8mm Forum: World On Parade

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Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on July 02, 2016, 11:50 AM:

I have two 200' World On Parade series joined together on a 400' spool. They are optical sound and carry a British Airways plane and logo. Obviously designed to sell certain products to air travellers.

The 400' plastic case contains the existing paper cover for a 200' release. Printed on it are "Super 8" and "Great Films For Super 8 Collectors." Details are typewritten. "World On Parade No 1 - Kitchen On Wheels, Hotels Of France, Famous WWII Spitfire fighter plane, Yankee Traders, The World of Nissan."

This starts the reel, then at half-way, a second reel follows which contains:- Ford Sierra XR4i, Hertz Rentacar, Bank of America, Marlboro Cigarettes.

Does anybody have any info on these, such as how many were issued, what UK dealer issued them. Also, what issue number is my second film?

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 02, 2016, 04:40 PM:

I did have one of these and it was quite good quality to, mine also had the Nissan cars promo but this one was advertising as Datsun and promoting the brand changing the name to Nissan, there was a short look at London and a Marlborough cigarettes message, although you didn't know it until the end of the piece as the run up was actually about the American breed of horse of the west, The mustang. i sold this one on but now wish i kept it. The optical side of my projector had extremely low sound output and as i only had two or three optical sound films i just didn't want to spend the money for such few movies. [Wink]

Posted by David Roberts (Member # 197) on July 03, 2016, 03:46 AM:

I have the second reel you describe Maurice,and the quality is good,very sharp,though some colour fade.
its the only optical print in my collection,and I was surprised how good the sound is,though I no longer have an st1200 to show it on.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on July 03, 2016, 10:51 AM:

Tom & David.
Were your films in an original box? If so, who was the distributor?

Posted by David Roberts (Member # 197) on July 03, 2016, 11:00 AM:

just a plain white box Maurice,so not much help!

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on July 04, 2016, 12:11 PM:

These were sold by Derann at a similar time to when they had the deal to offer optical prints of 'Pale Rider, 'Sudden Impact', etc. I don't think they had many, so it's quite possible that your reel combines the only two they offered.

Posted by Dave Groves (Member # 4685) on July 04, 2016, 01:59 PM:

I've also got a 400ft reel with World of....West/Service/Banking/
Flying/Cars and enjoyment. It's hardly been run and the sound on my Fumeo is surprisingly good given the tiny track. Sadly, like so many others, the colour has faded. Derann sold copies of 'Popeye' with optical sound from Film Office and I seem to recall Powell films had 'Sands of Iwo Jima' and one or two others. At one time I had the complete feature 'Chariots of Fire' but some fool had left a brown sludge on the print and joined up the last 20 mins back to front. I could never understand why the powers that be went up the magnetic sound route. I can understand the importance of being able to record one's own sound on Home movies but why the reluctance to issue cinema films with optical sound? Cheaper to produce machines without perhaps or was it simply the quality of the sound?. Can someone enlighten me?

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on July 05, 2016, 02:38 AM:

Most optical Super 8 prints originated from use by airlines. I believe that optical sound was used for these as it was considered that the airplane's electronics might upset, or even erase, magnetic sound tracks.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 05, 2016, 11:37 AM:

I have the second of those two World on Parade releases and yes, the quality is very good, color is still vintage. interesting little bits O history!

There are so many little curious of the optical sound super 8 world nd in large part, they have held up well.

Disney, columbia ect. did the optical sound 200ft reklease route in limited fashion. However, i fopund that the 200ft Disney digests that they released were sharper as an optical sound print, than the very same release with magnetic sound, but then there is the "rub' in that these were released before the days of LPP or extensive use of Agfa for film stocks, hence, most of these have color fade, but in most cases, still quite watchable.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on July 05, 2016, 02:31 PM:

I only have an optical sound advert from an airline reel, bought at a Derann open day.
I remember when an optical sound Disney short was shown at a convention it was suggested these were mainly for arcade or store machines to keep young children occupied.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on July 05, 2016, 02:48 PM:

In answer to Dave's earlier question here regarding why optical tracks were not chosen over magnetic ones for the commercial film market on Super 8mm, well it is simply because magnetic tracks offer a far superior quality of sound over a wider range of frequencies than optical sound ever could.

Also with an optical track, you would never have sampled Stereo sound films either.

The following video which I think has already been posted here before as well as elsewhere within the film community highlights this very fact at one point...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBQ0_tOAyJQ

Posted by Dave Groves (Member # 4685) on July 05, 2016, 04:06 PM:

Thanks Andrew for a most interesting link. Felt quite nostalgic when I saw the Derann processing machines.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 06, 2016, 11:59 AM:

Although I dearly love my super 8 optical sound collection, Andrew is right, magnetic sound offers much higher fidelity and stereo capability, of course.

I will add, however, that there were 16MM sound stereo prints made. However, i do not know if these were/are optical sound or magnetic sound 16MM.

Posted by Dave Groves (Member # 4685) on July 11, 2016, 03:55 AM:

Osi, I've heard it said several times that 16mm Stereo prints were made but no-one seems to have any info about them or any machines capable of playing them.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 12, 2016, 01:15 PM:

From my recolection, only Eiki EX-6100 and EX-9100 were equipped for stereo playback, having stereo solar cells.

These are some 16MM films that were released with stereo sound ...

TWILGHT ZONE
ROMANCING THE STONE
IL CAVALIERE PALLIDO
COCOON
2001
FRATELLI NELLA NOTTE
GANDHI
THE JEWEL OF NILE
GOONIES
GREYSTOKE
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THIRD KIND
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR
KRULL
LEGEND
MAD MAX
MISSION
OCTOPUSSY
SOTTO TIRO
THUNDER BLUE
URLA DEL SILENZIO
WARGAMES

Judging by some of these Italian named films, I think this might have been an 'Italian" craze and not much elsewhere. We have a series of posts on this subject on a seperate film forum that I moderate on, but out of respect for this forum, i won't advertise for it on here. [Smile]

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on July 12, 2016, 06:11 PM:

Just try finding any...or anything to use them on that will fit in a normal sized home! [Wink]

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