8mm Forum: Silence of the Lambs

This is topic Silence of the Lambs in forum 8mm Print Reviews at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Alan Rik (Member # 73) on March 23, 2012, 02:54 AM:

I just received this print from one of our forum members.
I tried to watch just reel one..its now 3:30am and I finished the whole feature!
The print quality is stunning. The colors are dead on, the sharpness is perfect. The sound is in stereo and at parts a little distorted but for the most part very good.
This is a Derann print and truly..one of the best I have ever seen. No washed out scenes...just perfect. If this film is your cup of tea...and its mine...try to get it when you see it. You will be amazed. One of the few films I can think of where I never once went to touch the focus. Wow!

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on March 23, 2012, 07:00 AM:

Glad you got the film OK Alan,I'll bet the family and neighbours
loved you,cannibalism and carnage in the wee small hours.
As long as you're happy with your print,I'm glad it got there safe.

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on March 23, 2012, 08:56 AM:

Isn't it just terrific when you deal with people you know and can trust rather than chancing on a comlete stranger. This is why I love this forum. Just good people enjoying a great hobby together. God Bless It!

Posted by Akshay Nanjangud (Member # 2828) on March 23, 2012, 10:04 AM:

Lucky you, Alan. [Smile]

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on March 23, 2012, 03:10 PM:

Dr. Lecter is easily the creepiest character I've ever seen. Who needs Dracula or Frankenstein's monster when this guy is around! Of course what makes him worse is he's a lot closer to real life than those others. Placed in the comparison to the Dahmers and Rippers of the world he aint that outrageous!

I let a print of "The Small One" sit six months on the shelf so I could show it for the first time to Christmas company. I guess "Silence" is best for Halloween!

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on March 23, 2012, 03:15 PM:

Glad to hear you got such a great print. I ordered one as soon as it was released but although the definition and colour were fine, the print had what looked like some sort of wet gate marks that appeared or disappeared every so often. I changed it for another but the replacement was no better, so I gave up and had a different feature instead. I expect other prints in the first batch were the same, so there could be quite a few in circulation with this flaw.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on March 23, 2012, 04:27 PM:

Hi Adrian,my own copy has lab marks,but Derek did say it had
them and sold it much reduced.on an 8' screen,when sat well
back it's fine and doesn't detract from the film.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 24, 2012, 01:03 PM:

I thought this was a great film as well, but I was put off by the revelation or "revealing" of the fella being a little less than, well, a fella. Actually, hell, if I was to splice out that one short bit, (which I personally felt to not really be necessary to the story), I would have this film in my collection because it really is great modern example of the genre, and a "thinking mans" (in my opinion) version of the "gore" or perhaps "Horror" picture.

Posted by Chris Fries (Member # 2719) on March 25, 2012, 05:14 PM:

Osi, are you talking about when Ted Levine dances to "Goodbye Horses"? When he tucks his penis between his legs to pretend he is a woman? Director Jonathan Demme said that scene revealed the "heart of the character". It shows why he is making what he is making. And that is sooooo creepy.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on March 25, 2012, 07:06 PM:

Tucking it between his legs,It's bad enough having to tuck it into
your sock.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 25, 2012, 07:38 PM:

"sock" HAH!!!

Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on March 26, 2012, 09:48 AM:

The "built-in" lab marks are on all prints unfortunately, but I don't think that stops most collectors fully enjoying this...can we call it a "classic" yet?

The thing I remember most about this 8mm version is that Derann made it available only a few months after the theatrical release.

These days, with Blu-ray versions of films available less than 3 months following the theatrical release, it's easy to forget that back in the early 90's, it was amazing to get a super 8 version of a film released in the last few years.

