8mm Forum: Super 8

This is topic Super 8 - Movie in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 07, 2016, 12:03 PM:

Watching "Super 8" (2011) on British TV recently I was surprised that the young film-makers did not pop their exposed roll of Super 8 Ektachrome 160 in the post to a local Kodak lab. I assume that Kodak film sold in the 70s included processing as in the UK.

However, they took the film to a local photo dealer who presumably sent the film to Kodak, because we saw the returned yellow envelopes when the processed film was collected a few days later.

Is this just professional movie "licence", or would photo dealers have accepted a film for processing as was shown?

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on August 07, 2016, 12:49 PM:

Back in those days any place that processed stills accepted movies too. You could drop them off at camera shops, drugstores and many supermarkets too. I would imagine most of the time even if they processed still prints on-site they farmed more unusual things like movies and slides out to central labs.

My favorite processer was Fotomat: these little concrete kiosks out in the middle of many shopping center parking lots. At the beginning I had to go there on my bike because I hadn't gotten a driver's license yet. As late as 1982 I showed up with my first cartridge of black and white Super-8, only to find out they'd stopped processing that only two months before. E-160, and K-40 were still a day to day thing there for years.

Mailers were common too. A local department store did a sale a couple of times a year: a cartridge of K-40 and a mailer for a lab in Connecticut for like $4. Mom cleared space in the bottom of the fridge and I bought everything I could.

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on August 07, 2016, 12:56 PM:

Maurice,
I had mine sent out by my local camera shops from the 1960s until 1988, just like in that film. Partly because I didn't trust it through the regular USPS mail. Too many items were being "lost in the mail", and there wasn't good tracking data back then like there is now...

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on August 07, 2016, 01:06 PM:

Box 14, Welwyn Garden City, Herts.
I remember it well, particularly the sound of that returned reel of processed film plopping through the front door letter box.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on August 07, 2016, 01:31 PM:

I remember it well!

Back then my only machine was a Kodak Moviedeck. That pull-out screen meant I didn't have to wait until dark to see my newly arrived footage, and I rarely did!

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 07, 2016, 01:59 PM:

So, US Kodak movie film purchase also included the processing?

Posted by Dave Groves (Member # 4685) on August 07, 2016, 02:50 PM:

Everything I bought came with processing included and, if it was Kodak, it was the little yellow Hemel Hempstead envelope. Even 9.5 had it's Pathescope processing envelope. I don't ever remember being able to take films to any local shops for processing. I seem to recall that 'Gratispool' sold a film (Super 8?) cartridge that you sent to them for processing and got one back free with the processed film. I never took up their cine film offer but did on occasion use their 35mm films.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 07, 2016, 02:57 PM:

Dave
My question was to one of our U.S. members, as I was well aware that the cost of Kodak cine film in the U.K. included processing.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on August 07, 2016, 03:49 PM:

The interesting thing about it was that Kodachrome was such a market dominant product that Kodak was cited in an anti-trust action. The end result was that Kodak couldn't sell Kodachrome process-paid in the US. (I'm not sure about other Kodak films, though.)

-even if they got the lion's share of the color film market, it gave the other guys a crack at the processing.

I bought plenty of Kodak film with mailers in the 70's and 80's, just never Kodak mailers. (They were available separately.)

By the early 2000s this started to seem kind of silly and Kodak was allowed to sell process-paid Kodachrome in the US again.

At the time I had a film-friend in the UK I was in contact with almost daily by e-mail. We discovered that the US Kodachrome price was a little more than half what he paid. We were hatching a scheme for him to buy packages of ten cartridges through me and I'd ship them over. Unfortunately he became terminally ill before we pulled it off.

We got the same mailer as the rest of the World, and to the very end it still said "Kodak Processing not available in the United States".

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on August 07, 2016, 11:24 PM:

Due to anti-monopoly law, the Kodak in US could not sell with processing included.

The idea was whatever the price that Kodak decided to sell those films, it would have a sum part of processing cost. This means, Kodak had set a rule all Kodak films must be processed by Kodak. For some people they wanted to choose other labs which would not be possible with this processing included envelope.

So Kodak sold PK59 envelope for those wanted to process the films at their lab.

PK59 envelope was never expired no matter you bought it in 1970 or 1990 they will act the same (although the price must be different due to the inflation rate).

So in 2010-2012, I always bought any left over PK59 and sent it to Dwayne. Some envelopes were sold for $2 at Ebay.

Dwayne only asked for shipping cost to return my films, while their lab's cost was already actually $12 at that time.

In 2013 Kodak stopped the PK59 contract and whoever still had these envelopes can forward to Kodak store and get replacement of their products. I sent about 2-3 envelopes and received 4 rechargeable batteries and charger as the compensation

ps: the idea of anti-monopoly in the USA for Kodak was now followed in some countries in Europe where Microsoft is not allowed to bundle the price of Internet Explorer. People must be given a free choice to use any browser in their computers. So it is similar like that.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 08, 2016, 02:39 AM:

Thank you, gentlemen, that does now make it clear.

The very last time I used my camera with Super 8 Kodachrome KMA was in 2000. At that time our local Boots the Chemists were selling the process paid films. But, before long, they stopped selling such movie films.

I started using video in VHS compact cassettes and never returned to Super 8 film as I suppose most other people did the same.

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