Facebook post from Ged

[Larry Arpin]

For some reason I couldn't copy the text so I made a jpeg. Thought it was interesting about their last days at Derann:

[Maurice Leakey]

But, at least, we can always remember "The Good Old Days.
Thanks to Larry for this poignant piece from Ged to whom I often spoke on the 'phone.


Maurice

[Dominique De Bast]

Sad end

[Brian Fretwell]

I must admit that earlier that year I had gone into the shop twice (I was going to Netherton down the road and called in on the way there and back). Both times I was the only one in the shop. I bought a couple of Region 1 DVDs, but nothing else that day. They were really the wrong end of the High Street for passing trade on the TV/HiFi trade.

[Osi Osgood]

Could someone, perhaps retype this? I certainly cannot read it with my cellphone

[Simon McConway]

I shot some of that very last day on Super 8. I showed this a few years later at Blackpool. Then again at Big Screen Time. No, I don’t have a digital copy to upload before anyone asks!

[Steve Klare]

I remember 11th September, 2011: that night I reconstructed my 2002 screening setup and ran my original Derann prints in tribute to them. I even ran a 'scope film flat because I didn't have an anamorphic back then.

What's interesting is 2003 was just after I first became aware of Derann. I wondered how it could be that a company like that could exist in a world where Blackhawk and many others like it were long gone. It shows that even then the wolves were at the door. They just fought them off longer.

New prints are few and far between these days: it just makes them even more special.

[Chip Gelmini]

And yet another reason to remember a date so tragic in history: 9/11.

🙁

[Dominique De Bast]

Osi, it's like a picture : if you click on that part, you should be able to enlarge it on your screen (at least, it works with my phone).

[Ed Gordon]

Here is the the text. I ran the jpeg through OCR.

GED: A DERANN STORY - #97: CURTAIN

Spare parts for any make of projector was now becoming a serious problem and no new projector was forthcoming, a valiant effort from Classic Home Cinema to get a new machine onto the market proved fruitless. Raw film stock was also a problem and all pre-stripped film had long ceased manufacture. Yes, we'd installed our own striper, but by now this too was having its own issues and would often ruin whole batches of film! Buck Labs had ceased 8mm printing leaving the market to Film Lab North.

In 2003 I was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 and had to have a biopsy on my prostate, as it was greatly enlarged, they didn't find anything, but both conditions would need monitoring for life. Adrian, Derek's youngest son had been shop manager for some time, so he took over as Managing Director and together we struggled with the ever shrinking 8mm market and the dwindling shop sales as Dudley turned from a once bustling town into a series of streets, filled with charity, pound and boarded up shops, a ghost of it's former self, as ail the large stores closed and started trading at a vast shopping mall, just a mile or so away. We had tried for a number of years, selling both audio visual products and 8mm on the internet and had spent considerable sums on some good looking web sites, but the audio visual section never paid off. The recession of 2006/8 was a trying exorcise for every one, with 8mm film for many becoming a special, once in a while purchase and the audio visual sales in the shop diminished likewise. There was a meeting of the entire staff and it was agreed that everyone would take a ten percent cut in their wages, | was lucky as by now | had finished my mortgage payments, but some of the younger members of staff must have struggled. The striping machine needed constant attention and was standing unused more than it was in use, awaiting spares that were no longer manufactured, then Film Lab North announced the closure of their facilities! They shipped all our negatives back to us and we stored them in the stockroom/open-day cinema. With printing no longer available to us in Britain, efforts were made to establish a working relationship with Andec a German lab, but it wasn't an easy path and it never matured. With no new film titles forthcoming and the generally poor 8mm market, film sales could no longer support the almost non existent shop sales and in late July 2011 Adrian announced to the staff that he had been advised to go into voluntary liquidation. There was a two month period as we began to empty the premises and shop. Imagine if you can, a large skip, filled to over flowing with Disney and MGM negatives/sound-masters waiting for transportation to the local land fill, it was heartbreaking. The doors were closed for the final time on Sunday 11th of September, 2011.

...To be continued

[Osi Osgood]

Reading this is such a sadness to me, yet, I can't turn away. In some ways, it reminds me of the dawn of TV and the death of radio or, what it once was.

[Mike Newell]

Always find it amazing that from early 1980s to 2911 Derann kept going with releases. Says something for dedication of staff and collectors of that era. Even now with Jurassic Park you cant keep 8mm down.

[Larry Arpin]

I think because I have an old computer and cannot update my browsers I can't directly copy anything from Facebook. But here is a question I asked Ged about Andec and his answer.

[Graham Ritchie]

Folks I do hope you asked for Ged permission "as it really would be the right thing to do" regarding re-posting his articles from his Derann Facebook page as his settings are "Private" Only members can see who's in the group and what they post.

[Brian Fretwell]

More info about the Andec trouble - I'm sure Ged won't mind the info going here. Some of his articles like the "Derann story" are not only posted on the Derann group by him but to other groups or to friends as well.

"The big, big problem was Disney wouldn't allow us to move the negs out of the UK and MGM were undecided."