8MM-16MM FORUM WORLDWIDE

Catching up with Super 8 as I have over the last year or two I wonder if there was a licensing or other reason for abbreviating features? I can't accept that it was simply the need to conform to a 4x400ft standard price. For example I have a Niles print of "My Favourite Brunette" that fits 87 minutes onto 4 very full reels. I have an RBC print of "City Lights" that gets over the four reel problem by finishing the print off with a fifth reel containing about 200 feet of film. Then again there's a lovely ABC print of "The Spiral Staircase" which has lopped off about 10 minutes to fill 4 x 400 foot reels. And of course most Derann's in the late 70's ran at about an hour (though advertised as 72 minutes) no matter what the original running time.

What gives here?

The main reason was the final sale price of the print. I have a print of Duel in the Sun with the first reel really edited but the rest of the film was complete. The reason was so Ken films could keep it at 5 reels before spilling onto 6 reels. Was a cost measure back when features were sold on super 8. As far as Derann, I have little info on their features although I'd love to have several of them. I do have other Niles and other prints that had some scenes cut out that weren't important to the story but it seems it was always a matter of fitting a longer film on fewer reels.

Thanks Erik - it always seemed a bit arbitrary to me - mostly because not all 400 ft reels are equal in how much film they can hold (depending on the size of the inner core and the amount of film a distributor would put on the reel)- then again you've also got the difference between acetate and polyester!!!

On a different note one of my dilemmas is I bought a gorgeous Derann print of "The Jolson Story" that I can't actually watch! (entirely)

It is mounted on 2 x 1200ft blue plastic reels that have a small inner core that hold close to 1600 ft of film. My Elmo ST1200 gets to within about 10 minutes of the end of each reel and that's it.

As I (as yet) have no empty smaller reels, splicer, rewind arms and splicing tape it sits on the shelf unwatched!

Any way all the best in the spirit of celluloid film!