For film, the audience is the projectionist in many cases Hugh. My own included!

I take the same view as you Andrew, I bought these films to enrich my life; it doesn't matter to me if prices fell, because I am never going to see any money. I bought with the intention of keeping, and whatever else I may have to part with, my films will stay will me until I leave this earth.

I am writing this now while at work ,so bear with me.The audience is in and I am showing "our kind of traitor" in scope ,5.1,bright clear clean image not a mark anywhere and in 4k,at the same time typing this.on my left is a Vic 5 35mm standing waiting ,hopefully to be used again one day.Now wether I or others want a return to film ,from where I am sitting it aint going to happen.What ever Tarrantiono may do in the future a return to full time film is gone.Reading trade mags gives an insite of the shape of things to come.Laser etc 4D and so on.
So return to our hobby 35/16/8/mm etc there is plenty of film out there and its up to each individual how much they are prepared to pay and to this end I have to agree with Tom and others who say a line has to be drawn when it comes to how much to pay.Some of the asking prices are down right stupid after all as said who can afford to have a film allegedly worth £1000,sitting on a shelf,not me for sure.I have copies of a film on both dvd,blueray and 16mm because I like the film and each format offers me something different in the way I view it and the content.
I do love the feel ,the having in my hand, even I suppose the smell of the film,there is just something about film,a nerdy thing that few these days appreciate but when all is said and done it is now a hobby and that is all I'm afraid.Look at the problem there appears to be about getting hold of the 35mm trailer for H8 etc.I hope they find one but I do know that a lot of the 70mm prints of the film in the states have been dumped because there is nowhere to store them anymore.
So I say enjoy the hobby and your various collection but please be sensible as has been said before you cant take it with you and future generations are going to find it harder to get there heads around real film.
So back to the start,I am one of the lucky ones who have kept my job and my name tag I have to wear says Projectionist,not as my collegues have on theres cinema tech,course they had to do a new badge for me as the old grumpy nerdy one....,my point being I suppose that much as I like my hobby I have had to adjust and accept a whole new way of working,but I can still go home and watch a reasonably price 16mm film for fun.Just saying...

I think every collector draws the invisible line in the sand you speak of here Gwyn.

The line just differs depending on an individual's circumstances.

My line won't allow me to be drawn to £1000 prints, but I am not in anyway shape or form concerned by this as for the majority of what my heart desires, it is just within reach for my own personal comfort zone.

As said, even if I never purchased another single film, on a rotational basis, I consider I have enough films to keep me entertained for my remaining lifetime.

Gwyn that's what I having telling them all. There will never be return to film as the normal
medium for projection in Cinemas.
IT AINT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Got to agree with you there Andrew,i too could rotate and never buy again but if the price is right who knows.
Mind you just seen on ebay three 35mm film cans,rusty and old for £75 would make a good talking point,or clocks it says..
The centre label says Bollywood so I guess they came from India and that makes them rare.

You hit the nail on the head David just an example of what is coming is a laser phosphor projector delivering up to11,000 lumens,at high frame rate delivering all content.The dam thing would sit on a small kitchen table and is near enough human free.
That's the way it is so lets just enjoy our hobby while we can at least we can still have that touch/feel of film .

If you have Rolls Royce tastes, you're gonna pay Rolls Royce prices. And yes, you may get a lemon when it comes to anything used. But no one is putting a gun to our head to buy this stuff. I say that anyone who is collecting these films solely as a return investment is in it for the wrong reasons anyhow.

For FILM collectors that pay crazy prices ...

