DVD Copies of Cop on the Edge?

When Cop on the Edge IX: Prelude to Justice was first made, it was the late 90s and DVDs hadn’t really taken off in the way they would inevitably do. More importantly, making DVD copies of your own work at home wasn’t possible without a sizable budget, as DVD burners were only just starting to come out and were incredibly expensive. Therefore, when we made Cop in 1998, and created our first copies in 1999, they were produced on Video CD – a medium that few remember and fewer still actually used.

Video CDs were video discs burnt on standard CDs. They had the same time constraints as regular CDs for runtime (about 70 odd minutes) and they were limited in file capacity, which meant any MPG Video file would run out of space before it would run out of running time on the CD. Still, we ploughed on and produced a large run of double set Video CDs, complete with special features such as the ‘making of’ documentary and the original TV spots. Sadly, Video CDs aren’t particularly good in terms of quality (they’re worse than VHS) and they’re not especially good with reliability either, as many of the original discs no longer work properly.

Luckily, with modern home technology the way it is today, we now have DVD copies of Cop on the Edge too. These DVD copies were produced by Eddie Keaton, who resampled the original Beta master of Cop for the process. The DVD copies have many of the same special features as the original VCDs, complete with some new, DVD exclusive, features.

The new DVD copies include new features such as directors’ commentaries with Darren Jamieson, Eddie Keaton and Marijan von Staufer, as well as a special hidden Easter Egg that you can find by completing a specific sequence on the main menu – the only remaining scenes with original Captain Jack Harris actor, Graham Cox.

You can’t buy this in any shops (but let’s face it, before long you won’t be able to buy any DVDs in any shops because they’ll all have closed down) but you may be able to get a copy of the Cop on the Edge DVD if you enquire on this site, and be prepared to negotiate with Eddie.

Health and safety gone mad in film!

One of the most challenging scenes to film in Cop on the Edge IX: Prelude to Justice, was the film’s big set-piece action sequence, the ‘warehouse shootout’. Luckily, we didn’t have to look hard to find a warehouse as the so-called college facilities were left glaringly unfinished for months, and our would-be studio facilities looked like a disused warehouse anyway. Seeing as we were paying the UWCN fees for the studio facilities, we decided to use the warehouse Continue reading

Documentary photography on a low budget film

Two production stills? That’s all we took on an 18 month shoot for Cop on the Edge? Two production stills?

Despite being a university filled with photography students, and its own dark-room (photography students today may recall reading about darkrooms in the history aspect of photography) we only managed to get two production photographs taken during the making of Cop on the Edge IX. This is a cause of much annoyance, especially as we had some pretty elaborate set-ups for Continue reading

Cop on the Edge Dining Experience?

I was thinking today how best to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Cop on the Edge (it’s only seven years away you know) and thought of the idea of a dining experience. Now, for those who have never heard of such a thing, a dining experience, or dinner show, is where you have a meal in a themed environment, with entertainment provided.

With a Cop on the Edge dining experience you could, for example, have Sanchez Conchita Gonzalez cook your Continue reading

The many copies of Cop on the Edge

For those who don’t know the history, Cop on the Edge IX: Prelude to Justice premiered at the ABC in Newport, South Wales, in 1998 – it actually started shooting in January 1997. That’s almost two years to complete – yet the original 2 minute spoof that inspired Cop on the Edge was conceived and shot in the summer of 1995 – some 16 years ago.

We mention this because we’ve noticed there are a number of different ‘cops on the edge’ knocking about the Internet, and we Continue reading

The Cop Blog

It may be over 10 years since Cop on the Edge IX: Prelude to Justice wrapped, but now seemed like the perfect time to launch the ‘Cop Blog’ – a section of the newly revamped Coten Films website to tell anecdotes, moan about problems and offer advice related to the shooting of a no-budget action feature (we’ve given up on the low-budget tag).

We’re still copying across much of the content from the old website into this new, funky website – so if you’re looking for all of that quality information such as ‘how the action sequences were Continue reading