A look at some of the numerous meetings that we undertook in order to issue 8mm films to our customers.
Contracts & Rights Chapter 31
I wasn’t involved at all in the negotiations that would lead to the Warner Brothers contract, as by now I’d been entrusted with the everyday running of the 8mm department and more importantly, as Derek and myself were the only two members of staff who knew how to ‘sound’ the many rolls of silent film, to get the machines running! It made a lot of sense, as it didn’t take long for the sounding in the recording room to start mounting up and getting out of hand. So now, when Derek was in London he was accompanied by a very young and keen Michael Dimmock and I understand that it took only a few visits to gain the confidence of our new contact at Warner Brothers and to chose the titles and work out the fine details for the contract, and I would eagerly await Derek’s return from Wardour Street to hear news of how the negotiations were progressing. The final outcome of this was in securing the rights to ‘Gremlins’, 1984; ‘Superman II’, 1980; ‘Never Say Never Again’, 1983; ‘Police Academy II’, 1985 and ‘The NeverEnding Story’, 1984. The first four titles were released as 2 x 600′ abridged features, while the final one was cut down to just a 600′. ‘The Fugitive’ and ‘Frankenstein Must be Destroyed’ were the next titles to be have been released and both were to be issued as features, but only ‘The Fugitive’ saw the light of day, with the Hammer horror only making it into the 1990 sales catalogue as a forthcoming release. The abridged releases were all edited in-house, using 35mm prints, with Derek editing ‘Gremlins’ and Mike Dimmock tackling ‘NeverEnding Story’ and ‘Never Say Never Again’. Dave Worrall, our publicity manager and 007 aficionado (Check out his excellent book published in 1992 “The Most Famous Car in the World: A Complete History of the James Bond Aston Martin DB5), was there by Mike’s side on the ‘Bond’ as he knew this one inside out and passed on some well recieved advise. There was some collaboration between Derek and Mike on ‘Superman II’ and ‘Police Academy II’ and Mike has confirmed this was so. We later issued the final ‘American Diner’ sequence as a 200′ extra, which could be spliced into the 2×600′ to round off the film. Dave Worrall designed the box artwork for all the titles and they were printed by a small, but professional local firm, while my only contribution to the new venture was printing ‘The Superman II’ label, which was as far as I can recall, the first title from the new contract to be released 1984 or 1985.
…. to be continued.
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