The Film Daily (1947)

1^ 'pe: OOIi ;* ! J 'is i i vices cm] ail ifOl ".a.H: lieres ; i B 1 lonn; rstoni I, baili 'HexAll G, ;:ional( riday. December 27. 1946 CQUIPMENT NEWS Armstrong Cork Ups 'rices on Linoleums Price changes on several individjal types of linoleum and floor cover[ig have been announced by C. N. I'ainter, vice-president and general jianager of the floor division of .rmstrong Cork Co. He asserted pat^L. .new price list involves no iene.r^=rmcrease for the Armstrong ne. Zone price of 3/16-inch battleship ;'|noleum is being increased approx""hiately 15 per cent, and the zone rices for %-inch plain linoleum are "leing raised by approximately 5 per 'jt>nt. These increases are being made p partially offset the added cost of lurlap which is being reinstated as he standard backing for all heavy jauge material, according to Painter. towne, UA Showcase leopens After Renovation Milwaukee — The Towne Theater ^as formally opened here on Christinas Day as a first-run showplace lor United Artist features. House * "Dfi/as completely renovated from its vaudeville features, with boxes ieing completely removed and the P^P^Jtaterior being re-decorated, erasing (.11 traces of the theater's former iresentations. f The new marquee, new sound and projection equipment, new seats, and j: completely revised aisle spacing ystem which will provide patrons jasy clearance between the aisles Jmd insure utmost in safety, have jnade the house completely modern p every respect. Towne is run by Andrew Spheeris .nd Connie Pappas. eCo. ;[Jf«lkron's Building Code oper-'Being Revised for Safety jricanp' Akron, O. — Akron s proposed new juilding code, to be submitted to tlouncil early in January, after being in preparation for two-and-aijalf years, will permit use of newly rirteveloped post-war materials and is ' junctional, i.e., any material or inethod for construction which can j)e demonstrated to be safe can be |ised, according to James A. Easton, )uilding inspection head. He said he code is likely to have the first provisions of its kind designed to )revent disastrous fires of the type ;hat claimed 120 lives in Atlanta, Ga. ! the Popeye Fans Biote: Record Spinach Crop Here's bad news for some kids, but Popeye fans will cheer. The Department of Agriculture reports this year's spinach crop is one of the largest on record. Harvesting will start next month on an estimated 7,550,000 bushel crop, with 103 carloads a month leaving Texas during the height of the season, the department states. B & L Producing Trivision Lens New ThreeDimensional Photography Exhibited (Continued from Page 1) known as Trivision, was developed after several years' experimental work. Photographs are taken with a single lens and do not require the aid of viewing glasses to bring out their depth or relief. The lens is a 14% -inch f:2.2 portrait-type lens. In size, it closely resembles the headlight on a locomotive, measuring eight inches in diameter when mounted. One factor in the success of the picture-taking process is the lens' large diameter. | Winnek maintains that a camera lens, like human vision, can see partly around any object. Thus, the wider the lens, the better the depth perception. Trivision's inventor points out that this property of a lens is wasted in an ordinary camera beca^use all the light reflections focus on a flat surface. This is actually the remainder of Winnek's secret for he devised a method of embossing any standard film, black-and-white or color, on the side opposite the emulsion, with microscopically small ridges or lenticulations. These ridges take the shape of simple piano convex cylindrical lenses numbering about 200 per linear inch. Each tiny ridge acts as a separate miniature lens and divides its portion of the image into two parts, thus converting the film into an optical surface which supplements the action of the large Bausch & Lomb lens. To obtain maximum depth or reBig Expansion Seen For Hawaiian 16mm. Sales Chicago — F. Jebens of the Motion Picture Enterprises of Honolulu, of which E. J. Young is president, was a business visitor here this week, meeting the equipment trade. She reported the company had opened one of the finest photo equipment stores in the Islands at 655 Kapiolania, Honolulu, in addition to the headquarters store at 121 S. Beretanca St. Company has built up a large rental business for 16 mm. films and projectors to show films in homes and business houses, throughout the Islands. The rental fee is based on a feature and three shorts for each show at an evening charge of $17.50 to $20 per evening. Both territorial and private schools are buying 16 mm. projectors to show films to their students. Miss Jebens says there are several thousand 16 mm. projectors in use in the Islands and many more will be purchased within the next year. Company plans extensive expansion of the business which will include the opening of a branch in Shanghai, China, in the Spring. The company has the agency for Victor equipment