A look at some of the numerous meetings that we undertook in order to issue 8mm films to our customers, or obtain 16mm for our library.
Contracts & Rights Chapter 2
Another old contact of Derek’s, and one I never had the pleasure to meet, was Tom Blakeley. At sometime in the late 60s or early 70s, before my joining Derann, Derek had purchased just four titles from Tom. ‘Off the Dole’ which Tom’s father John Blakeley had produced in 1935. It starred George Formby and had been George’s third feature film, all I can remember of the standard 8 print I watched is George saying “What’s five shillings, if you don’t pay!”. The rights had now come down to Tom, who’d worked on it as assistant camera man. In the early 60’s Tom had made four films under his newly formed ‘Planet Film Productions’ the first had been a British quota quickie called ‘The Marked One’, but Derek had been more interested in the other three. ‘Devils of Darkness’, ‘Island of Terror’ and ‘Night of the Big Heat’. So along with the Formby movie he’d made a deal with Tom for 8mm and possibly the 16mm as well. All were released on Standard 8mm, later would be reissued on Super 8mm and later still the later three would receive a released on VHS and Beta . While we’re on the subject of the 16mm library, it would seem that it was in fact a by product of all the 8mm contracts! As the films were readied for 8mm, a 16mm print was necessary for the process of editing and cutting into 400′ reel lengths and the 16mm prints began to take up a lot of space. It was then that on checking the contracts that it was discovered that in almost all cases the rights also included 16mm. So it was that the 16mm library was born and slowly increased in size over the next five or six years. From this point on he would ask about the 16mm rights for any films he was considering for 8mm and later would even negotiate with the distributor for 16mm rights, especially if the 8mm rights were unavailable…. and the price was right.
….. to be continued
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