Star Wars - Who Printed What.

[Rob Young]

There seems to be some confusion around full length prints of Star Wars for sale recently.

Derann printed it full length in 1989. This version is full frame (cropped top and bottom) and was released 4 x 600ft in either mono or stereo versions.

Cineavison printed some 400ft versions of the Ken Part 2 extract (black bars each side to give full theatrical frame), but this was in the late 70's / early 80's. They haven't existed since then and most prints are faded.

Ken also printed some of their own 400ft Part 2 in full frame 'scope (cropped top and bottom), again late 70's / early 80's.

Kempski never printed Star Wars. Also, they went out of business in the 80's, with Derann taking over printing their negatives. Kempski was never associated with any Star Wars feature release.

Osi has a full length feature that is printed in the Cineavison style, although this was never an official release and certainly a rarity.

Cineavison was a company that existed in the late 70's and most of their 400ft product is now faded pink or red.

Kempski and Cineavsion, whilst having a business relationship, are not the same.

It appears that recent full length prints (ie. in the last few years) are from digital source.

I thought that recent threads had clarified the matter regarding Kempski and Cineavison, but it appears not.

[Lee Mannering]

Certainly not Dorun Rob.

[Tony Kelly]

I agree def not dorun but maybe a digital print however it looks good but im have to sell due to personal reasons

[Rob Young]

Lee, Tony, yes I unreservedly take that back; not a Dorun release. Apologies. I will remove that comment as it is incorrect.

But I would imagine produced from a digital source in much the same way as Lee’s prints are made?

[Lee Mannering]

Hope all goes well for you Tony and you get a good buyer. I know everyone including me loved the Derann print but the one you have is actually in a slightly wider ratio and so you see more image at the edges. We did a comparison a bit ago before I sold my beloved DR print which was pretty interesting at the time. We have some local Storm Troopers so I get to run my print quite a bit for the fans.

The A list titles will always gain value as we have seen in recent years.

[Osi Osgood]

It does appear that Tony's print is the Cineavision print, like mine. I will make an assumption that Tony's print is LPP as mine, which is certainly a plus. I am pretty sure that it's Cineavision, as I see a slight black bar on the left side of the image, on his screenshots. As a plus, I once heard, ( not seen), that there was an optical sound super 8 feature of this glorious title, but let's face it ... Some films just demand to be seen in scope!

[John Taylor]

Are you sure it wasnt Dorun? It had Dorun stickers on it when first adverised, looks a nice print though, this ones certainly doing the rounds.

[Rob Young]

Lee, "slighty wider ratio"? The Derann print is cropped top and bottom of frame to provide full width super 8.

Lee, "More image at the edges".

By "edges", do you mean top and bottom of original frame aided by with side cropping of the super 8 print, like cineavison used to do?

Very Confused dot.com

I hope however pays a lot of money for such a print is EXACTLY clear on what they are buying.

[Tony Kelly]

Hope all goes well for you Tony and you get a good buyer. I know everyone including me loved the Derann print but the one you have is actually in a slightly wider ratio and so you see more image at the edges. We did a comparison a bit ago before I sold my beloved DR print which was pretty interesting at the time. We have some local Storm Troopers so I get to run my print quite a bit for the fans.

The A list titles will always gain value as we have seen in recent years.

Hi Lee I had a few derran features back in the day about 1987 or so i think, had all the main features, aliens terminator commando i think starwars of course die hard as well and sold them all due to moving to vhs video would you believe, now i regret selling all those films not because of the prices they go for now as i dont collect for profit but i just miss them derran features, buy hey ho in time when business does better ill buy back these films one day ahem

[Tony Kelly]

Lee, "slighty wider ratio"? The Derann print is cropped top and bottom of frame to provide full width super 8.

Lee, "More image at the edges".

By "edges", do you mean top and bottom of original frame aided by with side cropping of the super 8 print, like cineavison used to do?

Very Confused dot.com

I hope however pays a lot of money for such a print is EXACTLY clear on what they are buying.

well when i bought it i was fairly clear but wanted the film anyway end of the day its starwars on super 8 regardless if derran cinevision or a digital print, it looks great and seems to have some age to it as well.

[Osi Osgood]

Honestly, I have never seen one of the newly printed digital super 8 Star Wars prints, beyond my 600ft "Monster Man" print, and the image quality was pretty good on that. Was the new digital print, issued on 4x600ft, or 6X400ft? As stated previously, the Derann print was marketed on 4X600ft.

[Douglas Meltzer]

I haven't heard of Star Wars prints that are digitally sourced. I know there are new prints out there that are struck from 35mm.

[Rob Young]

So this is from a 35mm print? Really? With that colour? Or could it have been digitally corrected?

I'm genuinely fascinated as to where this has come from.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

I doubt that Cineavision printed anything on their own. AFAIK they had all their prints done by external labs and only supplied the negatives… but that’s another story…

BTW There have also been several Italian and German full length prints (in CS). The Italian prints are all from „Distribuzione: Pirata“ I guess the same applies to the German prints. (Rumor has it that the German prints are made directly from a 35mm print. Yes, back then, there was special filmstock for this.)

I have also heard rumors of full length Star Wars with English soundtracks and Dutch subtitles. No clue whether this is true or not.

Japan: AFAIK Fuji only distributed the same digests as Ken (with Japanese soundtracks). However, when the Japanese Yahoo Auctions were still easily accessible from outside of Japan, I also noticed that there have also been full length prints of „episode IV“ and „episode VI“ in CS with Japanese soundtracks. But I never found out whether these have been official releases or whether someone has simply redubbed prints from the US…

[Rob Young]

Thanks Joerg. Please do tell us the other story!

I just don't know why "Kempski" and "Cineavision" are being dragged into the description of this new print.

Both were great super 8 companies from the 1980's. Long since gone and missed, but nothing to do with these new prints, wherever they come from, or what they are sourced from.

It all seems rather cloak and dagger to me. What ratio is it exactly? What was the source material? Someone knows surely? Or is it all just too dodgy to comment. In which case, why is this print out there changing hands for £600 to £900 pounds?

But Kempski and Cineavison are companies from the golden era of super 8 and nothing to do with what is happening now.

I wish all involved would stop using the names "Kempski" and "Cineavsion" when it has been clearly pointed out that this is incorrect. That's right...INCORRECT.

Good luck to all selling and buying these kind prints for hundreds of pounds without any clarification on the original source.

And kindly, when it has been pointed out that they are NOT "Kempski", please stop referring to it, as you potentially give a great company a bad name.