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It is a self imposed insanity! There is a print of a favorite feature on Super 8, but the pain is that, in the case of a number of Super 8 providers, the various reels were often printed at various film labs AND on various film stocks, so, while your reel one of, let's say, "Cat Ballou" is an perfect color Agfa print, the final four reels are on quick fade Eastman. Now, it turns out that reels 2,3,4 and 5, were printed by other labs and happen to be printed on Agfa or other low fade film stock, so, while you would save your sanity and a hell of a lot O money, you insanely buy print after print of the feature, in a sometimes futile search for the "perfect print"! So, are any of my fellow collectors infected with this insanity? 😀
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Not for me in the way you mean, Ossie.
My problem is more like having reels 1 & 2 and holding out to find reel 3 that never seems to surface. A classic example of this was years ago when I bought reels 2,3,4,& 5 of Casablanca. Reel 6 ( the one with about 20' of film on it..... I exaggerate but it was very little) did surface one time in an auction but went for a silly price. The net result is that years down the line, I managed to get the full feature, but my original "white box" purchases from Derann are actually better than my "new" feature. But at last, I had it full length on super 8 ! A few years later I was even able to bag a 16mm copy of it ! It is very strange, but films are like buses. If you are waiting for one, it takes ages..... then they all come at once!
C'est la vie !
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Sort of related to this Osi, but I have a weird childhood affinity with the 60’s Day of the Triffids.
Now all of the DVD / broadcast masters are just terrible; good colour but a smudgy mess.
Sadly it looks like we’ll never see an HD master.
Since buying the Mountain films super 8 400 footer when I was about 10, I’ve never seen another version match this for picture detail, even being pan & scan.
Over the years I learned that Mountain released a multitude of extracts and abridged feature / full feature in just about every conceivable super 8 version.
And the quality would also vary enormously from one extract to another.
So it became a bit of a mission to build up versions from various extracts (the full scope feature colour was never great).
I now have a 2x600ft pan & scan and a 4x400ft scope version. Both vary from bad to average to really good, but of course in different parts of movie, so both have merit.
To an outsider this probably looks like the pursuit of a madman (could be actually!!) but that’s what makes it a hobby not a pastime.Comment
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Regarding Day of the Triffids I'm afraid there may never be a HD as the man who owned the original 35mm negative passed away. Here is a short snippet from Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/aThousandCu...7322275451240/
I knew Mike and worked with him on a few projects. Last time I saw him he didn't look that good. We were at a 'garage sale' of shorts for some 16mm prints from someone who had just passed away.Comment
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Yes, I remember that Larry. Forgive me but I’m not on Facebook, so do we know what happened to the negative?
It does seem that finding good master for this title is next to impossible.Comment
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The Columbia features are notorious for this, the before mentioned "Cat Ballou", but other companies could be just as bad about that. I once had a print of "All in a Nights Work", reel 2 was a lovely Agfa, picture perfect, ( especially for a 60's comedy), but reels 1, 3 and 4? Yuck!Comment
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According to Jeff Joseph of the 35mm forum "I'm 99% sure that all of Mike's film will wind up at the Academy Film Archive."Originally posted by Rob Young View Post
Since I have heard anything about what happened to the negative.Comment
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