American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

Ray Fosholdt Built A Movie-Maker's 'Dream Home By WILLIAM STULL, AS C. t f EVERY movie-maker cherishes at least a mental picture of the "dream home" he hopes some day to build — one which will be not only a dwelling-place, but a home studio in which he can make, edit, and screen his pictures under ideal conditions. Most of us have to be content merely to dream of this ideal movie-making home — and talk endlessly about it to any cinefilming friends who will listen. But Ray and LaNelle Fosholdt of Long Beach, California, don't have to dream about their "dream home." They live in it. What's more, it was in the strictest sense built around their movie-making hobby! "And we mean that literally," they'll tell you. "We had had our full share of living in apartments and rented houses, with the projector and screen relegated to stowage-space in closets, and using a bathroom or an improvised garage-darkroom for Ray's cinefilm processing and still work. So when the family bank-account finally told us we could at last build a home of our own, we agreed that it would center about our movie-making, just as most of the rest of our daily life does. "We began by drawing up plans for what we considered an ideal, permanent projection-room. Then we planned a darkroom laboratory for Ray's home processing. After that, we just let the rest of the house grow up naturally around these two essential features." If you should call on the Fosholdts, you will notice, as you wait for an answer to your ring at the doorbell, an inviting, modernly appointed livingroom just beside the front entrance. And thereby you can tell how you rate with this cinefilming family. If they entertain you in this parlor, you can be pretty sure you rate as "company." But if they whisk you past the living-room's entrance, and take you upstairs to the projection-room, you really "rate" as a Fosholdt friend! Characteristically, they do more living and entertaining in that projection-room than in any other part of the house. And no wonder, for this projectionroom is a friendly place, where one can relax and enjoy conversation or films without formality. A big overstuffed divan and plenty of well-upholstered chairs provide seating of the sort that tempts the visitor to overstay. A magazine-stand filled with well-thumbed copies of THE AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPH ER and other movie-making periodicals is conveniently at hand by Ray's favorite chair. Along one wall a framed row of Esquire's "Petty girls" furnishes a decorative note, while on the other is a frequently-changed series of candid shots of the Long Beach Cinema Club and its members in action. At the far end of the room, neatly framed by drapes, is hung a four-foot beaded screen. Behind the divan are two inconspicious ports through which a pair of projectors throw their beams to the screen. Theatre-wise, the projectors themselves are housed in a neat little projection-booth, projecting through glazed ports so that virtually no noise escapes into the projection-room to mar the presentation of a film. Fosholdt himself works in 16mm., so the mainstay of his projection set-up is his Victor 16mm. projector, while a Bell & Howell 8mm. projector is on hand for showing any narrovv-guage pictures that come his way. Sometimes, as on a recent visit of this writer's to the Fosholdt hometheatre, President Mildred Caldwell of the Long Beach Club adds her own Filmo 8 to the projection line-up, and multi-reel films can be given continuous projection as smoothly as in any professional theatre, changing over from one projector to the next without any perceptible break on the screen. Sound — from discs — is an integral rait of the Fosholdt showings. A disc recorder and playback turntable is placed on the projector-shelf between the two projectors, and this, with an earlier turntable installation, connected through the same amplifier permits continuous twin 378 August, 1941 American Cinematographer