lines for the Islands and also acts as distributor of other leading lines, both for equipment and films. lief, the camera is designed to that it'moves across or scans the subject laterally. The film, too, is moved during exposures. For example, objects in the foreground appear to move in relation to objects in the background. Foreground objects also appear to project out in front of the photograph or mount itself. If a pencil point is placed on an object in the picture, such as the center of a flower, the flower appears to project out and beyond the pencil point. The possibilities opened up by Trivision are obviously great. Not only in portraiture, but in aerial reconnaissance, motion pictures, x-ray and clinical work will the effects be of great value, it is claimed. Its inventor says additional work is under way to adapt it to lithographs for use on billboards. Governmental recognition of the value of Winnek's idea was granted early in the war and much progress toward its perfection came about through special grants of money and facilities. The Navy invested large sums developing the process and also worked out a photo-engraving process to nick up the depth perception of the Trivision camera. Latest version of the camera was built by the Aero Photographic Experimental Laboratory, Philadelphia Navy Yard The young optics engineer, who visited Bausch & Lomb in search of a lens that could meet requirements for the Trivision camera, reportedly has sold an option on movie rights. 650-Seat Village Theater Bows on Christmas Day Faribault, Minn. — The new 650seat Village Theater has been opened by Will J. Glaser. Erected by the Faribault Theater Co., house has provision for the use of television, a Grecian-style stage with steps leading up from the seating floor, a plastic screen, self-lifting seats with extra space for individua] comfort, and heating pines set in the concrete sidewalk which will melt snow, keeping clear the front of the theater. Assembly-Line Plan For Studios Devised West Coast Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Los Angeles — Various studios are showing a keen interest in an assembly-line studio plan invented by Fred Pelton, labor relations advisor for AMPP and formerly studio manager for M-G-M. He has already prepared "conversion" plans for pail of UniversalInternational and Republic. Pelton has also blue printed five new stages for 20th-Fox. RKO, Columbia and Paramount are also interested in Pelton's plan, as is Alexander Korda. Pelton plans to make a trip to England in the Spring. Eagle-Lion and Enterprise will consider plan if they build new studios. Pelton will be paid on a royalty basis by studios that use his plan. He claims that a six-stage "Pelton Studio" would cost no more than 12 regular stages and be equal in capacity to 18 regular stages. His plan would conserve stages by using them only for shooting pictures; stage floors would be movable and could be shoved around on platforms on railed streets and propelled by a pusher vehicle. Harriman, Cripps Agree On Tech. Data Exchange Washington Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Washington — In a joint statement. Secretary of Commerce W. A. Harriman and Sir Stafford Cripps, president of Great Britain's Board of Trade, announced yesterday an Anglo-American agreement for exchange of German technical information acquired by the two nations since V-E Day. Hundreds of thousands of German scientific and technical documents, including many important to the mo':ion picture field, have been uncovered by British and American investigators. Heretofore, exchange of 'hese documents between U. S. and Great Britain has been imperfect, but under the present agreement representatives of each nation will be able to select from the other's storehouse of reports the films which they find valuable. Copies will be obtained on an exchange basis. New Cineffects Process Claims High Pro Quality Time and cost economies are the result of a new technique developed by Cineffects, Nat Sobel, general manager announced. Special effects like freezing, double framing, skip frames, reverse action, fades, dissolves and wipes can be accomplished on 16 mm. Kodachrome by single process of optical printing instead of the customary "A" and "B" contact printing. Altec Elects Thomas At the Altec Lansing board meeting held in New York Dec. 5, 1946, P. F. Thomas, now treasurer of Altec Service Corp., was elected assistant treasurer of Altec Lansing Corp. Decorating Astaire Studios Mrs. Richard Bai'thelmess, wife of movie star Lt. Comdr. Richard Barthelmess, and Mrs. Creever Cowdin are doing the interior decorating for the new Fred Astaire Dance Studios, located at 487 Park Ave., N. Y. C. Utiliphone New Office Intercom Electronic Laboratories, Inc., Indianapolis, Ind., offer a new "Utiliphone" for two-way inter-office communication systems. Consisting of two speaker units controlled by a pushbutton, the instrument makes use of a three-way wire set-up.