The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

THE CINE-TECHNICIAN January, 1954 A FILM TECHNICIAN'S NOTEBOOK Compiled by A. E. Jeakins A TECHNICAL development that may have some considerable effects in our industry was revealed in the announcement by Mr. David Sarnoff, of the Radio Corporation of America. " Our men," he is reported as saying, " already have achieved recording of colour as well as black-and-white television programmes on magnetic tape." He went on to say that electronic motion pictures and even home movie recordings on tape are future possibilities that will stem from this development. He described it as holding great promise for the motion picture industry. Recording and reproducing motion pictures with no intermediate steps such as film processing, will do away with all chemical processing. Pictures may be viewed instantly without waiting to see " rushes." • George Ashton, in his latest survey of Colour at the Cinema in the " British Journal of Photography," December 11th, says that the news that Technicolor has made available its imbibition printing process to another company is surely the most remarkable development in the field of colour motion pictures. The outstanding features of this process are the low cost and high quality of the prints it gives, and it would appear that 20th Century-Fox feel that these two factors are of such importance that they have licensed the process from Technicolor. The actual operators of the process will be a subsidiary of 20th Century, De Luxe Laboratories. Under a twenty-year agreement a plant costing $1,500,000 will be built. Technicolor, who will receive a royalty from 20th CenturyFox, will provide the skilled technicians to start with, and instal equipment capable of processing 170 million feet of film a year, which was approximately the output last year of the British Technicolor plant and rather more than onequarter of the output of the Hollywood plant. Ashton remarks that it is intriguing that the first American company to acquire a licence for the Technicolor process should be 20th CenturyFox, who have stated that all their future productions will be made in CinemaScope, and the ability of imbibition prints to cope with the standards of definition demanded by CinemaScope must be doubted. It is possible, and has indeed been suggested, that Technicolor are working on the development of imbibition prints of improved definition. An alternative possibility is that CinemaScope prints will continue to be made on Eastman colour positive and the new laboratory will handle normal work for producers other than 20th Century-Fox. Also with the development of colour television, it is fairly certain that there will be a considerable demand for colour prints from that quarter (the current black-and-white film output for television is estimated at between 440 and 465 million feet) which would offer no difficulty to the Technicolor print process even if it were not improved in current standards of definition. • In addition to CinemaScope, Hollywood today is making feature films for wide-screen presentation in four recommended aspect ratios: 1.85 to 1, 1.75 to 1, 1.66 to 1 and the conventional 1.37 to 1. At present a suitable wide-angle lens must be mounted on each projector in place of the standard lens each time a picture is to be screened in a format other than the standard 1.37 to 1. The operation becomes all the mon1 complex if there are two or more films in the same programme requiring different aspect ratio projection. To meet this problem Purdon C. Young, special projectionist at M.G.M.'s Hollywood studios, has developed a zoom-type auxiliary lens which makes it possible to screen pictures in all aspect ratios when it is coupled with a standard 35mm. projection lens. Variable screen size is achieved by changing the position of the Variscope (trade name of the lens) front element and inserting a matte of the appropriate size in the projector aperture. The lens adjustment is achieved by sliding a knob in a slot in the side of the lens barrel. An engraved scale along the slot provides an aid to quickly setting the Variscope lens at previously determined points. At a demonstration in M.G.M.'s experimental sound stage scenes from " Kiss Me Kate " were projected up to a width of 77 feet, it is claimed with excellent definition. In previous tests a screen width of 150 feet was attained. • After negotiations between 20th Century-Fox and the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, arrangements have been made for CinemaScope anamorphic lenses and Miracle Mirror screens to be manufactured in England by British Optical and Precision Engineers Ltd. Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, a B.O.P.E. Group Company, designed an anamorphic lens of the prismatic type for use with CinemaScope films.