Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

The Challenge Of 8mm Sound Film Excerpts from a Paper presented to the 89th SemiAnnual Convention of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers at Toronto, Canada on May 9, 1961. This paper and others covering 8mm sound motion pictures will be published in full in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of the SMPTE. by John Flory X HE 8mm sound film, recently referred to by one eminent sociologist as "another milestone in the communications revolution," may broaden the perimeter of the motion picture industry much as paperback books have affected the field of publishing. If present indications prove true, it is predicted that by the year 1976, there could be— world-wide— 15,500,000 8mm sound projectors in use. At the outset, it can be safely predicted that from now on, the growth of the use of 8mm sound film will greatly exceed the rate of increase of 16mm usage. For the year 1960 in the U.S., it is believed that about 41,000 16mm sound projectors were sold domestically, in contrast to about 600,000 8mm silent units. From this it may be hazarded that the sale of 16mm sound projectors, despite a current bulge resulting from the National Defense Education Act, is soon likely to reach a plateau of maturity. The rate of sales growth (not to be confused with the total units sold) will perforce increase far less rapidly from now on in the case of 16mm sound projectors than will be the increase of the rate of growth of a newer product such as the 8mm sound-on-film projector. After all, the nearly 3/4 million 16mm sound projector owners now in the United States are already sold on the efficacy of the film medium. If it can be proved that there are some major advantages to 8mm sound, then certainly it would seem that we shall not have to wait another 28 years before we have 3/4 million sound 8 projectors in use. This will be especially true if four or five million amateurs can be persuaded Mr. Flory is Advisor on Nontheatrical Films to Eastman Kodak Company. 334 to convert to 8mm sound, and if somehow the price and quality of the new machines can be made sufficiently attractive. At this point, the industry is faced with a pitfall. In an effort to bring the price of the 8mm sound system down, manufacturers must not yield to the temptation to sacrifice quality. Poor quality 8mm sound projectors, striping and release prints could kill the medium before it even gets properly launched. This presents serious engineering and technical challenges. It is much harder to build a good 8mm sound projector than a 16mm counterpart. An analogy might be the fact that a wristwatch requires closer tolerances and greater skill to build than does a large kitchen alarm clock. For a number of years, it was generally felt that the slow linear speed at which 8mm film travels would make it impracticable to add a sound track. The advent of improved magnetic recording techniques has fiumished the engineers with considerable experience in the design of magnetic-tape recorders. This was helpful in the early stages of the development of an 8mm sound-on-film motion picture projector employing a magnetic track. The greatest single argument in favor of 8mm sound, is that the small-size 8mm film represents what potentially could be great economy in film cost. In actual practice there are a nimiber of economic factors, however, which, at least at the outset, make it difficult to effect such economies at this stage in the development of the medium. Here are some of the principal advantages often cited in favor of 8mm sound films: 1. Economy of release prints. 2. Lower cost projectors. 3. Less bulky prints (an advantage when carrying, storing or shipping. ) 4. Smaller sized projectors. 5. Lighter weight release prints ( an advantage in an age of air transportation. ) 6. More portable projection equipment; less weight. 7. Improvement in looping performance (of motion pictures in connection with continuous-running or repetitive projectors. ) 8. Self -threading or cartridge load mechanisms now become more feasible. ■ Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — July, 1961