The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

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146 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN November, 1953 A FILM TECHNICIANS NOTEBOOK Compiled by A. E. Jeakins IN spite of predictions from some quarters that 3-D is on the way out, there appears to be considerable activity in technical developments relating to stereo films. The Nord Company of Minneapolis are reported to have demonstrated in Hollywood a method of putting the twin films of 3-D on to a single strip, thus eliminating the necessity for dual projectors, and the hazards that accompany this method. A projectionist at M.G.M. studios has developed a zoom-type projection lens which will enable exhibitors to show wide-screen films of varying aspect ratios without having to buy several sets of lenses. The one lens handles all aspect ratios from 1.37 to 1 to 2.0 to 1 The Polaroid Corporation have produced an electronic system which detects any out of sync, conditions which arise during 3-D projection and enables the projectionist to correct them. We hope to be able to give a fuller account of these developments when more information is available. On the camera side of 3-D, adaptations of standard equipment to 3-D set-ups continue to appear. We illustrate two : one 16mm. and one 35mm. It will be noted that in both these examples the cameras are mounted side-by-side and not nose on. The Linden arrangement of two DeVrys appears to employ a periscope device on one of the cameras to reduce the lens separation. Bell & Howell have entered the 16mm. wide screen field with a system patterned on 20th Century-Fox CinemaScope. A single anamorphic or " squeeze " lens attachment is used for both shooting and projecting. The projected picture is of normal brilliance and fills a curved screen 2.5 times as wide as it is high. At a demonstration the picture was shown on a screen 8 feet high by 20 feet wide. B. & H. have developed a stereophonic sound system to go with their wide screen picture. A modified version of the company's magnetic recording projector (the Filmosound 202) is used to record the magnetic sound tracks as well as to project the film. Two different sound tracks are recorded side by side on a single strip of magnetic material permanently bonded to the film edge. The sound is then played back through two separate amplifier speaker systems located at opposite ends of the screen and along the sides of the auditorium. Once again we are indebted to George Ashton for some interesting information about recent colour developments in the film industry. In his article in the September 18th issue of the British Journal of Photography he remarks that the complex situation in motion pictures, regarding colour at least, appear to be clarifying. Recent news suggests that the choice of a producer will now lie between either Eastman colour negative or Technicolor three-strip for his original, and between prints on Eastman colour positive or regular Technicolor imbibition prints for release. The improvement in colour quality of recent productions photographed in Eastman colour and printed in Technicolor is doubtless due to the manner in which they were made. It has been assumed that Technicolor release prints from Eastman or Ansco colour negatives, are made by first making separation positives from the colour negative, and from these positives a set of separation negatives. From these negatives normal matrices could be made by the usual Technicolor procedure. In fact, the system proves to be a good deal simpler — the matrices are now made from the colour negative direct. The matrix film which is used to make the relief images from three-strip negatives is orthochromatic and dyed with a mixture of dyes which give it an orange-red colour. In printing, a range of blue filters is used to control the contrast of the matrix and the shape of the transfer characteristic. This filtration control has clearly been an important aid to the imbibition process, so that the abandonment of such control by making the matrix film panchromatic in order to print directly from a colour negative would not be a step to be lightly taken. In fact, the matrix film is not made panchromatic. The new material, Tricolor Matrix Film, intended for making imbibition matrices from colour negative, comes in three types, one blue sensitive, one green sensitive, and the third red sensitive. There may well be a number of reasons for this choice of method. It will eliminate the need for printing the matrix film through tricolor separation filters, which waste light and so slow down printing speed. Also, since an emulsion, which gives a relief image must absorb light strongly to produce a relief at all, and for a panchromatic matrix material the absorbing dye stuff would have to act equally throughout the sensitivity range, it is possible that using three separately-sensitised films simplified the problem. But what seems the most likely reason for the use of tricolor matrix sensitisation is the possibility of control. It seems unlikely that any attempt is made to vary the matrix gradation by the use of filters in printing; but a second part of the technique of making imbibition reliefs lies in the use of a pre-printing fogging exposure to give the characteristic curve of the matrix film a toe it otherwise lacks. When a relief image is made in the usual way on a suitable material the characteristic curve of the material will have no toe and a very sharp shoulder. By pre-fogging the film through the base, using light of a colour which the gelatine absorbs because of the dyes incorporated in it. the shape and extent of the toe can be controlled. Now. though the shape and slope of the upper portion of the curve presumably cannot be varied in printing tricolor matrix film, it seems likely that the flash exposure for the toe can. If the blue sensitive film contains a yellow absorbing dye or dyes, the green, a magenta absorbing dye and so on, then the toe shape would be controlled by the filters used for the pre-fogging exposure.