The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

160 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN December, 1953 and then recorded without erasing or demagnetising the film. No audible noises were noted in the playback. A film having a frequency range of from 30 to 15,000 cycles recorded on it was spliced in each of the various fixed frequencies. Tihs was checked with the following results: Frequencies 1,000 to 15,000 cycles, splice inaudible. Frequencies from 700 to 1,000 cycles, slightly noticeable. Frequencies below 700 cycles, inaudible. When prints are made from spliced areas of 16mm. or 35mm. picture negative no evidence of the splice can be noted. No out of focus frames are introduced; perfect registration of the picture is achieved without the side-shift that often results with splices made with conventional methods. It is also pointed out that because in the buttweld method no scraping or use of cement is involved, it is relatively easy to splice raw stock in total darkness. John Arnold, M.G.M.'s executive director of photography, is reported to be developing his new wide-screen camera for general production. The camera, in which the film travels horizontally instead of vertically, produces negatives with varying wide-screen aspect ratios, i.e., with 6, 8 or 10 sprocket holes. Advantage claimed is that the wide area picture produced by this method, when reduced to standard 35mm. format by optical printing minimises the film grain, a particularly ideal feature for colour. The camera is apparently based on one using the same principle built 20 years ago by Arnold. An article titled " The Big Changeover " also in the October " American Cinematographer," outlines how procedures in almost every production department were affected by 20th Century-Fox's decision to switch all their production to Cinemascope. Immediately involved, of course, were those employed in cinematography, set lighting, film editing and sound recording. Early tests indicated that changes in the design of the original Chretien anamorphic lens would improve photographic results and simplify its use in production. For one thing, the original French lenses were in square mounts and required unwieldy apparatus to hold them before the cameras. Plans were made to have the lens redesigned and mounted in a conventional barrel housing. Bausch and Lomb, who were entrusted with this task, delivered five of the improved lenses before the end of April. In the meantime the camera machine shop had to get to work building new holders and designing new matte boxes. It had to design means and methods of using the conventional finders of the cameras to encompass the extreme wide angle view that the anamorphic lens yields. CinemaScope had a complementary new feature, stereophonic sound, which in a sense posed a more involved conversion problem. Whereas the camera department was able to use standard photographic equipment in conjunction with the CinemaScope lens, the sound department was confronted with the task of redesigning the entire sound-recording system to multiple-track system. First step was the development of a magnetic sound recorder and mixing panel which would handle three or more separate sound channels. Where one track carried all the dialogue before, three individual tracks would now be needed. It was obvious that there would not be room for multiple tracks on the film strip as it was. The only variables were the sprocket holes and the picture itself. By cutting down the width of the sprocket holes and reducing the aspect ratio from 2.66-to-l to 2.55-to-l, two sound tracks could be placed on either side of both rows of sprocket holes. Because of the problems involved, it was obvious that magnetic sound would be the only feasible method for release prints. Consequently a practical method for " striping " or laying the several sound tracks on the picture film had to be devised, so that the highest fidelity magnetic tracks could be placed on the film strip, to ensure high quality sound reproduction on all tracks. The first triple-track recorder designed for recording and playback was seven feet high and weighed 600 pounds. This was regarded as impractical because of its bulk. The next problem was to put all the components of stereophonic recording into a more probable form. This development was carried out in two and a half weeks, the final recorder being as compact and portable as the conventional single-track one. This represented only one phase of the sound department's job of conversion. In effect, the entire sound channel (all the equipment necessary to handle the various steps of sound recording and reproduction) had to be rebuilt for stereophonic sound. The fact that the CinemaScope image is greatly distorted presented a problem to the film editor, (Turn to page 161) To edit CinemaScope films, it became necessary to d< a special auxiliary Lucite lens for Moviolas, which transforms the squeezed image on CinemaScope tilms to full panoramic width. Examining new viewing attachment Is TCF Cutting Dept. head Jerry Webb and film editor Barbara McLean.