Home Movies (1944)

PACE 358 HOME MOVIES FOR SEPTEMBER CINE ROUNDUP + News Topics of Interest in the Realm of Movie Making • Samuel G. Rose, executive vice president, A. F. Victor, president and Ernest G. Schroeder, general sales manager of Victor Animatograph Corporation at ceremonies marking the 21st birthday of the 14mm. industry compare modern Victor sound motion picture equipment with the first 16mm. camera and projector ever produced. Mr. Rose and Mr. Victor have been associated for 34 years in the nontheatrical motion picture industry. Tribute to the inventive genius and vision of Alexander F. Victor and his associates in the Victor Animatograph Corporation was paid by leaders in the non-theatrical motion picture industry, government officials and local business men at a dinner and ceremonies commemorating the ''Coming of Age — 21st Birthday of the 16mm. Industry" at Davenport, Iowa, on August 12th. Early in 1923, Mr. Victor designed and produced the first 16mm. projector and camera. Eastman Kodak Company produced the first 16mm. film. The production of both, giving birth to the 1 6mm. industry and the home movies hobby in this country, was announced simultaneously by Victor Animatograph Corporation on August 12th of that year. One of the exhibits at the dinner was a reproduction of a full page advertisement in the Davenport (Iowa) Times bearing the date August 12, 1923, announcing on behalf of the Victor Animatograph Corporation, the first offering of these products to the world. Other interesting exhibits included the first Victor 16mm. camera and projector. The part since played by Mr. Victor's invention in business and international affairs was also dwelt upon by various speakers during the program that followed the dinner. Dr. V. Clyde Arnspiger, vice-president of Encyclopedia Britannica Films, Inc., asserted in a talk dealing with educational aspects of 1 6mm. films: "We are interested in the education of the human race, and only in truth can we be made free. There is no other tool that will make us free except the truth, and this medium of communication which we have all been interested in, makes possible for the first time in the history of the world the truth to the millions upon whom depends the realization of our democratic society. "I think it is terribly important for us to realize that we have in our midst a man whose vision, whose prophecy and whose whole organization had the guts and the nerve back in 191 1 and for the succeeding 33 years to make, as the theme of their publicity, the importance of bringing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the public." ★ * * Canada is taking fullest advantage of 1 6mm. films for educational and instructional purposes. The Dominion's Xational Film Board is actively producing and acquiring releases to cover a wide range of subjects. Prints are made available to both urban and rural audiences. With the cooperation of various Provincial departments, Canada's National Film Board has organized many 16mm. circuits that regularly cover the hinterlands and factories, where informative and educational training films are shown. Dominion radio broadcasts to schools on travel and geographical subjects are keyed to films relating to same subjects and these films are released to schools to augment the instructive radio programs. ★ ★ ★ Fotosound Studios. New York City, offer a new service catering to amateurs desiring to add sound to their 1 6mm. films. Pictures may be shipped to the studio by any amateur together with script and cue sheets, and the company will add sound to the film as directed. Another feature is the availability of Fotosound Studios to cine clubs. Groups may rent the studio for production of their own sound films. Where necessary, Fotosound's equipment and technicians may be engaged to go out on location for amateur productions. ★ ★ ★ Explorers, sportsmen, and ordinary sight-seers can look forward to a new prism binocular with a 16mm. motion picture camera built so compactly into its interior that the whole will be little if any larger than standard prism field glasses, reports Business Week, industrial trade paper. Though it will have a capacity for 25 ft. of film (to be shot continuously or a few frames at a time) , there will be no ungainly protrusions on the instrument to reveal its dual nature. As a user surveys the postwar landscape, follows a horse race, or watches a pretty girl in the building across the way — and wishes to record his visual impressions for posterity — he will press a button which will throw a prism into the light path of the binoculars' left barrel, bending the light rays into the camera and throwing it into operation. Until the button is released, the user's left eye will be given a rest while his right eye continues to follow the progress of events through the right barrel. ★ V ★ What some people won't do to get into movies! It has been reported that since the Texas State Prison, at Austin. Texas, inaugurated a system of making movies of every inmate, "guests" have increased in number. Instead of keeping a file of "stills" of prisoners or wanted • Continued on Page 5 16