American cinematographer (Dec 1937)

December, 1937 • American Cinematographer 493 WHAT 1937 HAS SHOWN IN TECHNICAL PROGRESS IN MOTION PICTURE MAKING T he year 1937 has been for the motion picture industry one of peak production. As such, technical progress has been basically along lines tending to improve or expedite details, rather than in sweeping changes. Nevertheless, definite advances are noticeable in many directions, and in some fields—most not- ably, perhaps, that of raw film manufacture—sweeping advances are heralded for the immediate future, if not already announced. A very definite trend toward color has been noted, while last year’s trend of modernizing the equipment of studio camera de- partments has continued unabated. A radical change in the con- tractual relations between studios and sound equipment purveyors has been seen. The sub-standard field has grown enormously, with 16mm. taking on increased importance as a semi-pro- fessional and educational standard. The demand for 8mm. equipment has grown to such proportions that man- ufacturers have fallen behind in their orders even before the Christmas rush has started. Until shortly before this review was written production schedules and budgets had both been on the in- crease; in the opinions of some ex- perts somewhat too greatly in ad- vance of box office receipts. As this is written a trend toward produc- tion economy is noticeable, while the erstwhile despised program picture gains higher esteem. Methods The move toward color during the latter months of 1937 has taken on almost the aspect of a boom. Fol- lowing notable and progressive ad- vancements in the quality of natural color cinematography, and especially in the laboratory processing of color film and prints, several major pro- ducers, already committed to the pro- duction of one or several color fea- tures, increased their commitments, while others, including several stu- dios previously uninterested in or even opposed to color, have contract- ed for color features. Yet another major producer, Samuel Goldwyn, of United Artists, announced his future production would be entirely in color. Coincidentally with this, an in- creasing number of major studio con- tract directors of photography, pre- viously associated only with the pro- duction of important monochrome films, have been placed in charge of photographing natural color produc- tions. The success of these members of the A.S.C. in the still new artistic and technical field of color is and will be, if judged by such films as already have been released or pre- viewed, fully as great as had been forecast in these columns. It may well give color a further impetus. Trend to Color The trend toward color has also been evidenced in the revival of tint- ing and toning monochrome film by at least two studios. This has been done with greater artistic restraint than was known in the tint-and-tone work of silent days and, with the ad- vantage of today’s routined use of sensitometric control and machine operations, is technically vastly su- perior to previous uses of these proc- esses. The year has been marked by a lessening of the stream of foreign- bound Hollywood technicians. This has been due to a general tightening up of restrictions on imported talent in the various foreign producing cen- ters and to the improvement of native talent in many cases. Tighter economic regulations in several foreign countries, in combi- nation with wars and war scares in both Europe and Asia, have been seriously reflected on the receipts of American films. Raw Materials The much discussed establishment of a British Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production unit has become a fact, with the firm’s first British-American feature under way. R-K-0 is under- stood to have reached a somewhat similar arrangement with the British producer Herbert Wilcox. Two important new types of raw film material have come into general use. Chronologically the first is Agfa’s Type B infra-red sensitive film. This emulsion is in a way sim- ilar to the firm’s previous type inas- much as its sensitivity is such as to permit the use of filters far lighter than those previously employed for infra-red photography, giving a greatly increased effective speed. For Night Effects The new type, however, is charac- terized by a more normal contrast and gradation, permitting its use not only in background and atmospheric night effect scenes, but in filming night effects of normal action includ- ing close-ups of principal players. The use of this film for filming ex- terior night effects by daylight has become almost general. The second notable improvement is the introduction of Eastman’s two new duplicating films, which have revolutionized the creating of dupli- cate negatives. One of these emul- sions is for making the master du- plicating positive from which the dupe negative is printed; the other for making the duplicate negative itself. With them it is for the first time possible to get dupe negatives from which prints indistinguishable from prints from the original negative can be made. Aside from the obvious uses of these materials in special effects proc- esses they are capable of saving the studios notable sums in the making of foreign release prints and in ad- dition bring to foreign audiences identical photographic quality seen in American releases—a quality hereto- fore all too often lacking. New Agfa Negative As this is written Afga is preparing to make formal announcement of two new negative films, at least one of which has in some cases been used on actual major studio production. The first of these is trade named Supreme, and is reported to have a Weston speed rating of 64 to daylight and 40 to incandescent light, while retaining fine-grain characteristics equal or superior to the previous Superpan types. The second is known as Ultrapan, and is said to have a