wow, some great comments on here, & thank you to all for your feedback. Very much appreciated,
Del, you are right, i know full well if i sold up i would be sorry, we do love our films, so i think the idea of leaving 100% total is definatly out of the question, we question our sanity as many people have mentioned now that, (& i think i have said this before), whenever a film comes up that you think ,oh i'll take that, and the price tag is stark raving stupid. There isn't a film on earth worth a thousand plus, however, as people do deem to pay this p[rice then it will of course sell at the price or higher to the next person next time it comes up for sale at that individual missed the first opportunity.
Taking The Empire strikes back at a 1000, i believe just before a copy of Aliens ended up at around 400/500. A much better film and longer YET IT HAD A SYNC FAULT. I know that can be re-recorded but someone bought it with a sync fault. (i would have thought when it was new it would have been returned to the supplier).
It all makes Die Hard well worth it for under 300 (i think one went on ebay for 250/280), again, the same length film as Empire.
I agree with all, cine film you do take a chance bearing in mind its all second hand and getting more worn and older.
This last 120 months has seen me fork out for a dodgy T610, sent back, waited, returned faulty , sent back again, refunded, Films bought and either returned or plonked straight onto ebay as disappointments.
Sure i have had some very good ones but the at the moment the bad seems to be outweighing the few.
Thinking about it, if you bought 10 very good Derann features over a year period you would probably part with a couple of thousand pounds, I(if you got them at reasonable price), & thats the sanity check.
The same films on a digi source would be around £40 all in tops. I'm sticking up for digi, (i also like my films too much), i am just making the comparison. Even if i had a spare 5 grand i could not justify putting that into second hand films any more.

I am with you there Tom. I would not spend that kind of money these days on prints even
if I had £ 20000 to spare in view of the cheapness of the unmentionables.

Gwyn I read about that somewhere recently. Was it not in "Cinema Technology" ?
I believe it does not even have to be installed in a Projection Box ( Booth ) either.

Tom, you do of course, as always, make some sensible valid points regarding all of this here.

I just wonder what's changed, that's all???

Since time began, once VHS came onto the scene some nigh on 40years ago now domestically, people have always had these cheaper alternatives to view a movie on.
And feasibly on a big screen projected basis since around 2003 as a viable and realistic alternative.

When you were buying your full length print of The Sound Of Music or was financing Romancing the Stone etc etc, you had then, the opportunity to have screened these movies for buttons using alternative technology.


Nothing's any different today than the day I got back into the hobby. Prices for the better prints were mega expensive then as they are now.
A GS or Fumeo worth its salt was nigh on £750 to £1000 then as a good one would be now.

I just don't understand why you feel NOW at this precise moment in time, it is any different than 2011 say????

You have me baffled Tom, especially as we have all been pointing out here Tom, that if anything, just recently, there has been a greater presence of quality second hand materiel on Super 8mm appearing on the market in recent times. Very often slightly cheaper too than a few years back when there was much less quality stuff appearing.

I am still happy to be insane :-) Known it all my life, don't need a check. Now I go and enjoy a couple of films

What are crazy prices anyway David???

Who decides???

One man's £35 spent on a single film, would appear entirely loopy to 99.9999% of society in this day and age!
My wife would have to her head transplanted before she'd spend £35 to own a film.

Who decides what a crazy price is?
Surely if you're a millionaire, a grand for something you'd like to own is the equivalent to a tenner to you or I.

The words Crazy Prices are all relative dependant entirely on a person's circumstances and motivations.

When you look back at the issues of Movie Maker, that carried adverts for VHS, they were a whopping £30. At that time it would have seemed mad to spend 3 times that amount on a B&W film.

Like any hobby one should weigh enjoyment vs financial responsibility. But whether we admit it or not I think must of us have pulled the switch on a costly film purchase and like Alec Guinness's famous line in the "Bridge on the River Kwai", have muttered to ourselves : "What have I done?" The reality is that features (no matter what the gauge) have ever exactly been cheap. I remember the prices in Red Fox catalogs in the early 1980's for certain features and even then thought I could never afford that ($400.00 for "War of the Worlds" in Super-8 for example.) Compared to most I'm a fairly modest collector, from my projectors to my film choices. I truly love seeing projected film but in no way am I adverse to watching movies in a streaming format (the wife and I do not have cable TV) or the occasional dreaded silver disc. That last sentence may brand me a heretic in some film circles, and if so I won't lose any sleep over it. For me I collect films as a nostalgia thing, for the memories of a simpler time and the joy running those reels on my projector give me. Are film prices insane these days for features and some short subjects? You betcha but in the long run (using financial common sense) my film hobby is still cheaper than many hobbies out there (golf, boating, etc.) And chances are very good that I get just as much enjoyment out of my little 200' & 400' reels of film on my modest projectors as my next kindly neighbor next door does playing golf.

