American cinematographer (Aug 1936)

August, 1936 ® American Cinematographer 335 the same wallop? Would "Mutiny on the Bounty" hove been so effective in oil-color even granting that any color process could hove shot it. The revolutionizing powers of color appear to be somewhat overdrawn. Com- parison to advent of sound in studio practice is not able analogy. Dialogue pushed back the horizon of screen pos- sibilities and dramatic construction. Color, by any process commercially of- fered, hampers and restricts that bound- ary. There is unearthed no cause for alarm that current cinematographers of the light-and-shadow school will be reduced either to the status of mendicants or recorders of established color scales. Black-and-white photography is, and every indication shows it will continue to be, the industry's one staple com- modity. Ultra-Violet Recording With Black Light Continued from page 329 would not be lost, and the clarity and quality of the sound would be vastly bet- tered. Knowing that the emulsion was strongly sensitive to the ultra-violet rays, Dimmick experimented to see how deep- ly such rays would penetrate. By the simple expedient of exposing two films, back to back, in a recorder fitted with a filter that removed all but the ultra- violet rays, he found that the emulsion of the top film very effectively held back the rays from exposing the lower film. Experimenting further, he found that in normal recording, using only ultra- violet light, the filtering action of the emulsion confined most of the exposure to the top half of the emulsion, almost completely eliminating spreading or dif- fusing of the beam, and wholly elimin- ating the halation-fogging. Under the microscope, the sound-track serrations were seen to be far more clear-cut. In the reproduced sound, the vital high fre- quencies gave clear evidence of their presence, in better and clearer quality. Applying this system to practical re- cording proves unbelievably simple. The light-wave-length chosen (3900 A.), while definitely in the ultra-violet band, passes easily through most types of glass. Therefore the regular Photophone optical system can be used unchanged. Special exciter-lamp globes are advis- able, bulbs designed to radiate the de- sired wave-length with particular free- dom. The one major additon to the system is a filter which removes all but the ultra-violet rays. This filter has the characteristics of a conventional 2" glass filter, .055" thick, the Corning No. 584. It appears almost completely opaque visually, yet transmits over 85% of the invisible ultra-violet light. This filter is placed, for convenience, directly in front of the microscope system which focuses the recording beam on the film, and behind the visual monitoring screen. Thus the recordist may check his record visually in the usual manner even though the actual recording is done by invisible light. The improvement in the definition of the record is shown in Figure 3, which compares micrographs of a normal "white light" record of a 9000 cycle frequency tone with an ultra-violet record of the same tone. The fogging at the base of the serrations in the white light record, and the lack of definition at the peaks, i€ clearly shown. The more clear-cut ultra-violet record speaks for itself. The practical value of this new sys- tem may be summed up by t'ne words "more natural sound." With the higher AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER HANDBOOK and REFERENCE GUIDE By Jackson Rose COMPLETE, AUTHENTIC, HANDY One cinematographer in the field, writes: "I am a news reel man. This handbook has given me more information than all of the other books I have ever read. It's handy on the job when you must know things quick." NOW ONLY $2.00 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER 6331 Hollywood Boulevard Hollywood, Calif. FEARLESS CAMERA CO. Velocilator Camera Dollies, Camera Blimps, Camera Motors, and com- plete camera accessories and equip- ment. 8572 Santa Monica, Hollywood, Cal. Eastern Representative, Motion Picture Camera Supply Co., 723 7th Ave. N.Y.C. is an outstanding characteristic of the B-M High Fidelity sound-on-film Recording Galvanometer. Built for utmost flexibility of electrical operation, the B-M unit is de- signed to withstand those unavoidable shocks to which any sound recording unit is at times subjected. The enlarged B-M sound track reproduced above graphically illustrates this point, with no change in the galvanometer operating characteristics after application of a strong impact signal. Descriptive literature and full technical informa- tion sent upon request. BERNDT-MAURER Model "E" High Fidelity Recording Galvanometer, frequency range 0 to 10,000 cycles $350. list F. O. B. New York. THEBERnOT-mnURERcoRP. 117 East 24ih Street • (leui Vorh City 7| 3| 4| 5| 6|