Labs #3

In 1975, the year I arrived at Derann, they were advertising a new range of shorts, from Pathe Pictorial & Look at Life, some with optical soundtracks, which were being printed at  Technicolor UK. However they were awfully slow with deliveries and very expensive, so we were more than pleased when Rank Labs announced that were able to offer us an optical sound service, I can’t say they were any quicker, but they were definitely cheaper. Derann never offered any features with optical sound, but I seem to recall that Tony Powell issued some 400′ extracts with a choice of magnetic or optical sound. Where optical really made a splash, was  in-flight entertainment, where it became the standard and anybody who has ever watched an in-flight movie, would have witnessed and heard sound reproduced from an optical sound soundtrack. The film was mounted in large cartridges and simply slotted into a player, not unlike an 8 track music cartridge, but a great deal larger. Derek always said that he felt the sound from optical was always rather weak and lacked the depth that a well recorded magnetic soundtrack could achieve. Many of you may recall the glut of airline prints that surfaced in the super 8 market around the mid 80’s and onwards, as the airlines all went over to the new medium of video for their passengers entertainment. I’ve no doubt that these prints were actually meant for destruction, but someone somewhere could see a how to make a quick buck! All of this would come to a halt with the introduction of video and individual screens.

Derann generally had their 16mm printed at Reeds Laboratries in Wardour Street, a small but busy lab that could offer a very quick turn around. They were eventually swallowed up by Buck Labs. Studio Film Laboritories (SFL), was just off Wardour St, just a short distance from Reeds, and handled all of the printing for Walton Films, who were without doubt the oldest of all the British 8mm film distributors. The purpose built striper SFL used to stripe Waltons many releases was the one we would eventually purchase and install at Dudley, in order to stripe our own product. Just a short walk away in Soho Square was Kays Labs, who we only ever used a couple of times, due to their highly inflated prices and the same went for Humphries Labs. Then there was the ‘Chinaman’ this was how Jimmy Wing was always referred to ‘The Chinaman’! I was led to believe that he may have printed exclusively for Mountain Films of New Oxford Street, but I don’t know that for sure. Mountain’s other preferred lab was Filmatic, explaining why some of their print quality was so poor. But Derann’s primary labs were Buck, where it’s technical manager Jack Houshold, was aways ready with an answer and could overcome almost any problem, and Rank. When Rank closed their labs at Denham the equipment had been swiftly purchased by Film Lab North and Peter John, the manager at Rank was so convinced of it’s viability, he and his family had moved to Leeds so he could manage the new super 8 department, which he did until their closure by a new parent company, Yorkshire TV, many years later.