American cinematographer (Feb-July 1936)

122 American Cinematographer • March, 1936 DID YOU ever sit back and think about the films we used to use (and be darned glad to get!) just a few years ago? Orthochromatic emulsions, not much faster than today's positive, and hardly more color-sensitive — badly perforated — unevenly coated — incredibly contrasty — and as grainy as a flour-mill. There were no factory experts on hand to help us with our troubles, and when anything went wrong with the film it was just too bad, for the manufacturers were usually far too impressed with the importance of their product to admit a mistake. It doesn't take much stretching of the memory to recall the days when there was just one kind of film (two, if you counted positive), and you had to shoot your scene on that one emulsion. Today, you've got about a dozen different types to choose from: Ortho, regular pan, superpan, SuperX, fine-grain background pan, Infra-red sensitive pan, reversal background pan, variable-density recording stock, variable-area recording stock, duplicating stock, bipack red-ortho, and at least half-a-dozen varieties of positive, clear and tinted. And if you can't suit yourself from one manufacturer's stock, just step next door and try his competitor's assortment. If Eastman doesn't make what you want, DuPont or Agfa may — and if none of them do, they will probably be glad to make it for you! Most of us are so accustomed to regard film as a matterof-fact incident in our work that we never think of the amazing way the raw film industry has grown up about us. At the turn of the century, Eastman and Lumiere were about the only manufacturers of motion picture film. Their first commercial product wasn't even orthochromatic, and the rolls were about 50 feet in length. In 1901, all the filmfactories in the world produced but 29,000 feet of negative film per week; by 1930, with probably fewer firms making film, negative production was approximately 65,000,000 feet per week. Or, to put it in more easily understood figures, the factories were turning out 156,000 miles of film every week. You'd think that this tremendous production would keep two or three dozen factories busy, wouldn't you? Actually, most of this footage comes from three main factories— Eastman, Agfa-Ansco, and DuPont, with negligible amounts dribbling from a few smaller makers like Gevaert in Belgium and Zeiss and Perutz in Germany. On the other hand, any list of the old-time film-brands would include Eastman, Ansco and Bay State here in America, Lumiere and Pathe in France, Ensign in England, Cappelli in Italy, Gevaert in Belgium, and Agfa, Goertz and Perutz in Germany — a total of thirteen. For once, 13 proved an unlucky number, for see how they've shrunk: DuPont and Pathe have joined forces, and Agfa and Ansco; Perutz seems to be restricted to Leica film, Gevaert is rarely heard from — and the rest have (as far as cinema film is concerned) vanished completely. And how different was buying film in the old days! Of course, my recollections don't go quite back to the days of the Patents Company, when a film-buyer had either to show a licensed camera or bootleg his film: but I can recall the time when J. E. Brulatour, whose name is synonymous now with Eastman Film, was the American agent for Lumiere film! In those days, and for many years after, buying film was quite a formal affair. You went down to Brulatour's office, and placed your order with Perry Conner (who took your money at the same time) . Then Perry would send back to the factory for your roll of film, which — in due and deliberate time — would be manufactured and shipped out to him, and in turn delivered to you! The process was the same whether you were (like me) a struggling free-lance cameraman who wanted 200 feet of film, or a big studio which wanted 200,000 feet. I think it was Frederick L. Kley who, as manager of the Lasky Studio, finally convinced the Brulatour organization that there might be some advantage in keeping a few feet of film in stock here in Hollywood. One of my more embarrassing moments came a number of years ago when I was on location in Northern California, shooting an extra camera on a big picture. After an especially important day's work, I received an explosive telegram from the laboratory because I had apparently been fading out at about fifty-foot intervals, and fading in five or ten feet later. Usually, the fades seemed to come right in the middle of the scenes! Now I knew I hadn't been playing with the dissolver, and I was just as sure that the camera itself was in first-class condition. Just the same, I was in the dog-house for a long time — until someone discovered that in the particular batch of film my roll had come from, the emulsion was only partially coated, disappearing completely at fifty-foot intervals! Perforations gave us a lot of trouble, for there were a number of different standards — square, round, and something resembling our present rectangular hole with rounded ends. If you got film perforated wrongly for your camera, you were just out of luck! Most of the studios used to buy their film unperforated, and perforate it themselves. The Biograph people went even a step farther than that: their old Biograph camera took unperforated film, and perforated it as it made the picture! And speaking of perforations, framing was another fruitful source of grief: some cameras had the frame lines fall between the perforations, like our present standard, while others had the frame line even with the sprockets. Another incident related is that when the first Lasky picture— the original version of "The Squaw Man" was finished, it was suddenly discovered that Cameraman Gandolfi had used two cameras, each with a different frameContinued on pase 128