As the other threads gone now, i shall start again.
David, we see you on here and the other channel doing your bits and pieces for the hobby, but i thought i'd try and find out more about you as a collector,
Have you worked in/or had anything to do with the film industry in the past or have you always been a collector only?
Aside horror films, what other subjects do you collect?
What got you into the hobby in the first place?
I am guessing that future releases will be restricted without the support of the film industry itself, not all films will be what everyone is looking for, how will you choose any future titles, or do you feel after your new one, that will be it?

Add anything else you want, if you want, and keep it clean

Thank you for the interest ! Here's my story ..........PART 1

When I was a youngster of 8 years old , I saw an ad on the back cover of a comic book that was about selling flower seeds and WIN prizes !
So my prize was an 8mm crank projector that handled 50 feet of film . It came with 3 Tom Mix Westerns , but I liked MONSTER movies , so I splurged 2.95 for the 50 foot version of Ken Films' VARAN , The Unbelievable .After that , I was hooked !

And you clearly still have that first film?

Yes Tom , I still do . So here's my story.....Part two

So after I got into jr. High School , I joined the A/V club ( you know , the nerds who pushed around the 16mm projectors from class to class and showed stuff like " Donald Duck in Mathematics land " ) .
By that time I had a REAL film projector - a GAF dual 8 so I could now collect BOTH gauges of 8mm !
One collection that did coincide with the films was a magazine called FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and I had a huge collection of films tied to " Captain Company " adverts in the mag .
This was all before the invention of Cable TV , so if we wanted to see a movie that was on at 1:00AM , we either stayed up all night or set the alarm clock , but I could run my 10 minute Castle or Ken film anytime !
But one of the most exciting things to me was about to happen with collecting 8mm films - SOUND !

Those are some classic old box arts there, am i correct to assume you also still have those films Dave?

My Brother was the one who started the hobby in our home, i was only around 9 or10 years old when he bought his first Eumig STD 8 P8 projector. Like your love of monster movies, his was the American Civil war and Westerns. When he was 16 and had a few pay packs behind him, he visited a shop just three doors away from the place he worked, Frampton Camera's here in Plymouth. He spotted a rack of 50ft b/w silent movies, one was The Defiant Virginian, a short, (very short) cut down from Shenendoah, he bought that 50ft reel and the Eumig there and then.
i always loved the 16mm film shows in school, but it was the reels turning and the the beam of light producing the image on the white wall that always fascinated me. When my Brother came home with that first projector i was over the moon, we had our own projector. i wasn't overly impressed with the film but that didn't matter I was hooked. Just three later in 1974 when Brother came home with our first Sound projector, the Eumig 810DLUX and a 400ft version of stagecoach and the 200ft b/w edition of one million years BC, brilliant.
I had to wait another four years before i could start work and save up for my own hobby to begin.

I always enjoy reading how people started in this hobby, ready for the next part Dave,

Thanks Dave,

Looking forward to more of this.

Graham

Thanks for your interest , guys . - PART 3

It was in 1974 that things really took a turn - in another direction - of being involved with film .

A classified ad appeared in the local newspaper stating that new Science - Fiction film was being shot in Belle Glade , Florida ( home of the sugar cane plants ) and extras were needed for crowd scenes .
The pay was 5.00 a day , plus all the food you could eat from the catering truck .
So me and 3 of my friends took off and drove the 40 miles and ended up at the site and was hired to be extras in the movie . What a FUN weekend !
Although NO main STARS were there , it was all 2nd unit work for EMPIRE OF THE ANTS . Most of the time everybody stood around and waited ( common for film making ) .
Back then , we were hippies with long hair too . I am in 2 shots ; the first when they load us into barred cages and take us to the Sugar plant to be mind-controlled by the ants and later when the giant ants attack the town .

Dave, the trailer for this film is here on youtube,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq6pCO3O...ScreamFactoryTV

You obviously had a great time being involved as an extra. The nearest we ever got to that was when Revolution, with Al Pacino. was being filmed on Dartmoor, around 15 miles away from where we live I think it would have been around 1983. Unfortunatly, we found out about it too late to sign up.

Part 4 please?