Super 8 feature film lengths?

[Jerry Coker]

Thank you Doug and Eivind for the replies. I'm a bit of a history buff, so reading/learning about the release of film is really interesting to me. We are always learning 😀 Thank you Doug for the lesson. Eivind, thank you for the summary and stats. I think I will buy a digest/feature of a film I really like, and see what I think. Also, I'm guessing eventually I may want to get a Super 8 projector with sound too 😀 Thanks again for the replies!

[Eivind Mork]

When you look at old catalogs, you will very often see multiple different releases of the same film. It could be with different lengths (for example 400' and 200'), different sound settings (silent/sound/stereo) or different color settings (color or b/w). When I see the covers I receive to add on Super8database, most of them are with sound, but when I read catalogs, there are many silent ones too. I guess the ones with sound has survived better through the years.

Here are the statistics from Super8database:
silent - 1680
sound - 4480
optical - 7
stereo - 93

Keep in mind that these numbers are not necessarily representative for the true numbers released, as many have been added when I receive a cover and at the time I did not know if there were other releases too. I therefore suspect that the true number of silent releases are higher. The numbers may change as we have more time to go through catalogs to add all films, with or without a cover. But as you can see, there were many silent Super 8's released.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Jerry,

Castle Films started selling Standard 8mm magnetic sound versions of their digest films in 1961. Previous to that, only their 16mm releases were available with sound. The 16mm & 8mm silent versions used title cards or subtitles when necessary to convey the story. As for features, other companies released a number of feature films in Standard 8mm sound.









Castle and other distributors put out Super 8mm silent versions in 1966. A year later they started releasing their Super 8mm films with sound.

For amatuer home movie use, Fairchild manufactured the Cinephonic Standard 8mm sound camera in 1960. After the introduction of Super 8mm, that camera disappeared. Kodak released the first Super 8mm sound camera in 1973.

[Jerry Coker]

Hello, a bit of a follow up question, how common is silent Super 8 film, both for feature & home movies? The reason I ask is that I see some Super 8 films with no sound. Same with projectors. I thought Super 8 was heavily marketed as sound film since previous to that, 8mm film did not have sound, I think. Sorry for my ignorance. I'm still learning 😀 Thank you.

[Jerry Coker]

Thank you for this additional search criteria for the database. I will try it tonight!

[Eivind Mork]

Thank you so much for the kind words! It makes me very happy to see all the work I and Greg has put into this, with the help of many contributors, being appreciated by collectors! It motivates me to continue! So thank you! :-)

[Rob Young]

Eivind, the super8database really is a tremendous source of information and a real labour of love for super 8 fans.

I can spend ages looking around there!

So grateful for this constantly evolving website.

[Eivind Mork]

I you go to https://super8database.com and and writes "tag:feature" in the search field, you get all the films marked as a feature. We also have a tag "abridged" that goes for releases with at least half of the content (search for "tag:abridged"). Digests are anything shorter than half of the full feature (search for "tag:digest"). We set these tags to the best of our knowledge.

If you don't remember how to search specifically for features later, just click on "Tags" in the menu, find "feature" and then click on "List all films". It will make this search for you.

For any search result you can narrow down the result by using the filter on the left side (on a desktop - or clicking the filter button on a mobile), or you can add to the search text

If you look specifically for 3x400 abridged, you can search for "tag:abridged reels:3x400". You can also search by distributor: "tag:feature distributor:derann". And combine it with the year the film was made. Let's say you want features from the 70s released by Derann, then search for "tag:feature distributor:derann year:1970-1979" (you can search by year with the filter function, so you don't need to remember the magic search patterns).

The search function is quite powerful if you know how to use it. If you have questions or very complex queries to the dataset, do not hesitate to contact me, and I will help you.

Any search result can be downloaded as a spreadsheet. Just click on the download button below the search field after searching.

You can also download the entire database as a spreadsheet if you like (https://super8database.com/api/v1/films.xlsx). This way you can manipulate the list as you like to get a list of what you look for.

Keep in mind that the database is not complete. We have more than 6200 films, and more than 100 distributors, but many films have not yet been registered, although add more films regularly.

[Jerry Coker]

Thanks for all the replies, info. & links. I've got some S8 film research to do now, looking at existing titles! And that is a good thing 😊 I also appreciate the history lesson on S8 film. Most of my experience is with 8mm home movies & some 16mm sport shorts. I will be referring back to this thread a lot. Thank you!

