Movietone Bulletin (August 1928)

THIS FILE MOVIETONE. SLE TEN ‘Publ ished in the interest of the Movietone Projectionist by Fox CASE CORPORATION 460 WEST 548 ST., NEW YORK VOLUME 1, No. 31 “ESRD 495 AUGUST 4, 1928 Making Splices ROM St. Louis comes this query: “T’m not projecting movietone yet, but expect we will have it soon now. Will you be good enough to tell me just how a movietone splice should be made? Is it any different from an ordinary splice? Will the Bluebook splice-making directions serve?” Splices in movietone film are the same as those in ordinary film, except. But the exception is quite simple. An ordinary splice will cause a click as it passes through the sound gate. However, if the sound band be coated with black at the splice it will be almost perfectly quiet—that is it will if the splice be otherwise correctly made. The Bluebook directions will serve perfectly, in so far as concerns making the actual splice. You will be supplied with a suitable black, quick drying lacquer. This must be applied, not to the emulsion side, but to the back or celluloid side of the film. It should be in the form of a triangle, with its peak on the splice edge and at the inner edge of the sound band. Its base should reach a distance equal to % to % inch and no more. If you make it too short there will be a click. If too long you cut out sound unnecessarily. You will be shown how to do this correctly by the engineers who make the installation in your theatre, so there is no need to worry. The figure explains the right and wrong way. In making splices, don’t cut out a single frame more than is absolutely necessary, because if you do you not only will unnecessarily | To Paint Out Splice Noise Loh eo oo B TRAE ANA TNA meaui MANNA A—Correct method, quiet. B—Too short, will click. C—-Too long, keeps sound off. eliminate action but also sound. Just make a good, firm splice, exactly the same as you would with silent film, being very certain to scrape off all the emulsion and to roughen the back (celluloid) side of the other end. Don’t use too much cement and don’t brush the cement by drawing the brush back and forth. If you do you will not have a strong splice. Cement must be applied with just one stroke to get best results. Just at the moment I can’t recall just why this is so, but just the same it is so. Have patience. This is a democracy. And a democracy is that form of government under which a fellow with a market on the corner may some day have a corner on the market. Marvelous Movietone OW many movietone projecH tionists have, I wonder, given consideration to the astounding thing done by the apparatus they are handling. To the one who understands just what the apparatus does in the matter of sound amplification, the thing is intensely interesting. The purpose of this article is to attempt to convey some idea of the enormous delicacy of the operation performed by the apparatus placed in your hands by movietone and the Western Electrie Company, trusting to you to obtain from it, or cause it to deliver the maximum of its very wonderful capabilities. Doubtless many of you have read articles in which scientists have gravely informed us_ that there are living organisms so minute that billions or even trillions of them may actually live in and move about in a single drop of water. Such statements mean little to the average mind, or to any mind for that matter, save only that of a scientist or an engineer trained to their consideration. To the average person they are utterly beyond comprehension. However, you’ve not heard anything yet! Not only do scientists tell us that astoundingly un-understandable thing, but they then proceed to rub it in by further advising us that each one of this vast horde of organisms will have, relatively speaking, as much room to move about in as you or I would have in the Atlantic ocean. Even that doesn’t satisfy their soaring