8mm Forum: Why were films so expensive in the mass market days?

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Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on January 09, 2013, 08:08 PM:

In the 'Captain America' thread, a member made the interesting point that although it seemed an expensive release, the price is about the same as what was charged, taking inflation into account, in the mass market days of the late 1970s. Of course nowadays, far higher prices than what we became used to in the 1980s and 90s are understandable, but I wonder why prices were so high in an era were distributors were ordering and selling in bulk and there was competition between distributors and labs which might have helped to keep prices down. Did film collecting have to be such an expensive hobby in those days, due to factors such as the price of fim stock, or were distributors taking advantage of customers?

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on January 09, 2013, 08:56 PM:

I think Adrian,that when S/8 was at it's height,just before video
took off,the companies were rather pushihg it with their recommended retail prices and what they were actually being
sold for.A friend of mine at the time had bought "Where Eagles
Dare" from Walton Films and actually paid £42.00 per part, he
was hoping to sell it to me for £100.00 and was not too happy
when told that the same film could be obtained for about £50.00
from Lees Cameras.So I do think that some of the firms were
being cheeky.I found that the German prints were very expensive, but the Italian films were very reasonable,horses for
courses,you paid your money and took your choice.
Derann I feel were a very competitive company and did try to
give value for money, not on trade ins, as a lot of folks I have
spoken to at Blackpool echoed.They did understand business
though and won points on breaking up the cost of a film over
a set period in instalments when the cost of a film was a few hundred pounds.Now, I don't think I could justify paying these
high sums for new film releases, it would have to be a film I
really wanted, or wait for a 16mm copy.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on January 09, 2013, 09:38 PM:

Adrian, I am surprised your questioning this. I though you were brought up in that era.

I was exactly questioning the same question here long time ago and was always surprised people spending $55 for 400' films (16 - 17 minutes show).

Now, (not to consider the inflation rate) no one will spend for a full feature on BluRay for that much money. In fact $55 in 1978 is equal to $150 at today's money.

But I believe that is not solely blamed to the price of film stock but also copyrights and exclusivity.

That was the reason why films coming from Italy would be cheaper, because many of them were "Jack Sparrow"

Exclusivity is another thing. Let us see the price of a Betamax (or LaserDisc) when it was released first time. It was reaching $175 too. During that time, having super 8mm, Betamax, or VHS was considered high. Only certain people could have it.

Posted by Larry Arpin (Member # 744) on January 09, 2013, 09:57 PM:

From what I remember, which is stretching it at my age, the double row super 8 film stock from Kodak was about 7 cents per foot. I think I paid around 5 cents per foot for developing. So that is 12 cents per double foot divided by 2 is 6 cents per foot for single row of super 8. Multiply that by say 350 feet, what a normal 400 foot reel holds, and that is $21. And that doesn't include recording. I remember prices for reels from Ken Films were 40% of retail. $50 for a 400 foot reel retail comes to $30. $9 profit for Ken Films. I'm sure Ken Films got a break for ordering multiple prints but not a whole lot less. Ronald Knorr is still around and may remember what he paid. Or he might have old records.

Posted by Manuel Tapia (Member # 3249) on January 09, 2013, 11:03 PM:

Even the cost of the film, if you sell DVD at 10 USD and you have a gain of 2 USD per movie, if you sell 1000 movie per month, you will gain 2000 USD per month, but if you sell FILM how many film do you will sell per month ? 50? , 100? to gain the same money per month if you sell 100, per film you need to gain 20 USD, add the cost of the produce a film (Chemicals,Negative, film, etc.) plus it is a hobby of antiques and day by day more project die, film lose in atics, basement or trash.

I'm not just collect 8mm, i'm a fan of any type of movies Laserdisc, HD DVD, VHS, DVD, Blurays. i think the most expensive are the Super 8 then Laserdisc then VHS at last DVD, HD DVD today is very cheap because is not vintage yet is just old and discontinued.

My 2 Cents !!

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