The motion picture projectionist (Oct 1927-Sept 1928)

November, 1927 The Motion Picture Projectionist 21 At the end of the row of washing tubes are a series of tinting and toneing baths. At the top of these tubes are a series of levers by which the film can be run automatically into any one tinting solution, or if so desired it may pass up all tinting and toneing baths. The last of these tubes contain clear water in order to give that section of the film which has been tinted or toned the final wash before entering the drying room. Types of Film Developing Machines Leaving the washing tanks the film passes upward through an air squeegee. As the film passes through this devise, little air blowers blow therefrom all excess water on the film so that when it enters the drying room it is only damp and not dripping wet with water. The film next travels over another compensating elevator, much larger than the first one, as a matter of fact, and the purpose of this elevator is to slow up or increase the speed of either the preceding processes or the next process which is the drying process. By means of this elevator the film may leave the washing tanks at one speed, and enter the drying compartment at an entirely different speed, and if and when desired the mechanism controlling either department can be stopped entirely or run faster or slower. The film now enters the drying compartments. Each compartment is practically air tight and is fed at the bottom with conditioned air. By conditioned air is meant air which has been washed thoroughly clean and perfectly dehumidified and heated to the proper drying temperature. Leaving the drying compartment the film is re-wound on flange spindles or reels and is then removed for the purpose of inspecting and shipping. It will be noticed from this description that at no time is it necessary to touch the film from the time it is put on the supply spindle until it is removed from the take-up spindles after it has been thoroughly processed and dried. The film is printed and developed in lengths of 1000 feet ; thus, eliminating considerable number of splices with which the projectionist has to contend. Another feature is the fact that the film is dried in motion, therefore leaving the celluloid base quite pliable and not with definite kinks in the film which are bound to show up when it has been dried upon a rack or upon the hard wooden ribs of a drum. Film so developed and dried eliminates the necessity of polishing as water spots do not have the opportunity to accumulate thereon as is the case in the film wound around racks or the ribs of drums. Also, it is quite easily to understand that film when printed in lengths of 1000 feet or more eliminate the constant handling by assembling girls when putting together rolls which have been printed and developed in lengths of 200 feet or less. The minimum speed of this machine is sixty feet per minute and its maximum is eighty feet per minute. When one considers that each machine is double, it is easy to see that the daily maximum capacity of such a plant pyramids into big figures. [Not often does the Projectionist have the opportunity to learn much about that phase of the motion picture industry with which he does not directly come in contact. And in as much as the process described above has a bearing upon the prints which Projectionists receive and must run in the projector, the editors believe that this article will prove both interesting and educational.]