To get a super 8 release of a movie from that same year was just astounding and something to get really excited about. I bet Derek and all at Derann were very proud of this one! [Smile]

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on March 26, 2012, 11:40 AM:

Sorry to have to disagree there Rob,but the copy I have has lab
marks and was sold as substandard by Derek at a much reduced
price.The print I have just sold on was excellent print quality as
Alan says in his enthusiastic review.Their were a lot of occasions
where collectors had prints of films long before the film reached
local cinemas,I remember having the Marketing print German
sound of "KING KONG"months before it hit my local (I was living
in my home town of Whitehaven at the time) also with the 200'
extract of "STAR WARS",my living room echoed to the sound
of my mates shooting down TIE fighters after a session in the
pub.long before it was shown at the local flea pit "NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES" hit the 8mm scene about the same time as the cinemas.A stand out release being the
excellent "TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE" which wasn't granted
a national release outside of certain boroughs in London.That
film was a perennial favourite with the boys.Even "THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD" wasn't that far behind the cinemas when
the separate four extracts were released.

Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on March 26, 2012, 12:12 PM:

Fair enough, Hugh, though even Keith Wilton's first review of this print mentions a "small white hair visable in picture for a while at one point"...I must have been unlucky in the prints I've seen. Good to know there are "perfect" copies out there! [Smile]

Still, in the 90's, it was great to see a full length release of a modern feature; I agree that previous super 8 extracts could beat the theatrical release to the UK, but surely this was one of the first full length movies to arrive on super 8 so soon after the theatrical?

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on March 26, 2012, 01:22 PM:

Hi Rob,to repeat what Derek said regarding Keith went something
like "I think he watches them through a bloody microscope",he
was laughing at the time,but I can't recall seeing a hair on either
of the prints I viewed,to be fair on the better print I sold I was
more interested in looking for any marks before sale.The man to ask is Alan.Regarding release dates,well what about "Romancing the Stone"was that not also a close contender, I could be wrong.

Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on March 26, 2012, 01:38 PM:

LOL! [Smile]

I can almost imagine Derek saying it! [Smile]

But Keith was, as he is now, our own "quality control" expert!

Well, as I said, I take it back and I'm so glad that good prints are out there...Alan sure enough sounds very happy!

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on March 26, 2012, 03:55 PM:

Rob,there's nothing to take back,we're all sharing info and having
fun,I hope.What about "SPEED",was that not hot on the heels of
it's cinema release,it isn't one in my collection,but Derek did seem to go for modern stuff.He did tell me that he wasn't really that
into Disney,so he can't have been all bad.As for Keith,he has done
a lot for this hobby,and no doubt he was a pain in the arse to
many,but it's through people like him and the late Paul Van
Someren that got onto companies to release better product
instead of, and I quote "something that has been developed
in the miracle ingredient of brown ale"

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on March 27, 2012, 08:15 AM:

It would be interesting to know precisely how close to the theatrical release the 'fastest to appear' Derann features were, but someone would need to undertake quite a bit of research - although IMDB is good for release dates.

I'd be surprised if any feature was quicker than 'Silence', though, I recall first hearing the announcement at a Derann Open Day and being amazed as a result of having seen it in the cinema only a few weeks earlier. I recall remarks from someone at Derann that indicated that the release was also something of a surprise for them. They didn't have a deal with Orion, but because of a link between Orion and Rank (presumably Rank were handling Orion product in the UK) they felt there was no harm in asking Rank about the possibility of releasing Orion product, but they weren't very confident they would receive a positive reply.

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on March 27, 2012, 12:45 PM:

I attended the 8mm premiere at Derann's New Year two day event in 1992. (Adrian, were you there?)
The atmosphere was terrific and although I didn't notice any of the defects mentioned I did spot a boom mike coming into frame at one point.
Its one of my favourite films.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 27, 2012, 01:00 PM:

Could the boom mike be because this was a print taken from the "un-letterboxed" original ratio of the negative that was shot, and so some things that wouldn't appear in the theatrical presentation, would appear if no "letterboxing" was done?

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on March 27, 2012, 02:11 PM:

I'm sure there have been a few releases coinciding with cinema
schedules Adrian,as I was telling Rob.Can you remember back
in the 70s when there was this furore by a town council about
the film"Sex Life in a Convent",and they succeeded in getting
other councils to ban it,but the old Derek had already released
it on S/8 4x400 col/snd!