[Janice Glesser]

I have come to appreciate digests more and more as time goes on. Where else can you get the best scenes from your favorite movies in 20 minutes.

I agree Paul. I tend to pull out 2 or 3 digests to watch at one sitting. Love seeing the best parts of more than one movie.

[Paul Adsett]

I have come to appreciate digests more and more as time goes on. Where else can you get the best scenes from your favorite movies in 20 minutes.

[Osi Osgood]

Jerry, you live in a world with hundreds or perhaps thousands of channels. Back when these came out, there were only three networks and the occasional UHF channel, and sometimes channel 12. The only way you could see a Hollywood feature film, was to either go to the movie theater, or luck out and see it on one of the networks, and videotape wouldn't really come out for the average person until the late 70's early 80's, so, seeing your favorite scenes from a Hollywood film in your own home, was a wonderful treat.

[Greg Perry]

Another helpful website to spend some time on: www.super8database.com

It lists over 6,000 Super 8 films of various lengths--including full-length features. If you enter "3x600" in the Search box you will get a number of feature-length titles, many from Derann. Do the same for 4x600, 5x600, 6x600, 7x600 and 8x600 and you will see additional feature-length films that were distributed on 600 ft. reels. You can do the same type of search for films sold on 400 ft. reels. For example: 5x400, 6x400... etc. As advised by others here, prior to purchasing something one does need to confirm if it is indeed the full-length feature or a slightly abridged version as the length of a feature can obviously vary.

[Melvin England]

Beautifully put, Rob. I think between the two of us we have just about nailed it, notwithstanding the other fine contributions made on this topic.

[Rob Young]

EDIT - Just posted this as Melvin added his reply with his very useful info!

Hi Jerry. It's probably worth putting things into context. The height of popularity for the 400ft / 15-20 minute edited version of super 8 feature films was probably the 1970's. At this point home video wasn't a reality for most and wouldn't really arrive until the early 1980's.

On the other hand, lots of people owned a super 8 projector for making home movies. Add to that film was still expensive. So a relatively affordable "digest" versions of big movies from the era proved popular. Put them in attractive packaging and sell them through the multitude of photographic retail shops and catalogues that existed and soon you could have a variety of the latest big titles with which to play in your "home cinema".

Of course some feature length versions were available on super 8, but expensive. And standard 8 edited versions of movies had long been available before that (as well as features).

The content and ways in which the editors told the story in limited run times is well documented here on the forum, both great, average and just plain bad.

As a 9 year old back in 1980, to be able to watch films such as Star Wars, Alien, The Empire Strikes Back, etc. on a fairly large screen at home was just heaven, even if the run time was about 17 minutes, or longer if you could afford the different extracts available. And remember no VHS or Beta at home yet.

I think most distributors saw these package movies as promotional material and were happy to license titles to third party companies such as Ken Films, who paid, say, 20th Century Fox for the privileged.

And companies such as Universal 8 who bought Castle Films and produced their own package movies saw it all as extra revenue, without fully releasing the whole movie into the private hands of the collector.

But even in the 80's Universal 8, Marketing Films (Paramount product) did sell licensed full length versions.

In the UK Derann and Walton movies amongst others produced 400ft versions / 2 x 400ft versions, but also released full length versions for those with the cash (although it does get a little confusing many were edited down to 1 hour versions on 4 x 400ft spools for cost / licensing considerations).

When video took hold in the 80's and full length movies became available to rent or buy at a fraction of the cost of film (also add in the cost of silver situation going on at that time) super 8 package movies almost vanished as they no longer made sense to the average consumer.

This is where companies such as Derann saved the day and continued with super 8 releases. Although I think it's fair to say that they struggled to obtain rights with studios who often didn't understand that a demand still existed, or who were terrified of piracy in the "new" video age. In the 80's, 30 minute / 1 hour edits of classic / popular films were made available to cater to the home cinema connoisseur appreciated the film quality above that of video, but still had the cost of a print to consider.

And through the 80's and 90's, full length super 8 features became more popular with collectors as the quality really still outshone video projection of that era. Although it is probably fair to say that the market became increasingly niche (albeit sustainable) as it became more of a hobby rather that a pass time and a quite pricey one at that.

I know that is a very potted history and one thing I've come to realize over a lifetime of collecting super 8 is the that there are still surprises about what was released / by who and when.