Some great post's here guy's (once again). I reiterate "you never miss what you've never had" and unfortunately we all have film cleaner running through our veins.

Prints are worth what someone is prepared to pay for them, I will not through principle pay over the odds prices for films, I just couldn't justify it and there are some great dealers out there who keep the prices real and one in particular is Ian at Perrys, fantastic guy to deal with and his prices are like Derann's used to be (I miss his lists).

But unfortunately as we all get older and some of us go to the great projection room in the sky our nearest and dearest are then left to sell the stuff on and there are too many out scavengers out there just waiting for their chances to fleece our loved ones. These are the people I would think that are selling the prints for stupid money, to them it's NOT a hobby, just an opportunity to make some serious cash.

After reading all these great posts, I have decided that I am leaving all my super 8mm films and projectors to my son on the understanding he doesn't sell them (well not all of them), but instead enjoys what his dear old dad and he used to when he was a nipper.

Great post Douglas, I am always saying this to people who say it's an expensive hobby, it's as expensive as you make it and compared to a lot of hobbies it's quite cheap in comparison.

With regard to prices, used features in the 90's used to go for around £150/200 so what does that equate to in today's money, I would say £250/300 and that guys is my limit, I won't pay more than that and even then it has to be bloody good.

I think most of us here operate within the same or very similar ball park.
Obviously, when something very special comes along like Vidar with his Alien print, we will on occasions, push the boat out a little, so to speak....but by and large, the figures Del here so sensibly quotes if you factor in inflation, are the boundaries set by most sensible collectors these days.

For those concerned with the money aspect of these type of purchases, there is a good chance a print at £250 or £300 will hang onto its value better imo, than 10 different ones in the £25 bracket unless it is a later lpp Derann rare Tom and Jerry or the likes.

Optical Super 8mm feature prints at £30 now for lesser known or desirable titles which are part or fully faded, you'd be lucky to get anyone to buy them now, at any price!
See Phil's list if you don't believe me!!

Andrew ... It is "I" who decide what crazy pricing is.
In fact I have been paying crazy prices for film all my collecting life.
More fool "I".
I have always had a gut feeling that companies such as Kodak Eastman , Agfa , Fuji . ect who made
the raw film stocks have always ripped us all off regarding the prices.
They held the Film Industry to ransom for decades with the crazy prices they charged I guess.
Obviously this hit the overall costs when you add lab costs into the equation.
As far as I am concerned FILM COSTS have been one of the biggest rip-off and scams ever in history.
For this reason alone I am glad to see the back of it.
Thieving bunch of bastards and we have bought into it for decades. Hahahahahaha !!!!

As said David, everyone's threshold is different.

You seem very glad to have been departed from the industry David.
It is quite an unusual trait I've found among the many ex cinema projectionists I've met or spoken with within this hobby.

Most can't get enough of it, in work or at home, I've found!

Are you now David, somewhat regretful of some of your more expensive purchases as time has moved along?

GWTW for example?

It's a job I've personally never had any desire to do, not even in my youth. My ambitions back then were to work in a recording studio. Got the initial college course as soon as I left school.
On the advice of a school visit from a career's officer back then, based on my qualifications, he persuaded me to look into applying for one or two jobs, one of which was for the Gas board, got one of them...and the rest as they say...is history.
Never been out of work for one single day since then, September 82.

I am thankful for that, even if not for my Career officer's advice! Lol.

I just went on to the Ferrania website to see what was happening; I used to get email updates, but that stopped, still doesn't seem any film for sale. Wonder if it will lead anywhere?

David re=37 yes you are right on both counts.
You don't even need a projection box,just a space to site the machine.
Long live reel film

Andrew in reply to your questions at # 47.
Yes I am happy to be out of the job for a lot of reasons. One of them is that
is now being run by a lot of arseholes so good riddance to that lot.
I am not the only ex traditional projectionist here in Aberdeen that has that attitude towards the Cinema Industry these days.
As for me having regrets about paying high prices for the likes of GWTW yes indeed I do.
Where was my head at ? Still what's done is done now and I cant change that. hahaha !!