quote:

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A few years ago I was at Rank Film Labs in Denham, having gone there to collect some work they had produced for us. I was having a chat with Roy Hubbard, the manager of the department at that time, when a gentleman entered the room. He was introduced to me and it was explained that he worked for the company that provided 8mm optical prints for the airlines. This fascinated me, and being the film fanatic that I am, I wanted to know more. I stayed and talked with him for nearly two hours, and eventually he said “next time you’re down here, give me a ring and I will come and collect you and take you round our place”. I made sure that I visited the labs the next week, and before setting out I telephoned my new found friend. He promised to come along to the labs and we would then go on to his main depot. When I left the labs, following the car in front, I was more than a little surprised to find we were heading towards the Technicolor Labs, near Heathrow Airport. We swung through the main gates, drove round the main building and ended up at the rear of the labs. There I saw a sign SUNSTRAND, and it was then that I realised that this was the company that I had come to visit.

I was led into a small office, and told that most of the prints were printed at Technicolor Labs in New York, whilst Rank Labs also provided prints of their own titles and some of the British TV material, but it was explained that the airlines preferred the material that was printed in New York since Technicolor ‘coated’ the sound tracks and this rendered much better results.

If you compare an 8mm Optical Print made in the UK against an American print, you will note that the optical track is almost pure black and white, whereas the track on a British print is dark blue. This results in the British track giving a lower level of volume and certainly more track noise, hiss and plops. Rank would never give any reason for not coating the optical tracks on 8mm prints. I hasten to add, that all 16mm prints made by the lab at the lab at that time, were coated to give optimum performances. One can only assume that in their opinion, 8mm was just not important enough for them to provide this extra service.

I was then told that a lot of the prints carried multi-tracks; the main track always being in English. But, on some prints there was another track, just on the edge of the sprocket holes, much like the balance track on a magnetic print, and this track was mostly French, German or Spanish.

I was then taken into the room where the films were checked upon return from the air craft, and where new prints were being put on to giant spools for polishing. I was astounded at the number of prints in the room – it must have been at least five or six thousand! Can you imagine standing in front of five or six thousand full length 8mm sound feature, 99% of which were never going to be offered to the collector?

When the prints came in from the various labs, they were in the same number of roles as the 16mm prints, since they had been taken from the 16mm negatives. For aircraft use they need to be on one continuous reel, so the first job was the splicing together of all the various reels. The films were then coated with a silicone polish, and then flat wound into a giant cartridge, as one continuous roll, ie; the film came form the outer edge of the large roll, went through the projector gate and sound head and wound back onto the inside of the roll. This is the reason that the films were coated with silicone, to make them very smooth and slippery, and to avoid emulsion build up and scratching. After this they were put onto projectors, the same Technicolor machines that the airlines used, each print was run, and then the prints shipped to various airlines. At one time there were twenty projectors running, checking films. These specially made machines had Xenon lamps, and the sound out put was remarkably good. Much better than the quality received through those dreadful earphones they give you on the plane!

Once the films had served their purpose, they were returned to the various dumps around the world and supposedly junked. I was at SUNSTRAND at one time when they destroyed about 500 feature films, and an official from the film industry stood there whilst they put an axe through every print. ( I don’t think I have ever got over the shock).

It seems that some prints have got out from various dumps, and have found their way onto the market. I must say that a few years ago I did persuade Warner Bros and Columbia to sell us a few prints, which they did. I think we had about ten titles in all and about fifty copies of each. But sadly, the airlines soon stopped using 8mm, when cheaper, video copies became available, and as far as I am aware, no 8mm prints are now made for airline use. If you are offered an ex-airline print, make sure they are not turning pink, as most of them were printed at the time when Eastman stock was suspect.

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Mike
 

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Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on June 03, 2007, 11:20 AM:
 
Hi-Osi,
Here's a list of optical airline prints known to me,some I have even owned,sorry the lists not definitive but I hope it helps..

THE GOLDEN SEAL-STEVE RAILSBACK-FAMILY MOVIE
A FISH CALLED WANDA-CUT
FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE-CUT
THE BURGLERS-JEAN PAUL BELMONDO/OMAR SHARIF
CLARA'S HEART-WHOOPI GOLDBERG/RAY LIOTA
GREYSTOKE-THE LEGEND OF TARZAN-CUT
THE 39 STEPS-1979-RANK UK PRINT
SHOUT AT THE DEVIL-LTBX-CUT
ISLAND OF DR MOREAU-BURT LANCASTER
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
SUPERMAN-THE MOVIE-SCOPE
FINDERS KEEPERS
A MAN,A WOMAN AND A BANK-DONALD SUTHERLAND
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANTS WOMAN
STARBIRD & SWEET WILLIAM-FAMILY MOVIE
CONDUCT UNBECOMING
MATILDA-ROBERT MITCHUM
MEMORIES OF ME-BILLY CRYSTAL,SEAN CONNERY CAMEO
NOTHING PERSONAL-DONALD SUTHERLAND/SUSANNE SOMMERS
THE EARTHLING-WILLIAM HOLDERN
PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID-CUT
THE EIGER SANCTION-CLINT EASTWOOD-LTBX & MAGNETIC SOUND!
CHAMPIONS-JOHN HURT
THE BOUNTY-MEL GIBSON
ROCKY 3
LETHAL WEAPON-CUT
PALE RIDER-CLINT EASTWOOD
CITY HEAT-CLINT EASTWOOD
SUDDEN IMPACT-CLINT EASTWOOD
MAGNUM FORCE-CLINT EASTWOOD
NADIA-TV MOVIE ABOUT GYMNAST
GORKY PARK-LEE MARVIN
FUTUREWORLD-PETER FONDA
HOOPER-BURT REYNOLDS WITH JAPANESE SUB-TITLES!
BROADWAY DANNY ROSE-WOODY ALLEN
PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO-DIRECTED BY WOODY ALLEN
HAMBONE & HILLIE-LILLIAN GISH,OJ SIMPSON!
LONE WOLF MCQUADE-CHUCK NORRIS/DAVID CARRADINE
MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER-KIRK DOUGLAS
NEVER CRY WOLF-BRIAN DENNEHY
TENDER MERCIES-ROBERT DUVALL
UNDER FIRE-NICK NOLTE
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT-JACK NICHOLSON

