American cinematographer. (1947)

40 YEARS D URING the ten years that followed the first public showing of motion pictures in 1896, the young in¬ dustry was in a turbulent mess. It was, in fact, trying very hard to become an indus¬ try. The search for methods, processes, and machinery with which to stabilize a new endeavor, was completely unorgan¬ ized. Equipment and processes were de¬ vised in great secrecy. Patents were accu¬ mulated, jealously guarded, fought for, and infringed upon, with the freedom and abandon of the pioneer. A dozen or so different film widths clamored for recognition. Each inventor had his own favorite film size, and the film made in the camera developed by one technician could not be shown in the pro¬ jector developed by another. One film was 2inches wide, and the perforations were punched while the film was in the camera—as the pictures were made! An¬ other had three rows of pictures on the same film, which was run back and forth in the projector. It was in this state of chaos and techni¬ cal turmoil that the young Bell & Howell Company found itself when, in 1907, the organization was born. And three early Bell & Howell units not only formed the foundation on which the company was built, but actually eased the motion pic¬ ture furor of the day into a stabilized, standardized industry. A satisfactory projector was first in the minds of the young Bell & Howell engi¬ neers—a projector that would not let the pictures flicker and jump all over the screen, and that would not show pictures cut in half. However, they soon discovered that no matter how accurately a projector might be designed and built, its pictures would not be steady and flicker-free unless the film itself were handled by precision ma¬ chinery from the very beginning. Accord¬ ingly, the first B&H Model standard 35 mm. camera appeared in 1907, to be fol¬ lowed a year later by the first small con¬ tinuous 35mm. printer. It was this Bell & Howell printer that finally standardized the industry on a film 35 mm. wide. The mechanics of that printer are still amazing. As is commonly known, the negative film, which has gone through the processing solutions and has already shrunk to its final dimensions, is printed on raw positive film which has yet to be processed and which will shrink when it is developed. This shrinkage- after-printing raised cain with picture steadiness. Stop printing—frame by frame —was being used to eliminate the jump. FOR BELL & HOWELL J. H. McNABB, President Bell Cr Howell Company but it was a slow and laborious process and was holding the industry back. Bell & Howell engineers designed a continuous printer in which the two films —negative and positive, one on the other —passed over the arc of a circle at the printing point, negative on the inside, posi¬ tive on the outside. This mechanism was so precisely designed that the radius of the inner circle (formed by the negative) was shorter than the radius of the outer circle (formed by the positive) by an amount which would exactly compensate for the subsequent shrinkage of the posi¬ tive film. In other words, the outer posi¬ tive film was longer by the exact amount that it would shrink after processing! This printer caused a revolution in the laboratories of the period, and it proved so accurate that when sound literally en¬ tered the picture 20 years later, the B&H continuous printing principle appeared to have been developed expressly for the ad¬ ditional accuracy required. A sound track is, in effect, a long, narrow, continuous picture, and the B&H printer of 20 years before was so precisely designed that no basic changes were necessary. Photographers and exhibitors of that day soon learned that pictures processed on a B&H printer were steady, did not jump. And the printer was designed for 35mm. film. They learned also that pic¬ tures made in the B&H camera did not jump, that the film registration—that is, every frame exposed in exactly the right area on the film—was accurate beyond belief. And the camera was designed for 35 mm. film. The gradual but inexorable shift to 35 mm. film began, for only in that size could Bell & Howell equipment be ob¬ tained. Only in that size could the most satisfactory pictures be made and exhibit¬ ed. Thus it was that Bell & Howell, with superior equipment in a period of confu¬ sion and uncertainty, brought about the standardization of 35 mm. film. When the company was founded, you couldn’t show in Milwaukee a film you could show in Chicago. Today, 35 mm. is the standard professional film throughout the world. This printer was followed by a film perforator which, again, was a mechanical masterpiece. Film perforations must be evenly spaced to a microscopic degree, to prevent picture jump. The main principle upon which the B&H perforator is based is the location of new holes by the very holes that have just been punched. The film is guided into the perforation chan¬ nel, and a primary set of four pairs of holes is made. From then on, four sets of pilot pins engage previously made per¬ forations to so position the film in rela¬ tion to the punches, that the next set of four perforations will be accurately punched in the film. As previously stated, the first B&H 35 mm. camera appeared in 1907. It was followed in 1909 by the first all-metal mo¬ tion picture camera ever made. Here came into prominence the famous "Unit I” in¬ termittent movement, never excelled to this day for accuracy in registration. In all other cameras of the day, the film ran in a vertical line through the gate, with the teeth moving in and out of the film. In the B&H camera, the teeth moved up and down, and the film was moved back¬ ward and forward. Moved to the rear, the film was impaled on the teeth which pulled it down. At the bottom of the movement, the film was moved forward off the teeth, up against the aperture plate. It was engaged on a pair of pilot pins which held it in place during expo¬ sure. The only time any pressure was exerted on the film was while it was at rest. The rest of the time it was free from all drag. This principle of "pilot pin regis¬ tration” assured absolute accuracy, and even today, the Bell & Howell Unit I movement is the type preferred in Holly¬ wood when extreme accuracy is required. An example is the photography of "rear projection”—movies of movies. If the scenic or atmospheric background of a set, which actually is a movie projected 434 December, 1947 American Cinematographer