HILLSIDE SUPER-8 CINE FILMS

Vintage Rail Scenes on Film

A unique chance to add Quality Cine films to your collection !!!

Does anyone associate the e-commerce of the 21^st Century with home cine film ? At Hillside Publishing, we produced some superb cine films, and we still get enquiries from film buffs who feel that the projected picture has something special about it. This part of our site is for the film devotee who likes to get out the projector, put up the screen, and watch as traditional film runs through “the gate” in the projector to produce a stunning image on screen. It’s old fashioned, but there is something magical about it.

Later on this page you can read about the Super-8 films we can supply, but first of all, we thought you might like to know more about film, and about the Hillside niche in the film world.

Invented by the Lumiere Brothers in France as long ago as 1895, the cine camera remained the only way to record moving images until the Video Revolution almost 90 years later. There were many different formats. Hollywood settled on 35mm film for the wide screen, but in the late 1920s, Kodak introduced 16mm film as the first practicable "home movie" system. The footage on our Southwold film was taken on one of the first consignment of Kodak cine cameras to arrive in England in 1927. Other home movie systems included "Standard-8" and a 1960s upgrade, called Super-8. Today, the video camera is a common sight, but in pre-video days, cine cameras were much rarer, as films were expensive by the video standards of today, but the definition and quality of a good cine film were a joy to watch.

A few companies produced cine films in Super-8 for home viewing, but quality varied greatly. Some US companies used state-of-the-art equipment mastering on 16mm negative film, but the costs were very high, and in England, most railway cine films were produced on lower quality equipment at a lower cost, but with a drastic reduction in quality.

When Hillside Publishing decided to produce Super-8 Cine films, we looked around to find a lab with equipment equal to the best in the United States. Our films were shot on 16mm film, mastered on 16mm "dupe" negs and then tested with trial prints in 16mm and Super-8 before the first release print was made.

Given the size of the market, it was a costly process, but it gave quality, and from the 1970s until the mid 1980s, we produced 19 different cine titles. With the advent of video, the cine market diminished to the point where we could no longer justify the costs of producing new titles, and on our last film order, a technician had to be brought out of retirement to operate the duplicating equipment, making one of our films perhaps the last Super-8 film commercially duplicated in the British Isles !

We still receive orders from cine "buffs" for our films, and out of the original 19 films, we still have stocks of 9 titles, although some are in limited numbers. As the Labs we used have now closed, there is no possibility of reprints once the last copies have gone, but for the cine buffs out there, this is what we have. All of these films are Black and White (except for Winter Steam in the Isle of Man), and are "Silent" and run at silent speed (18 frames per second). Cine films are described by "length", and at silent speed, 50 feet runs for just under 4 minutes.

TITLES

Pre-War North British steam, 77', a wonderful variety of classes at Carlisle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, inc Reid Atlantics, North British 4-4-0s and even 4-4-0 tanks, and LNER types, including pacifics, D49 4-4-0 and a steam railcar. A treat for the LNER or Scottish railfan £16.75 (See Pics at head of page)

Pre-war Leamington GWR, 84' including Castles, Kings, 4-4-0s, 0-4-2T, some amazing footage of rare and seldom filmed 36xx 2-4-2Ts, the old Brunel station at Leamington, and the building of the replacement 1938 station. Reliver the Glory days of the Great Western £16.75 (see pic at head of page)

IOM WINTER Steam in Colour - 95' a 1980s film of the short lived Fridays only winter shoppers service, steam heat on the carriages, bare trees etc. Delightful. £16.75

North Eastern Steam 1929 - 80' , Newcastle and York,with an amazing mix of NE and LNER classes, including NER petrol autocars. A fantastic treat £16.75

Pre-War LNWR Steam 97', locos of every London & North Western Railway CME at Crewe from Ramsbottom to Beames, inc 1838 Lion at Liverpool in 1930, Riverside special tanks, Webb 4-4-0s, Prince of Wales, George V, Claughtons, 2-4-2Ts, Coal Engines, 0-8-2Ts etc. £18.50

GWR Steam Armstrong to Collett, 89'; The title says it. Locos of every CME from Armstrong onwards, common and rare classes, a moving history of GW steam. £18.50

Southwold Railway 1929, 70' a nostalgic trip on this 3 foot narrow gauge line in its last week of operation in 1929, with scenes at Halesworth, at Southwold, and shunting en route. Features No 4 Wenhaston, but also shews 1,2,3 as well. One shot includes all FOUR engines ! £16.75

Steam at Oxford 1948, 88', GWR-BR transition, mostly GW livery but some in BR livery, SR "Arthurs" , a few LMS locos, SR stock, the unique Oxford mix, £16.75

Stirling Single to Silver Link, 70' a portrait of GNR motive power from Stirling Single No 1 seen on the first ever railfan trip in 1938, through to 4472 Flying Scotsman in the late 1920s, and A4 pacifics in Silver livery in the first days after their introduction to service. We also see a variety of GNR 4-4-0s and the legendary Ivatt small and large boilered Atlantics. This was one of our most successful films, and a final batch was printed, but owing to negative wear was not quite to our usual quality. However, they can never be repeated, and with just a handful of copies left, it is “now or never”. £14.75

Most films include a detailed explanatory leaflet of loco classes, locations, etc.

You can order any of these titles on our standard ORDER form.

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