8mm Forum: Super 8 optical sound.

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Posted by Allan Broadfield (Member # 2298) on June 04, 2014, 05:27 PM:

I have never actually seen a section of super 8 optical sound print. Have searched the forum backlog without success. Can anyone supply a pic?

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on June 04, 2014, 06:02 PM:

Here is a section of a S8mm optical sound film print.

[ June 06, 2014, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: Janice Glesser ]

Posted by Allan Broadfield (Member # 2298) on June 04, 2014, 06:13 PM:

That was quick! Thanks very much Janice. I had an Elmo 1200 briefly some time ago but never got round to optical.

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on June 04, 2014, 06:50 PM:

I have a Yashica P810 Magnetic/Optical projector.

Posted by Lars-Goran Ahlm (Member # 1908) on June 04, 2014, 08:14 PM:

Here is a slightly sharper picture of a optical 8MM film.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on June 04, 2014, 08:59 PM:

Lars. a Fish called Wanda is relatively a later film.

I am curios to know what sort of the color quality for prints from this era.

Could you please scan more further to the scene where we can compare human skin tone with other colors.

BTW what sort of scanner you use for that resolution? and what is the resolution for it?

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on June 05, 2014, 06:06 AM:

Its aweful to think that billions of feet and up to 100 copies or more of thosands of film titles on optical all went in to the ground or up in smoke. A Wasteful tragedy really.

Best Mark.

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on June 05, 2014, 06:42 AM:

Another for you Allan from a short full of colour.

So many prints were sold so plenty are about but most have pretty bad colour changes now, good prints are still about as well.

Classic Home Cinema are leading lights at the moment with Optical features for sale. [Cool]

Posted by Lars-Goran Ahlm (Member # 1908) on June 05, 2014, 08:29 AM:

Winbert, I made that scan several years ago to print out and send to a fellow collector here in Sweden who had never seen a S8 optical print ever.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think it might be scanned in 1200dpi. The scanner is a HP 4890.

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on June 05, 2014, 08:48 AM:

Opening scene from Bugsy Malone

Posted by Guy Taylor, Jr. (Member # 786) on June 05, 2014, 10:04 AM:

Were airline prints the only source for optical sound super 8?

Posted by John Skujins (Member # 1515) on June 05, 2014, 10:13 AM:

No, I have some Super 8 car dealership films that have optical sound.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 05, 2014, 12:54 PM:

Hey Janice, is that "Starbird and Sweet William" you've got there?

Also, Disney super 8 and other studios, (Columbia) experimented with they're 200ft releases as optical super 8. I've ran into quite a few Disney's over the years, fewer Columbia optical shorts.

Wonderfully, MGM did a grand thing with their South African super 8 optical film library. Along with the main feature, "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing", for instance, MGM would have before the feature began, a classic era MGM short, in sepiatone, and in most cases, it was one of those "Pete Smith Specialies".

The funny thing is that the shorts were absolutely spot on sharp super 8 opticals, while the 70's feature would often be grainly and hard to focus. They probably made a print from a 16MM flat print of an original scope feature, which meant that you came in on the image for the flat print, hence the very grainy look.

I've always felt that the optical super 8 films are a grand adventure. To this very day, new optical (old) optical super 8 titles still pop up for films I never knew existed on super 8 optical!

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on June 05, 2014, 01:09 PM:

Were any prints ever made with an optical track on one side and a mag track on the other?

Posted by Pasquale DAlessio (Member # 2052) on June 05, 2014, 02:09 PM:

No

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on June 06, 2014, 09:01 AM:

Does anyone know why airlines companies choosed optical sound rather than magnetic one ? Was it for economical reasons (is it true that it costs less to manufacture ?) or to reduce the risk of stolen films ? And did they use special projectors in the airplanes or the same we use ?

Posted by Jon Addams (Member # 816) on June 06, 2014, 10:58 AM:

quote:
Does anyone know why airlines companies chose optical sound rather than magnetic one?...

You may find some answers by reading these superb articles.

The History of Sound in the Cinema

A History of Inflight Entertainment

Jon

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 06, 2014, 11:27 AM:

Dominique ...

I really wish I knew. I'm betting it was cost effectiveness as, being that, even with two passes on the print (one pass to print the image, the second to print the optical track), it would cut the costs and least to an extant, as you would have to have a laminate mag stripe, and then sync up and record all of those soundtracks after it comes back from the labs.

That's just an honest guess, but I can't be all that sure. Quite frankly, I would prefer mag stripe for it's obvious audio fidelity benefits, but hey, history is history.

By the way, great screenshots of those frames!

Another problem with optical sound print, (depending when they were manufactured) is that, as some of the screenshots show, the side without a optical track (sprocket side), has that dark purplish coating that totally obliterates the film stock markings, making it very hard to ascertain what kind of film stock was used.

Obviously, various forms of Eastman were first used, (there's still some debate as to whether any were actual techinoclor super 8 prints, as there have been memo's or letter stating that Technicolor experimented with super 8 and after all, many optical sound prints were placed in Technicolor cartridges which, usually, were filled with fadey Eastman, but I have a few prints in my collection that are 1969 optical, and yet, haven't faded a bit).) ...