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on March 27, 2012, 04:00 PM:

Mal - no I'm afraid I missed that.
Osi - if a mike appears, I'm sure you're right. This happens on a different feature I have on 16mm and I sometimes tell an audience that the mic is no fault of the director!
Hugh - When saying that 'Silence' would be hard to beat in terms of speed of release, I was thinking of the full length features of the 80s and 90s, but it's interesting to hear how enterprising Derek was, even in relation to earlier less prestigious releases!

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on March 27, 2012, 04:46 PM:

Yes Osi, that's right. Derek mentioned it as well after the film ended.
A boom mike appears in another 8mm print 'The Devil Rides Out' when Charles Gray enters Paul Eddington's house.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on March 27, 2012, 05:27 PM:

Well the fact remains that a little exploitation film was out on
8mm while it's commercial equivalent was being effectively
banned simultaneously.As for speed of release,I've already said
that "Chain Saw"beats "Silence" in that the 8mm collector was
screening something that hadn't been seen by the public in the
UK outside of London,even though our American cousins could
view this film,we couldn't, which makes that release unique.I'm
sorry Adrian but two rank outsiders have beaten the favourite
by thirty odd years.Regarding boom mikes being visible in shot
there are scores of examples of this faux pas,there have been
plenty of TV shows highlighting this and more sloppy mistakes
which boils down to very bad film making.With all the means of instant picture recording on set, there are loads of continuity
mistakes including leaving plastic bottles of water in shot on
period film.Unforgivable,Renee Glynn and Tilly Day worked on
numerous films for Hammer,their work was exemplary and were renowned as the best in the business,and all they had were
note pads.

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on March 27, 2012, 07:20 PM:

Hugh - I'm certainly not arguing but in proposing 'Silence' as a likely candidate, I did refer to "the 'fastest to appear' Derann features" and I was thinking in terms of full length features. No disrespect at all to "Sex Life In A Convent", as clearly even an abridged feature of this was an audacious step in 8mm, but I suspect the distributor was extremely eager to at least get some exposure via Super 8, so I don't suppose it was very difficult or expensive for Derek to get the rights. It would be fascinating to know who had the job of editing it and how they approached it. As for 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', I recall a former Portland Films employee telling me that he hired the film from Perry's Movies whilst still at school, and he made an impressive profit. So many of his fellow pupils packed out a screening in his home (and paid for admission) that he needed to arrange another screening!

Posted by Ricky Daniels (Member # 95) on March 31, 2012, 03:48 AM:

Hi Osi,

You are correct.

The process is called 'shoot and protect' whereby a film is shot 'open frame' usually the full 35mm frame area in non-anamorphic and called Super 35mm, with the camera operator composing the Theatrical frame area viewed via an overlaid grid in the viewfinder. This grid can display various ratios but commonly 1.85:1 or even 2.35:1.

When printing for release the 1.85:1 images have 'hard matting' applied to the unwanted top and bottom of frame and the 2.35:1 Scope images are optically extracted and printed with the usual horizontal x2 squeeze and become 2.40:1 with the addition of optical and digital soundtracks. This method of filming in 2.35:1 is an alternative to using an anamorphic lens and somewhat similar to the original TechniScope type systems developed back in the 50/60's to avoid the need to buy new cameras or lenses or pay royalties to anamorphic lens manufactures.

The Super 35mm full frame image is supposed to be kept protected at the top and bottom of frame of anything irrelevant e.g. mics, lighting, camera dollies, etc. to allow a 4:3 TV version to be made from the Super 35mm full frame without the need to 'pan/scan' the Theatrical frame. However this format is not so common today with the roll out of widescreen TV and digital image sourcing.

The Super 35mm frame is nothing new because the full 35mm frame i.e. perforation to perforation and the maximum available frame height without encroaching into the next frame is the original 'Silent frame' used over 100 years ago.

