Home Movies and Home Talkies (Jun 1933-May 1934)

HOME MOVIES & HOME TALKIES 19 material. Take the man who has a (quarter plate roll film camera. His film will cost him about 2s. with 6d. per spool for developing and .is. a dozen for his prints, and by the time he has paid for prints and mounts and albums and enlargements and all those spare jirints for his friends who so glibly say, " I'll pay for them, of course, old man ! " but never do, the photographic bill has mounted quite high. What You Pay For Now let us come to this dreaded 26s. about wliich there is so much talk. This represents the cost of no less than 100 feet of film in the larger or 16-mm. size and, mark you, it represents not only the cost of the film but also the complete cost of developing, printing, attaching to a special projection reel and posting to your home. A 26s. reel (and the film is panchromatic, by the way, which means that it is the best type of modern emulsion sensitive to all colours) gives four whole minutes of jirojection time on the screen, and again 1 wouki ask you not to have any illusion about this length of time but to take out your watch and see just bow long four minutes really is. You will find it is probably at least twice as long as you imagine, for most people are rather bad in estimating intervals of time. If you do not wish to put so much down at a time you can buy 50-feet rolls of 16-mm. film and the price is a little more than half of that of 100 feet. Or, again, if you prefer to buy the film " without processing rights," which means that you buy the film in the same way as you do still photographic films and subsequently pay for developing and printing, then your ■cost will be much lower. For example, a 50-feet reel of modern 16-mm. How is this for the opening shot of your holiday film ? jianchromatic film bought in the ordinary way without processing rights is 10s., but if you are content to have no bettor film than is obtainable in still camera reels (which means an orthochromatic film instead of a panchromatic film) you can get 50 feet for 6s. 6d. Then the new 8-mm. Kodak film costs only lOs. for four minutes, and this is the cheapest movie-making of all sizes. So you see that the alleged high cost of movie making is by no means so great as is generally imagined. If it were so you would not get the enormous number of recruits that we get every month to the new liobby. Even the children can operate your cine-camera You may peihaps grant me my ])oint that the cost of the film, or more accurately the total cost of operating, is not high compared with that of the still camera and it is perhaps a pity that in the past the erroneous impression has been created by including all costs in the price of the film. " Well, even if it is as you say, ' ' you continue, " I have to have not only an expensive camera but also an expensive projector ! " A Useful Analogy Will you again allow me to refer to the analogy of the motor car and to the relative cost of the Austin Seven and the Rolls Royce '.' I admit at once that some movie cameras are very expensive as are some projectors, but that does not mean to say that you cannot get excellent .service with an inexpensive equipment. I know many people who are using six-guinea movie cameras and jirojectors costing £6 l.'^s. each, who are not only fully satisfied with their results but cannot imagine how they managed before they bought them ! The total expenditure here, then, for camera and projector is £1J Is., and this does not represent by any means the cheapest movie outfit obtainable. There is, \< >v example, one popular movie camera ■.\liich sells for 5.5s., with a projector l.\ the same fii-m for some shillings liss than this. The results, as we know from experience, are quite good. Then again there has just appeared on the market a combined camera and j)rojector costing seven guineas, while the introduction of the 8-mm. size film has resulted in a splendid little outfit giving pictures of remarkably high quality for vmder £20. So we go on in cost according to what you requii-e and the elaborations provided. You probably know