8mm Forum: Renting 8mm film digests in the early 80s

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Posted by James Raynor (Member # 4105) on January 14, 2014, 05:47 PM:

Hi folks,

I'm an independent filmmaker in Leeds, England, and I'm currently in early pre-production on a short film about the Video Nasties scandal that befell our country in the early eighties. If you are unfamiliar with the subject, here's the wikipedia article about it and the trailer for a FANTASTIC documentary that I heartily recommend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_nasty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wotbbUE5SpM

I'd like to start my film before VHS takes off, with the only means of home viewing being these 8mm/16mm digests. I can find a decent amount of info about the films themselves, but relatively little (beyond a cursory "this is how it was") about the process, how it was done, what the stores were like, etc.

I was hoping some of you could help me shed some light on this and talk about your experiences renting these films. This is quite a personal project for me and any insights you can provide would be most appreciated!

Cheers,

James Raynor
Untamed Aggression Productions

Posted by James Raynor (Member # 4105) on January 15, 2014, 03:38 PM:

Failing this, is there a list or database of films released on 8mm/16mm?

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on January 16, 2014, 08:32 AM:

James,

Welcome to the Forum! While I can't help you with the rental process, if you can give a range of dates I can let you know some of the titles that were available at the time.

As far as I know there is no complete database of all films that were released to the home 8mm market as that would number in the thousands. To give you some idea, here are some of the major distributors:

Universal 8

Ken Films

MGM

Columbia

Derann (Horror films)

Powell Films

Walton Films

Doug

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on January 16, 2014, 08:37 AM:

Were there ever businesses that rented 8mm film from a store like video used to be (until recently..) or was it mostly a mail-based business?

Posted by James Raynor (Member # 4105) on January 16, 2014, 10:44 AM:

Douglas, that would be very useful! The film is set in early 1983, so anything up till then...

Steve, that's something else I'm trying to establish. There is an interview with a retailer in the book SEE NO EVIL: BANNED FILMS AND VIDEO CONTROVERSY and he says, "We were an established Super-8 library and did a lot of mail order and rental," which to me suggest a store of some kind in addition to the mail order, but as I said, information is hard to find.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on January 16, 2014, 10:52 AM:

Derann Film Services began as a rental library, but I've always had the impression they worked from their home and the retail store came later after they began selling films.

If I had the chance to rent prints these days I certainly would: a little extra variety would be nice.

Back in the 70s, an old family friend had a clerical job in a local 16mm house. One of the benefits was use of a projector and a rental print here and there. A bunch of us would gather at their house and see a feature a reel at time. I wouldn't mind renting prints for occasions like that today.

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on January 16, 2014, 11:48 AM:

I used to rent from Derann, D.J. Hurst Films, Avon Films, Looney Looney Movies, plus a few others.

The first two I had block bookings with them. Every two weeks the next show would arrive. This was usually a mix of a feature, cartoon, Look At Life/Pathe Pics, and one of the digest versions.

I did all my film hire via post.

From about 1976/77 I also went 'big' league and started hiring still in super 8mm from Rank Film Library, Columbia/Warner Film Library and FDA (Film Distributors Associated)

Over the years I have built up a collection on both super 8 and 16mm.

Derann's library closed and they did reopen later.

The digest films are a quick way to watch a film though, some of 400ft films were very well edited, but sadly many were not.

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on January 16, 2014, 12:07 PM:

IVY FILMS used to rent 8mm features and shorts. They had quite a selection to choose from back in the late 70s/early 80s.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 16, 2014, 12:19 PM:

... and then, of course, there were your local libraries that tended to have rather large collections of super 8 back in the 70's through about the mid 80's. Many a collector has bought out those library collections and in some cases, the prints are not only quite rare, but in very good shape, (but some that are in horrendous shape!)

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on January 16, 2014, 01:30 PM:

One film 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' was released by Iver Films (based in Pinewood Studios) you could buy the film to show in your home anywhere in the UK, but the only place you could see i in the cinema was in the old GLC London. It never got passed out of London.

Posted by James Raynor (Member # 4105) on January 17, 2014, 02:37 PM:

Thanks for the replies, guys!

So are these rentals direct from the distributor or are they independent vendors?

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on January 17, 2014, 04:31 PM:

Most of films were available from most of the libraries. The only exceptions the 'Big league' these were 16mm libraries. The range quite good, but expensive for 1 showing. You can buy a couple blu-rays for less now.

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on January 17, 2014, 04:43 PM:

I often wondered whether or not it would be feasible for a group of collectors to get together and start a rental library, in some fashion, for other collectors.

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