International projectionist (Jan-Dec 1950)

glass insists in parting his on the right. But you can cure him of the habit. Place two mirrors at right angles to each other, as in Fig. 6. Then, when the subject winks his right eye, his mirror image will do the same. If he looks at his left eye with both eyes, paths of light are as illustrated. Virtual image is at X. Seen with the eye that is looking at itself, the image will always be in line with the intersection of the mirrors. If you want to confuse your friends thoroughly, try the experiment shown in Fig. 7. Mark four points on a piece of paper placed in front of a mirror. Hold a magazine or cardboard so that your victim can see only the reflected image. Then challenge him (or her) to draw the four sides of the square and the two diagonals. Any resemblance to straight lines will be positively coincidental! Retinal Fatigue There are many demonstrations of retinal fatigue. The after-image caused by peering at a lighted bulb — particularly the bright light of a flash camera — shows how the visual purple of the retina is exhausted by intense light from a given source, how it takes an appreciable length of time for vision to return to normal. Draw an intensely black figure on white paper — a cross, circle, or numeral will do. Have the subject gaze at it intently for 30 seconds, then look away at a dark background. As you know, the figure will be seen in reverse color. The FIGURE 6. after-image will be dark and can be observed most readily against a white background. This demonstration is effective in color. Of course, a bright blue spot will produce an orange after-image — its complementary color. A flashing red neon sign observed intently will result in a brilliant green after-image. Well, there they are — a handful of optical oddities, some of which we hope will be new to some of our readers. If we have omitted your favorite demonstration of some simple optical law, write in and tell us about it. If we receive enough good suggestions, we will be glad to run a supplementary article in a later issue. Tv Newsreel Production Technique By JOHN SANDSTONE Telenews Productions, Inc. IN PRODUCING a newsreel for television, it is not surprising to find many standard newsreel procedures more than inadequate. Pioneering in new techniques necessitates a major shift in outlook— which shift is from polish to speed. While quality is by no means neglected, producing a daily newsreel for one-shot airings means amazingly close deadlines and pressures never experienced by theatrical newsreel people. Every operation, from camera work through editing and writing, all the way to distribution, must be performed at top speed. The pressure is by no means eased when the film is finally delivered to the Tv outlet: transportation slowdowns or the press of late news may have delayed delivery until a minute or two before program time. Then the "heat" is definitely on the projectionist and the program director. Mishaps Rare But Amusing Theater projectionists being unused to this sort of thing, some amusing foulups have resulted. One such incident occurred in Boston. Films of the 1948 baseball World's Series arrived on 16mm silent film only a few minutes before broadcast time. A new projectionist hastily threaded the projector, without inspection. The results were amus in' but confusin': the first batter got a hit — and ran madly to third base ! When the excitement subsided, a quick check revealed that the film had been threaded wrong-side-out, reversing the image. One familiar with film processing problems — cutting, writing, editing, and shipping film in quantity — will appreciate the job involved in producing a daily newsreel. Advance and holdover stories are unknown. Each day represents a complete production cycle, starting with out-of-town and foreign stories picked up at the airport early in the morning, and local stories shot late the previous day. Complicated by stories arriving during the day, the job of putting together a newsreel goes on right up to the lab deadline. By nightfall a 10-minute reel is ready for telecast. Next day the same routine is repeated. Illustrative of the high-speed coverage attained was a recent assignment to John Sandstone, Telenews Cameraman. Roosevelt, N. J. A camera crew left our New York office at 1 p.m., travelled 70 miles to Jersey, spent 30 minutes in shooting 400 feet of film, returned to the office — and at 7 p.m. that evening the cut and edited story was on the air. A statistical analysis of the handling of such a story is of interest at this point. Research for the average 150fot story (35-mm film) requires not more than 45 minutes; while most stories are researched in considerably less than 30 minutes — made possible by an extensive reference library and a highly-skilled staff. High Speed the Essence Research work is done while the film is in the lab being processed. Film developing time is 1 hour, 28 minutes; cutting and editing an ll^-minute silent story requires 22 minutes. A comparable story with sound is cut within 40 minutes. The finished story is then spotted on a viewer by an assigned writer, and 45 minutes later the script is ready. The changes in standard procedure which make this speed possible are worth recounting. For more than two years none of our editors has seen a work print on a news story: there is never enough time to make one. Movieclas are used only for the sound track: they are too slow for our editors, and they also may scratch the negative. Original negative is merely run through a viewer, and after cutting is sometimes not even printed, going out INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST • February 1950 23