For almost 7 years, Derek and myself would make appointments to see a Disney sales manager at their London office, to introduce ourselves and keep our names and that of Derann in their minds. Once we felt that our names and faces had become known and reputable, we slowly began a series of talks, that we hoped would allow us to release full length Disney animated shorts and perhaps a series of 400′ edited highlight editions and the talks were going so well we introduced the game changing notion of issuing the first abridged Walt Disney feature. They seemed eager to give it a go as long as we understood that they would want complete control of what we did! And so it was that having reached this stage we mentioned full length features and pushed them hard about the possibility of selling them outright in the UK. There was one Disney employee who was more than just a little intrigued and her name was Maggie Allison! Maggie, one of the few women in this predominantly man’s world, and one of only two we ever spoke to in Wardour Street, was a career woman and always seeking ways to get promotion. So following dozens of meetings and long discussions, that would often go on well passed standard office hours, it was agreed that we would issue ‘The Little Mermaid’. It was decided that it would be issued in a similar release pattern as their video cassette releases – for a limited period only, a process that they had been using very successfully for some time! We would only have 6 or perhaps 12 months use of the negative, which would then have to be returned to them along with the sound master, although the sound master would quickly be made available to us for any form of re-recording. They believed that the title could then be re-issued later and in fresh packaging to the eager super 8 public. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it meant we had our feet in the door.
…. to be continued.
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