During that period of late 60's to late 70's Fuji was also used, primarily in japan for they're optical prints, (I have a print of "Hooper" that has Japanese subtitles, perfect color and Fuji film stock) ...

and then KOdak SP started to be used a lot, which has tended to be brownish these days. Around late 81 or early 82, LPP started to be used and, of course, those print have perfect color.

They did, however, use as much of the poorer stock as long as possible. "Gorky Park" (until I learn different) was printed on a TERRIBLE Eastman "quick pink" stock, (such a shame), and they continued to use old Kodak SP film stock all the way to the end of super 8 optical sound, as I have a print of "Stand and Deliver" 1987/88?) that is on Kodak SP, apparently, and already has a slight brownish quality.

On the plus side, however, especially after the mid to late 70's, all optical sound super 8 seem to have impeccable focus, really sharp! [Smile]

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on June 06, 2014, 11:24 PM:

Interesting articles, Jon, thanks. I would not have imagined that the airlines started do show films on planes in the twenties !

Posted by Allan Broadfield (Member # 2298) on June 07, 2014, 03:57 AM:

Osi, in all labs I worked in the pic and sound were normally printed in one pass on 35mm and 16mm, but don't know about super 8.
Janice, your replacement pic seems to show two optical tracks, or is it the grog I'm drinking?

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on June 07, 2014, 04:02 AM:

Optical sound is printed at the same time with the picture since the negative optical is placed on the same master with the negative picture. So everything is done in one way route. So it must be a lot cheaper than magnetic one which need to be striped and later recorded for the sound.

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on June 07, 2014, 04:03 AM:

Nice find Jon, enjoyed reading them. I think the

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on June 07, 2014, 04:07 AM:

Nice find Jon, enjoyed reading them. I think the 'Dion' one does have one bit of wrong info though. I always thought that "Sensurround" was a Universal system not Paramount and the war film is not Tora! Tora! Tora! but Midway. Still an interesting read.

Posted by Maurizio Di Cintio (Member # 144) on June 07, 2014, 05:48 AM:

Hey - Allan is right!!! Double optical track on S/8???? Never heard of such a thing! Can somebody shed some light on this? Especially what projcector(s) was/were able to play back such tracks???

Posted by Allan Broadfield (Member # 2298) on June 07, 2014, 07:15 AM:

Winbert, in my experience the normal practice for all new features and many old was to have a seperate sound neg which was printed together with the pic. The reason being that the pic neg and print stock was of lower contrasts and the sound needed a suitably high contrast neg to achieve acceptable frequency response. When made, the sound neg was exposed at a very exacting exposure which when printed at an equally exacting exposure cancelled out the different contrasts on the print.
Old features had often lost their original sound negs (perhaps for reason of archive space) which had been replaced by dupes with the sound on the same neg. These were 'com-opts' or 'combined dupes' which were frowned on but achieved surprisingly acceptable results in some cases.

Posted by Allan Broadfield (Member # 2298) on June 07, 2014, 11:30 AM:

While we're on the subject of super 8 optical sound, and thanks for all the views, has anyone a pic of a section of standard 8 optical sound?
I used to own a japanese projector called a 'Toei' which was both mag and optical. The gate had an adjustment where you pulled a lever and the gate apperture was reduced ready to accomodate an optical print. The size of the optical track must have been large as the gate adjustment easily halved the size of the picture.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 07, 2014, 12:17 PM:

I remember seeing a picture of one of those projectors!

I've only heard of one "bonified" standard 8mm optical sound feature, "Futureworld", as it was offered to me and the seller said that yes, it was in fact standard 8mm optical sound, and I passed on it, (another one of those "What was I thinking?" moments that I wish I could take back!!) ...

but I'm sure that there must have been more prints offered, especially being the year (1976?).

That's an interesting point, offered earlier! I wouldn't be surprised if the optical track for standard 8 might have been slightly larger and may have perhaps offered better sound than the super 8 optical print.

Janice, that's a great shot there! There was once a print of STAR TREK 4 that had two optical tracks on it as well!

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on June 07, 2014, 02:21 PM:

Double optical track has been discussed here: Star Trek IV double optical track

(ps: scroll down to the middle)

cheers,

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on June 07, 2014, 04:00 PM:

I have a couple of Derann's Pathe Pics in optical sound. I think they did about 6 in total they didn't seem to sell well. I recall they were sold off for about £5.

Powell also did a couple of 400ft cut-downs. I think 'The Sands of Iwo Jima' was one of them. P.M. Films did a least one, a trailer reel.

Also some 200ft for the airlines.

And some UK TV series one The Zoo Gang and Jason King both ITC I suppose for BA.

Plus quite a few features.

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on June 07, 2014, 05:10 PM:

The double sound track that appears to be on my sample film is the movie Izzy & Moe with an Italian sound track. I don't believe my projector recognizes the second track...but not sure. Maybe this info will help explain the double track. [Confused]

Posted by Allan Broadfield (Member # 2298) on June 07, 2014, 06:57 PM:

That seems likely, if these were originally airline prints their equipment may have been able to scan both tracks for an alternative language, or even stereo.

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