International projectionist (Jan-Dec 1957)

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News and Views from District No. 2 By HANK BOLDIZSAR Member, I A Local 150, Los Angeles, Calif. Our West Coast columnist describes several interesting and unusual projection room installations. ONE OF the most desirable projection assignments out here on the West Coast is that enjoyed by Jimmy Phillips, member of Locals 150 (Los Angeles) and 165 (Hollywood), and projectionist at the Screen Directors' Guild in Hollywood. The Guild projection room, which covers an area of 20 feet by 40 feet, is beautifully designed and equipment-wise leaves very little to be desired. The room is completely sound-proofed and is equipped with Simplex XL heads and Peerless Hy Candescent lamps operated at 160 to 200 amps. Two of these units are permanent stations, while the third is very flexible. The third unit is actually an experimental station ; when a new process is to be viewed this unit undergoes a change of projector head or some associate part. (I understand that some new and exciting projection news is in the making — will let you in on that as soon as we get the green light.) An Eastman Model 25, the neatest 16mm projector package I have ever come across, is also part of the projection room equipment. This particular unit consists of an Eastman carbon arc lamp, rectifier, and an amplifier — all in one package, with the projector head completely enclosed. It projects a beautiful picture in both wide screen and CinemaScope. Novel Installations The projection room at the Screen Directors' Guild is equipped to handle optical and four-track stereo sound, and is completely wired for the addition of Philips projectors and the six-track Todd AO system. A future installation of a TV projector will make it possible to show any process of film entertainment from this projection room — even "ye olde silent movin' pitchers" for which the XL heads have a second drive motor for 72 feet-per-minute running speed. ing that the current contract which expires in July is due for a "normal" revision. It is expected that a compromise will be effected in time to avert a possible strike. • Toronto IA Locals Nos. 173 (Projectionists) and 58 (Stagehands) will hold their annual picnic on June 16 at Lowville Park, located 33 miles west of Toronto on the No. 5 Highway. • An agreement reached between San Antonio Local 407 and the management of the San Antonio Twin Drive-in located on East Loop No. 13 ended the several months old strike against the theatre. Gordon Dyer, president, was in charge of negotiations for the Local. • The Theatrical Employees Association of Australia (TEA) is up in arms over American and British production units coming to that country to shoot pictures with a 100% technical crew brought over from their respective countries. TEA has ruled that its projectionist members will refuse to run pictures unless native technicians are employed in the production units. The union is seeking a quota of 75% for local workers and 25% for imported technicians. It is said that the ruling was aimed particularly at certain British producers who made it a practice to import a technical crew from England to shoot exteriors called for in a script and then complete the interiors in their home studios. • Syd Thomas, member of Toronto Local 173. has been working as a projectionist for a total of 42 years, 32 of them with the Famous Players of Canada. Thomas is chief projectionist at the Tivoli Theatre in Toronto where "Oklahoma" has been running for the past year. • Francis Miller and Charles Nelson, members of Local 376, Syracuse, N. Y., are in charge of the Todd-AO projection room in the recently opened Kallet Circuit Shoppingtown Theatre in Shoppingtown, which is located three miles outside Syracuse. Seating capacity of the new theatre is 1,010. Technical installation made under the supervision of Altec field engineer Murray Goldberg, incorporates a curved screen measuring 49x/2 ft. x 21 ft. The 70-mm film is projected at an angle of 128 degrees. Amplifiers are Simplex, the control rack is Altec. Five Altec Voice of the Theatre speakers are located behind the screen; 12 Altec 12inch surround speakers are concealed, in six pairs, in bass-reflex concealments on ledges in the auditorium ceiling. Unique lower magazine installed in projection room of the Screen Directors' Guild. Two items of equipment that I found to be particularly interesting were the "focuset" and the take-up. The focuset is a gauge installed on the lens mount and facilitates pre-focusing of the lens before the picture is projected, thus insuring a clear and sharp picture with each changeover. A chart mounted on the front wall near each projector gives the proper gauge-setting for each lens. With heat filters installed between lamphouses and projectors, and a blower system cooling the projector mechanism, there is no drift (changes in alignment and distances of projector and optical parts due to excessive heat of the light source) problem to contend with. The lower magazine and take-up assembly is quite unlike anything we theatre projectionists are accustomed to. This part of the equipment was designed by Jim Phillips and Jim Brigham, and was built in Brigham's electronic shop, The Sound Equipment and Accessory Co. of Hollywood. A roomy 25 inches high and 29 inches wide, this lower magazine easily accommodates the picture take-up and track feed and take-up reels for studio preview projection, and also the 3000-foot reel for television halfhour shows. This system is free of takeup belts or chains, and uses instead Bodine torque motors which provide perfect tension under all conditions. These torque motors are energized by both the arc and projector motor circuit. When the rectifiers are turned on the water valves automatically open for the water cooling system, and the torque motors are slightly energized to take up the slack in the film. With the start of the projectors the little Bodines really get with it and take-up as nicely as you please. When the heads are shut off the arc circuit still maintains enough tension on the motors to take up the remaining tail and prevent a (Continued on page 25) INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST JUNE 1957 19