American cinematographer (Nov 1937)

450 American Cinematographer • November, 1937 FILM IS MOST VALUABLE IN TELEVISION By HARRY R. LUBCKE M otion picture film is an im- portant program vehicle in television. It enjoys several advan- tages over other types of pickup. Motion pic- ture productions can be made in parts and the result edited. Motion picture programs can be released simultane- ously in several remote cities, since any num- ber of positive prints can be made from a master negative. Alternately, in the interests of economy, one or two prints can be exhibited on a road show tour of the television outlets of the country, playing in one city on one date, in another city on the next, and so on. Until suitable coaxial cables or television relay stations are networked across the coun- try, film is the only means by which programs may be broadcast nationally, unless the cast and properties of the show themselves are transported from city to city. Finally, it is impossible to distinguish be- tween a live subject or a film pickup on the television receiver screen. If anything, a properly photographed film program is the better. The Don Lee organization has been engaged in television research for seven years and in television broadcasting for six years. Tele- vision transmitter W6XAO went on the air on December 23, 1931, on the now universally used ultra-high frequencies, and has been on the air daily since that time. Lot of Film In this interval 8,000,000 feet of motion picture film have been broadcast. In May, 1932, television images were shown to the press on a self-synchronized cathode-ray television re- ceiver in a transport airliner while fiying over the city of Los Angeles. In March, 1933, film scenes of the Long Beach earthquake were shown before the pub- lic was admitted to the stricken area. A football game has been flashed on the screen three hours after it was played, and a fea- ture, “Empire of the West,” was given a bona fide preview via television. Public demonstrations of high definition television were inaugurated on June 4, 1936, and since that time 10,000 persons have wit- nessed the results at distances up to ten miles from the transmitter. Early in this work it became evident that certain subjects, scenes and particular films gave excellent images on the receiver screen, while others gave almost worthless results. Constant observation of the transmissions un- der all sorts of conditions has resulted in the formulation of seven rules for good motion picture photography for television. These are given below in the order of their Top to bottom; Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 9. Reproduced from frames of the original motion picture films televised as described. Director Television Don Lee Broadcasting System importance, and the results obtained with sub- jects filmed in accordance with and in viola- tion of the rules are given in the accompany- ing figures. These were received at a distance of 3% miles on standard home receiving equipment. The original is given at the left and the photographed reproduction at the right. The latter was taken with a Contax camera with an F 1.5 lens. With the range finder avail- able and the fast lens, some of the photo- graphs were not accurately in focus. Eye Better Than Lens In others a horizontal line structure appears because of secondary effects. This is not ap- parent to the eye when looking at the re- ceived image. A time exposure of from one to three seconds was used for the photographs. Also for a few weeks at the time these photographs were taken a certain bypass con- denser in the television amplifying equipment had, through an error, a value of two micro- farads. This has since been changed to a proper value of eleven microfarads and the light as well as dark spurious shadows in certain scenes are no longer present. It might appear that the photographic proc- ess used at the receiver to secure these rec- ords could be considered perfect. It has been consistently demonstrated, however, that this is not true, the image as seen by the eye having greater clarity and brilliance than it is possible to secure in the photographs. The first rule is: Do not violate the usual rules of photography. Illumination, composition, contrast, and ex- posure as required for clear pictorial defini- tion are to be used. In current motion picture photography extremes in lighting and other factors are practiced for dramatic effect. Dark, low key, lighting is used to produce a depressing audience reaction to tragic se- quences. Such practices may be employed to a lim- ited degree in the television technique, but they must be restricted, or the result on the receiver screen becomes meaningless. Originals and photographed results are on file which are very dark and give results which are useless to reproduce here. Figure 1 shows a scene in which the key (overall) lighting is too low. This was part of a prisoner sequence where darkness was utilized as a depressing agent. Although the photograph of the received image was given five times