The Cine Technician (1939)

48 THE CINE-TECHXI C I A X June-July, 1937 "S" trouble was met with, but was finally overcome by 11 fill control of negative and positive densities. The optical system was far from perfect and 12-volt, 50-watt motor head-light lamps were used, and over-run at about 19 volts with consequently onlv a life of three or lour hours, sometimes even shorter. Captain Round recalled an early scene in which he had to record and photograph a quintet composed of a 'cello, a brass instrument and three muted strings, but the scene was not a success, as the strings had disappeared in the reproduction. One film director had actually asked to have a singer taken off the track, irrespective of the fact that an orchestra had also been recorded on the same track. The lecturer then pointed out the difficulties caused by making the camera speed 24 frames per second, involving the use of 48 cycles. He said that television was using 25 frames, which was the sensible thing to do, considering the nature of the supply (i.e. 230 volts 50 cycles). Another difficulty experienced was in printing from the negative, and in the early days an old Debrie printer was used, but now the problem has been satisfactorily solved. EDCBA Visatone Eel (Noise Reduction) Track. An interesting experiment was tried in an attempt to record whole books on film for the use of blind people. This project, in order to be commercial, involved the use of a number of tracks on one film, and in an effort to make it still less expensive, the film was slowed down to hall Speed, nine inches per second. The result was somewhat muffled, and at slower speeds it became impossible. Mr. Wright, then Captain Round's assistant, investigated this, and found that they were hampered by the thickness of the emulsion in the film. The question of getting a thinner emulsion was gone into, and then the idea of stopping the light getting into the film was investigated. The lecturer requested Kodak to stain some film red, and he explained why he wanted it. Kodak asked him to try ordinary duplicating stock, that is, yellow-stained film, and the result was startling, and brilliant recordings were obtained at four inches per second. He thought he had found something new, but discovered the method was well-known in ordinary photography, and also that a great deal was known about using white light with yellow stock to give fine resolution. The American way was to leave the stock alone and change the light ; in fact, the Americans went further and used ultra-violet light. In printing, since the picture cannot be printed on yellow stock, a solution has been found in using white light for the mute, and ultra-violet for the sound, as by using a blue filter, a finer resolution was obtained in the sound print. Captain Round went on to speak of noiseless recording, and as he started rather late in the day, he found himself up against a great deal of difficulty in overcoming the American and continental patents. The volume expansion methods, in which both area and density were used, was abandoned at an early stage, and another method was tried — now in successful operation. The first indication of silent track was in 1926, when Lee de Forest suggested that whenever there was absolute silence the track should be blackened out. In 1927, Siemens Halske patented a method of blackening out the track, but careful timing had to be observed, because 1/20 second was the fastest time for opening and closing the track, and even that speed was getting dangerously near to the audible frequency on some of the wide-range projectors. The method Visatone used was to employ a similar principle, but the control took place in steps. The track took a parallel form, and as the intensitv of sound increased, the number of tracks decreased. The system was a push-pull one, patented in 1910 by a man who did not realise the full significance of his achievement. In Captain Round's opinion, recording was still ahead of projection, but nevertheless recent advances in the latter sphere had enabled recording to show off its finer points. In conclusion, he said that he hoped to realise his ambition of having his apparatus used on important films, as he thought that it was as good as the foreign systems, which were, at the moment, almost exclusively used for major productions. Hollywood Letter (continued from next pagi of "Dead End." Every little detail was perfect and the sky backing, to represent dawn, was so well painted one could scarcely tell it was not the real thing. It must not be thought that Hollywood is all wealth and "super" productions. There is another side perhaps even worse than our own quickies business. They are the "hangers on," struggling to keep going, making fivereel quickies for as little as £900 in two to six days ! I think that just about beats our record! This type of producer is lucky if he realises ten per cent, above his expenses and the pictures of course never reach England. This has only been a preliminary glance into the immense organisations of the American film industry the third largest in the country, As soon as 1 settle down and learn the language which takes some learning I'll have something more interesting. Leigh Aman.