Cheers Mark
 

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Posted by Del Phillipson (Member # 513) on June 03, 2007, 12:46 PM:
 
there's a few must have's on that list
 

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Posted by Jean-Christophe Deblock (Member # 792) on June 03, 2007, 03:04 PM:
 
And not "AIRPORT"...
 

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 03, 2007, 03:36 PM:
 
Screw Airport! Like da man says, there's a lot of titles there worth having! A number I haven't seen!
 

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Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on June 03, 2007, 04:32 PM:
 
And I bet thats just the tip of the icebeg too!!!

Has anyone else got anymore titles to add to Osi's list??

I also forgot to mention LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS with Steve Martin.
 

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Posted by Keith Ashfield (Member # 741) on June 03, 2007, 06:02 PM:
 
A few more to add to the list -

THE FOUR SEASONS - ALAN ALDA
REMO WILLIAMS - FRED WARD
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE - SEAN CONNERY
TWO OF A KIND - JOHN TRAVOLTA
FINDERS KEEPERS - CLIFF RICHARD
RISING DAMP - LEONARD ROSSITER
A MAN CALLED HORSE - RICHARD HARRIS
HEDDA - GLENDA JACKSON

Regards,
Keith
 

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Posted by Michael De Angelis (Member # 91) on June 03, 2007, 07:28 PM:
 
Space Balls,
and Fast Break.
 

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Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 04, 2007, 04:58 AM:
 
Hi,

Ullstein/Revue released a lot of super8-prints with optical soundtracks (mainly in German in Germany/Austria/Switzerland, but also in French/English in other parts of Europe). This mainly included some German fairy-tales, but also some episodes of "Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone" (Original title: "The Avengers").

You shouldn't forget the FUJICA ZS400 (Single-8-camera with optical sound recording) in your article:
http://muddy8mm.howto.cx/single8/single8_e/ZS400_e.htm

Jörg
 

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 06, 2007, 05:32 PM:
 
I just want to thank everybody who has helped out with this post so far!! The list of known Super 8 optical titles, (this doesn't even include cartoon shorts or ads), is now up to a known 84! I'm sure the number will continue to climb. I believe that I personally have 35.

Note : I don't know who posted it, but could somebody include
a picture of the optical sound projectors used by the airlines?
These were cartridge loading players. I know that a picture of one of these was shown on this forum before.
 

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Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on June 07, 2007, 02:47 AM:
 
Osi,

I've had prints of the following too:

BACK TO THE FUTURE (with Japanese Sub-Titles)
BATMAN
STAR TREK 3: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK
DEATH ON THE NILE
SPLASH
THE HIGH ROAD TO CHINA
CARRY ON DOCTOR

These are just a few more, I'll try and update these when I can think of more.
 

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Posted by Mark Williams (Member # 794) on June 07, 2007, 03:39 AM:
 
WOW!!!

There's a few great titles there Barry,have you ever had a copy of BATMAN?
I have also seen quite a few optical sound making of 200fts such as MAGNUM FORCE,OUTLAW JOSIE WALES etc.
 

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Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on June 07, 2007, 10:42 AM:
 
The earliest thread that contained a list (from back in January 2004) can be found here .
However, an optical title I have that is rarely mentioned on any list is one of my favorite pirate films, "Nate and Hayes" (aka "Savage Islands"), a fun little flick with Tommy Lee Jones and Michael O'Keefe.

Doug
 

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 07, 2007, 12:05 PM:
 
iNTERRESTING ONE ON "Batman". I have "Hooper" (Burt Reynolds) and it is subtitled (japanese), and it's okay to watch. The only time the subtitles are annoying is in dark scenes, so Batman might be a little more annoying, however, the action scenes do not have a lot of talk.

The list is growing!! It is now up to a whopping 138 titles!!
 

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Posted by Stewart McSporran (Member # 128) on June 07, 2007, 04:09 PM:
 
I also have The Internecine Project.

[Edit]
Oops, just noticed this is on the list Douglas linked to. Still, it's a pretty good film - even if it is pretty badly faded.
 

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 07, 2007, 05:14 PM:
 
I have that one as well Stewart. Mine has a slight fade, which I notice gets better as the film goes on.

Besides, I just love that "shower scene", which I personally think is the best shower scene since "Psycho". Not as good as Psycho, mind you, but pretty darn good.

"Internicine Project" is a good example of the suspenseful film that has a nice slow movement to the story, and even though you know that all of them are going to be bumped off, (including the main "bumpee"), you look forward to seeing each of them unknowingly being killed off by each other. It's one of those films that makes the audience a part of the action, so to speak.
 

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Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on June 08, 2007, 01:46 AM:
 
Osi,

BATMAN did not have sub-titles, only BTTF did. I also had a print of THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, although a fair print there was no attempt of panning and scanning, so the picture was set dead middle of the scope frame, unusual though!
 

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Posted by Reb Tanner (Member # 649) on June 08, 2007, 05:36 AM:
 
DR NO
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
LETHAL WEAPON
PSYCH ROCK PROMO CLIPS 200'
VARIOUS EDUCATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
 

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