8mm Forum: Hey Barry ... "Calling Dr. Atwood!"

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 07, 2008, 09:01 PM:

Ah, got your attention Barry!

If I remember correctly, weren't you involved with a short term film company that released, (among thier titles) Rock A Doodle?

If so, could you tell us what it was like to be involved in the actual business of releasing new product?

What would be a list of the titles that you released?

How did you secure the rights to release what you did?

I ask because if anybody out there on the forum, (like me) who would like to hazzard releasing new product in the future, it would be cool to hear how a small firm was able to release new product, even in the waning days of Super 8!

OSI

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on March 08, 2008, 03:21 AM:

Dear Osi,

Yes you're right, I worked with Gary Watson at C.E.C. Films and he had a contract with the then Rank Film Distributors. They were quite easy to deal with, they had many titles, 16mm internegs were available at the Rank Film Labs (where they were held), we only had to have a 16mm fullcoat soundrack made that could be edited to match the eventual 8mm prints. We picked our first two titles, the Don Bluth animaed "Rock-A-Doodle" and the fine action thriller "F/X: Murder By Illussion" , this was picked because it was a cracking film, and as the main character was a special effects wizard in the movies, we thought it was very apt as well. We ordered prints via Derann, who did all the editing, recording etc. for us, but our timing was very unforunate, as we got a whisper that Derann had secured a big contract with a big studio, yes you guessed it, we released our first two features, just as Derann announced there Disney deal, and all we heard from customers was "we would have bought a copy, but....", we couldn't compete against the long sort after Disney prints coming to 8mm, and that basically scuppered our feature releases in one shot. We had more titles planned ("Carry on Henry" - "Carry on Dick" were two I remember), and the contract with Rank was very good, we just shared profits (if any that is) with them. I think we did about 8 "Rock-A-Doodle" and 10 "F/X: Murder By Illussion" features, and both were excellent quality, but alas that was the end of C.E.C. Films feature releases, although Gary did bring out some shorts and trailer reels, but never another big feature.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 08, 2008, 11:54 AM:

What were your C.E.C shorts?

Any Classic cartoons?

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on March 08, 2008, 12:34 PM:

Osi,

We did 3 or 4 Tom & Jerry cartoons, and some trailer reels, but nothing really special. Nothing in the class of the 2 features we actually did. We also re-printed some DCR releases, one I remember was the 2x400' Laurel & Hardy comedy "Beau Hunks", those were in the days of actual B/W filmstock.

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