8mm Forum: Duplicating Home 8mm Movies back in the 60s

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Posted by Dan Esmond (Member # 3975) on March 12, 2018, 03:27 PM:

Hi all,

Wondering if any of you who were around for 8mm's glory days can tell me if it was a commonly-available service to have a copy made of a 50 foot 8mm film reel. I know it was for slides but wasn't sure about movie film.

Reason I ask is that one of my long-deceased grandfathers has a couple of films I think may have been duplicates. As part of my transfer project I tried to note the Edge code (if present) on each film. The vast majority were Kodachrome/Kodachrome II of course, along with a few Ektachrome and some which must have been cheap drugstore brand films with no code whatsoever.

But there are these two from 1964 which have the edge code "Eastman Rev Color". The one page I was able to find on that code via google said that Eastman Reversal was print stock. But I'm not sure if it was also ever available for use in-camera. Does anyone know?

Also, if duplication was a common service, did it reduce the picture quality much? The image in these two films is pretty bad (not sharp and extremely contrasty), but that could of course have been the fault of the camera that shot it.

Was just curious about this. Much appreciate any input. I tried googling for info on this but literally every result was about digitizing it, not duplicating it.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on March 12, 2018, 03:51 PM:

There were companies who offered to duplicate 8mm home movie films in the UK. Back in the early fifties the charge was £5 for a 50ft colour copy.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on March 12, 2018, 03:56 PM:

Maurice, do you know how they duplicate positive to positive print at that time?

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on March 12, 2018, 04:04 PM:

They probably used a reversal film. However, I am not sure as I never used the service,

Posted by Ty Reynolds (Member # 5117) on March 12, 2018, 05:10 PM:

Based on what I've seen come through the shop, duplicate prints of home movies were made with reversal film, positive to positive. One give-away clue (sometimes) that a reel of film was a duplicate was the white leader, which was also film, not the actual white leader material on an original film. Duplicate films that I've seen are very contrasty compared to an original.

Posted by Buck Bito (Member # 2676) on March 12, 2018, 08:00 PM:

I'll support Maurice and Ty on this. We see occasional reversal dupe material. The service was offered by Kodak labs among others in the U.S.A. and it was most often a contact print so you'll find the B-wind camera original was run emulsion-to-emulsion to an A-wind duplicate. For best results scan it tails-to-head so the emulsion is facing the digital imager to get a slightly sharper image and then reverse the motion and flip horizontally and vertically to correct orientation digitally. It always shows a significant contrast build-up and loss of sharpness, but scanning the emulsion rather than through the base helps a little.

Posted by Maurizio Di Cintio (Member # 144) on March 12, 2018, 08:24 PM:

I once came across ayellow box the usual size of a regular 50' reel, with the usual Kodak graphics: that was a dupe made by Kodak, the box itself, if I recall properly, bore such a nomenclature. And yes there was a slight increas ein contrast and grain although nothing terrible - I guess that stock was optimized for such type of work (positive to positive).

Posted by Dan Esmond (Member # 3975) on March 12, 2018, 09:43 PM:

Thanks everyone. I'll call this little mystery solved. May try scanning it again back to front to see if that improves it at all.

I'd never have thought to suspect it was a duplicate without that "Eastman Rev Color" edge code. Kind of surprised there isn't more info here and on the web about edge codes--they can reveal quite a bit of useful info!

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on March 13, 2018, 03:52 AM:

I had a 50 ft reel duplicated by Kodak in the 1970s. It was on Kodachrome but as it was a contact copy the emulsion was on the other side so could not be cut into or put on the same reel as a camera film due to the change of focus.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on March 13, 2018, 06:16 AM:

Just been looking at Pathescope's April 1953 price list wherein they advertised their copying service for 9.5mm home movies.
Positive prints from positive prints could be supplied at a cost of 10/- per 30ft length.
To those unfamiliar with 10/- (ten shillings) this equates to £0.50.

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on March 13, 2018, 10:10 AM:

I had a few of my super 8 edited films duplicated back around 1980. I believe the work was done by Superior Bulk Film Co. The results weren't bad, but not as good as the originals. On the plus side, the copies were free of the many original splices...

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on March 13, 2018, 11:55 AM:

Yes. The Pathescope price list said that additional charges might be made to renew defective splices before copying.

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