International projectionist (Jan 1959-Dec 1960)

iliat a technically novel element must be introduced to the screen to overcome t lie adverse economic effects of competition from television, the "poor man's movie." Cropped apertures, Cinerama, 3-D, and C-Scope. together with a host of "rama's" and "vision's," became inevitable. Many of the novel processes fell by I lie wayside, but others. Ike C-Scope. seemed to be "made to order" for the new spirit of realism which was beginning to make itself felt as early as 1950. So here we are in 1959, practically halfway through the fourth 20-year period of motion-picture history, viz. the Era of the Panoramic Color Film (1950-1970). C-Scope is the "genus" of this era of dazzlingly brilliant realism, the epitome of all the technical means employed to make of the new panoramic screen a veritable theatre-stage upon which everything seen and heard is starkly real. Resources for the Future At this juncture we may well take stock of our resources and assets, the materiel and physical apparatus of the present-day theatrical motion picture. All of us are well aware that there is no substitute for the panoramic screen of the modern theatre. Nothing anywhere equals the vast power and scope of the modern film. The screen's dramatists may have temporarily lost their footing before the onslaught of wide-screen technology, but there are unmistakable indications that they are regaining it now as they regained it after being temporarily engulfed by the sheer immensity of the new technology of sound recording more than 20 years ago. We now have high-definition color films, including C-Scope, and high-fidelity soundtracks. The 35-mm C-Scope color print made from extra-high quality 35-mm negatives, or from C-Scope "55" or 70-mm Technirama negatives, now appears to be our best material for the creation of our magically realistic audio-visual "stage" having an aspect ratio greater than 2/1. (Utilization of the horizontal VistaVision negative for C-Scope prints appears increasingly desirable, according to private opinions recently expressed by progressive motion-picture technicians.) And what about our "tools" for presenting C-Scope anamorphic films? "Musts" for Projectors Projectors for the showing of widescreen films in general, and C-Scope in particular, must have rock-steady intermittents and efficient edge-guiding in the film gate to reduce the sideway factor which the anamorphic process doubles on the screen by doubling the horizontal dimension. Either test-target films or professional-release clips known to be sharp in focus and rock-steady in image registration should be "screened" by projectionists at frequent intervals. One of the many excellent features of C-Scope is its remarkable toleration of film buckle. The C-Scope prime lens has a focal length considerably longer than that of the short-focus lens used for ordinary non-anamorphic, wide-screen projection. But despite the prevalence of C-Scope prints for the better and more expensive productions, standard nonanamorphic films will undoubtedly always be with us. The need for lens and aperture-plate changes will remain with us; and anent this matter we wish to offer a suggestion to projector manufacturers. Projector Improvement Tips Your old projectors, gentlemen, were superb in their day, and still are as examples of good craftsmanship. However, modern projection practice demands a change in the designing of mechanisms. Why, for instance, have you not produced projectors having 3lens turret mounts for the rapid lens changes so necessary today? And we suggest not only lens turrets, but slideup mask plates similar to the old silentsound mask plate of the Super Simplex. Such a plate should carry three apertures: 0.825 x 0.600 inch for the con (EDISON'S 35-mm FILM, 1891) Experimental 'Period y&j^s, ^he Silent Films 'e\t^feil&»ft,, Sound Pictures anoramic movies in. Jsfatural Color An unknown law of historical development changes the character of theatre motion pictures every 20 years! There have thus been three well defined periods of movie history since the invention of the art in 1890. We are now about halfway through the fourth period, the exciting era of the panoramic screen. If this era ends in 1970, what will follow? ventional standard 1.375/1 aspect ratio; 0.825 x 0.446 inch for 1.85/1 nonanamorphic wide-screen projection, and 0.839 x 0.715 inch for 2.35/1 C-Scope. (The conventional aperture should still be used for non-anamorphic test projections and screen-light checks.) Improved Anamorphic Lenses The new anamorphic lens attachments are definitely superior to those made before 1955. They provide sharp, undistorted C-Scope pictures and translate to the theatre screen all the benefits of such new large-frame negatives as Technirama. The theatre owner should buy new anamorphic lenses at the very first opportunity. Procrastination can be fatal! Regrettably, a large percentage of active theatres are still struggling to "get by" with outmoded, inadequate projection lamps. Obsolescent simplified high-intensity arclamps having non-rotating positives cannot "hold a candle" to modern high-powered lamps for flooding vast C-Scope screens with brilliant, steady, snow-white illumination. Status of Sound Reproduction What about sound? Except for one unfortunate factor (the use of magoptical prints with reduced-width soundtracks), the quality of film-recorded sound is at an all-time high. Much of the improvement is due to magnetictrack originals from which the optical tracks are made. The use of magnetic tracks on release prints is still impractical, owing to their instability under conditions of theatre usage, their high cost, and especially to the reluctance of short-sighted theatre managements to replace worn magnetic heads. Bad magnetic sound is much worse than bad optical sound. Consider the matter of stereophonic sound, a medium which has not been nearly as effective in the theatre as its proponents had hoped. Apart from the vagaries of magnetic tracks, which shift sound direction about in an unpredictable and undesirable manner, speaker separation is not sufficiently great to give a good stereophonic effect at aspect ratios under 2/1. With a greater distance between the left and right speakers, observers seated close to the screen are annoyed by the sudden shifts of sound direction. The best sound, strangely, is heard in theatres where the three stereophonic speaker channels are equally energized from a single optical soundtrack, a system which is free from the unnatural effects of three-track stereosound and eliminates the objectionable "pointsource" characteristics of sound systems (Continued on page 26) INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST • MARCH 1959