US).
Nothing at all on videotapes, but under Miscellaneous there was a section on Super 8 film releases, mostly by the British company Derann Film Services Limited.
Derann, founded by husband and wife team Derek and Anne Simmonds, operated from 1965 (another source says 1964) to 2011, according to Wikipedia. It was based in Dudley, in the British Midlands. They sold and rented 8mm and Super 8 films, and later moved in to videotape, having a couple of their tapes on the Video Nasties list in the early 1980s.
The Complete Avengers states that Derann released four Emma Peel episodes on Super 8 Sound film in the mid-1970s: From Venus With Love, The Living Dead, The Positive-Negative Man, and Return of the Cybernauts. All were from Season 5, and were in colour.
They were released in both a slightly condensed version (running time 45 minutes) on three reels; or a much reduced Extract version on a single reel (15 minutes).
There was also a full-length version of the £50,000 Breakfast by Centaur Films, on six reels. This was also from Season 5.
There is not a lot of information on these films, and even sales listings are uncommon. Both The Return of the Cybernauts and the Positive-Negative Man had the same oddly-coloured and uninspiring cover, showing Steed and Mrs Peel, so I assume this was common to all four episodes.
Only the title varied. The cover states 'Sold for private and domestic exhibition only'. Other films from Derann are listed on the back of the box - including several starring Elvis Presley.
Front and back of the Derann box.
From the Super 8 Database is this page from a Derann catalogue listing three of the episodes.
That is all I have been able to dig up so far.
Paul Adams from New Zealand
My first job was for a company that sold and rented audio-visual equipment. Fun fact - as I recall, standard 8 had such big sprocket holes because it was literally 16mm stock, cut in half lengthwise. You could shoot your own 8mm, even with magnetic sound, although it was expensive. Audio tracks were either optical or magnetic. But 16mm cameras were rather expensive for home movies. Finally, 16mm projectors weren't all that expensive if you came from a well to do household. You should see the price of the first video players. They came down in price as they became more popular and the technology advanced. Speaking for generations of high school AV Club teens, operating a projector is like learning to drive stick. You can do some damage in learning, in this case you want to use old scraps of film. And you wouldn't believe how much crumpled video tape I pulled out of those old players! No, the biggest obstacle in home entertainment was easy access to decent movies and shows. Video took off, but it could've gone the other way.
ReplyDeleteFascinating Baron, really. I am really interested in the history of VHS and in particular the 'nasty' phenomenon in the UK. where films were banned and shopkeepers jailed. The high cost of VHS at the start sounds like a repeat of the costly 16mm films and projects a generation before. In many of my VHS boxes it says V2000 on the insode, which is a format not well known here. Do you know it?
DeleteI hadn't heard of the "nasty," sounds unpleasant. Agreed, there were similarities between market penetration of film vs tape. Honestly I think tape was a better sell for home use because you piped it in through your existing TV set. No clearing the room, putting out the lights and projecting on a blank wall or screen. Not a problem for industry or school presentations though (or movie theaters for that matter!). I hadn't encountered V2000 before. Apparently it wasn't in use here in the USA because it was designed for use with PAL television.
DeleteI think v2000 cassettes could be turned over and you could use both sides?
DeleteI believe you are correct.
DeleteBack around 1979 I had a Super 8 projector with B&W reels of Kaiju films like "Destroy all Monsters" The pride of my collection was a cut down scene of the escape from the Death Star from Star Wars!
ReplyDeleteDo you still have them Looey?
DeleteI used to be on the mailing lists for several different catalogs of film, both 8mm and 16mm, silents and with sound. All kinds of cool stuff, a lot of horror, SF and gems of film history. The choices were literally overwhelming, and I never mailed off a check. I just used to pour over them and wish...
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments, and the memories. That is what catalogues are for, I certainly spent a lot of time looking through my Airfix and Matchbox kit catalogues.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know, only Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back were released on Super 8; I do not think Return of the Jedi made it on to film ?
A full-length movie, on several film reels, could be several hundred dollars US in the 1970s.
Thanks for the post Paul!
DeleteOne of the old Castle catalogs has been scanned and archived here:
ReplyDeletehttps://archive.org/details/castle-films-catalog-1970
Many old Castle Films have been digitized and archived here:
https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Castle+Films%22
Just staggering Frank, what passion to digitize all those films and reels. I'm amazed! Thanks for the links, truly fascinating and important.
DeleteWow, that brings back memories!
DeleteThe 8mm home movie digest industry was an amazing time and place. Before video, you could own a piece of your favorite movie for about $5 USD. I had maybe a hundred of these over the years. There were stores in New York City that had entire floors dedicated to 8mm films for collectors. SFZ
ReplyDeleteI would have loved those stores SF!
DeleteThanks again for all the extra information. I do not recall ever seeing any of these 8mm and Super 8 movies in New Zealand, or any film libraries. If there were any around in NZ, they were not common. It was only later that video became popular.
ReplyDeleteA big advantage of videotape over film was the much greater running time, and the fact that you did not need to constantly change reels.
There have been several books on the Video Nasties over the years, some of them devoted mainly to the video cover artwork. Britain always had very strict film and video laws.
I have most of the books written about the Video Nasty phenomenon Paul including one written right at the time in the 80's. A fascinating example of a overnight moral outcry and government over-reaction. It's similar to the same outcry experienced by horror comics in the 1950's leading to the contemporary book Seduction of the Innocents in the States.
DeleteI'm a bit late to this one, but Super 8mm films were big for me in my late teens and again later in my early 30s.
ReplyDeleteAs a teen I would buy cheaper, silent, black and white 50ft and 200ft cut downs of TV shows and movies, such as Fireball XL5, Stingray, Godzilla and Earth VS The Flying Saucers, and make my own soundtracks to them, on real to reel tape, using BBC and other Sound Effect records and Movie Score music records.
In my 30s I had the cash to buy 200ft and 400ft black/white and colour /sound 8mm prints, including several from Derann, such as a UFO episode, The Lost World, The Atomic Submarine, and the odd Hammer film.
I also made my own little films as a teen, often stop frame animations, using a Russian clockwork Standard 8mm camera and model kits and toys of the day. This stuff was the starting point to my eventual career in TV, and later Movie, SFX work.
What a great story Mish! I wonder how many movie and TV FX guys and gals got careers from the stuff they were doing as kids like you?
DeleteQuite a few from the 80s onwards.
DeletePrior to that, people joined the industry from a variety of backgrounds (fine art, sculpture, engineering, electronics, plumbing, military explosives, model making, make up, theatre, etc) more by chance or accident than design.
But by the 70s kids were making their own movies on Super 8 and reading how the professionals did various special effects in film and television, in books and sci fi magazines, and, like me, aspired to do it themselves.
Luckily for me , I got into the business via art college, polytechnic, theatre design and prop making.
Oh how I wish I had the 8mm movies I shot back in the day! Stop motion was fantastic fun. I had a bunch of Cinemagic magazines for inspiration. I ended up in TV, but in story. My buddy, to whom I gave the Cinemagics, works at ILM. We had a friend who went on to do make-up effects.
ReplyDeleteSo you write for TV Baron?
DeleteI mostly worked as a producer.
DeleteWhat on or would you rather not say?
DeleteLOL it's just work, nothing special.
Delete