So a mic in shot = shoddy camera work [Eek!]

Best,
Rick

[ April 01, 2012, 02:49 AM: Message edited by: Ricky Daniels ]

Posted by Alan Rik (Member # 73) on March 31, 2012, 07:18 AM:

I remember when I was a projectionist for Crest Film in Hollywood. We always had to make sure which gate we were supposed to use as Ricky says. The film was in 4:3 and then the gate would either make it 1:85, 2:1 or whatever they needed. And then the next thing was the framing. The first few things I projected for clients I could see the boom and they would yell in the booth.."Framing!". I learned pretty fast.
And this copy of Silence does have the 'boom" mic. Its actually kind of cool!

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on March 31, 2012, 08:30 AM:

I had the Marketing "Saturday Night Fever" in the 70's, and I always remember the boom mic in the scene in the last reel, when John Travolta enters Karen Gorny's apartment. Kept thinking that I was seeing things. It was masked out at the movie theater and I believe on TV as well, but showed up in the full-frame super8 print!

James.

Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on April 01, 2012, 02:40 PM:

[ April 02, 2012, 03:57 AM: Message edited by: Rob Young. ]

Posted by Burton Sundquist (Member # 5813) on June 03, 2018, 08:52 PM:

...I have wanted this one since I got back into collecting last year. I finally landed one, and screened it last night. It has the boom mike and "white hair" mentioned in this thread, though neither enough to distract from this compelling thriller.

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on June 04, 2018, 01:36 AM:

This is one ive always wanted to.great screen shots Burton. I remember reading how good this print was to look at. But could you clarify how good the sound on this film, does it suffer with the hiss that some of Deranns later releases did? How freqent are those "bumps or pops". I would assume this 90s release to have the oxide paste stripe like the madagasger penguines, the sound on that,while acceptable, is pretty poor compared to proper pre stripe stock.

Posted by Burton Sundquist (Member # 5813) on June 04, 2018, 01:31 PM:

Tom, thanks for your comments. The print has the regular brown magnetic stripe as opposed to the grey stuff I've heard of.
There are no pops or hissing. Rather the sound drops half volume for a few seconds on reel one and when the audio ( musical score ) peaks there is distortion. I will eventually have it re-recorded in Stereo.
But for now just pleased to finally have it

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on June 04, 2018, 03:37 PM:

sounds fine Burton, thank you for your reply. it certainly looks a fantastic looking print. [Wink]

Posted by Mark Mander (Member # 340) on June 04, 2018, 04:03 PM:

Nice looking print Burton,I had this but sold it,my print was very good,It had brown stripe that gave excellent results after recording so well worth doing,Mark

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 05, 2018, 11:11 AM:

GREAT screenashots Burton!

Getting back to that conversation about being shot 35MM and then being letterboxed for release (which is why the occasional "boom mike" and otherwise might appear) ...

On my super 8 optical sound print of "Greystroke: The legend of Tarzan" on the very last shot before the credits, you can clearly see on top and bottom the easel and such holding the matte painting in place. Someone has posted a picture from that moment somewhere here on the forum and if they know where it is, please post it on this series of posts?

Posted by Burton Sundquist (Member # 5813) on June 05, 2018, 10:22 PM:

...Thanks Tom, Mark and Osi. I am really impressed with this print. Here are a few more...

...Worth the wait and the price to me...

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on June 06, 2018, 04:51 PM:

They are lovely images that can be produced by a little tiny cell of 8mm.... AMAZING! [Wink]

cheers,

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 07, 2018, 10:31 AM:

I agree Winbert!!!

It's not the same film, and it has a pinking to the color, but we were just watching "Gorky Park' (super 8 optical sound feature) last night, and it's one of those truly pin sharp features with such an easy focus that no matter how big I blew it up, it was still very easy to watch!

"Silence" isn't one of my favorite films per se, but i always love seeing those great screenshots, and the screenshots do not due justice in nearly in any case, for just how good it looks actually watching the film in person!

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