Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

310 MOVING PICTURE WORLD January 22, 1927 Halifax M an Has Gobs of Trouble AM. CROWELL, Chief Projectionist Casino Theatre, Halifax, Nova • Scotia, is in trouble. I don’t feel able to help him, I'm afraid, but though very possibly some of you may have encountered and overcome the same trouble, and might therefore be able to offer helpful suggestion. If so, then kindly write Brother Crowell direct; also if you will be good enough, advise this department as to what your solution of the trouble is. Crowell writes a long letter, the gist of which is as follows: He has two condenser type reflector arc lamps of a well known make and of high grade. These lamps are giving satisfactory service in every way in many high grade theatres right here in New York, so the trouble can hardly be anything which cannot be remedied. The projectors are Simplex. The projection lenses are Ross “half size” &/2 inch E. F. The screen is a metallic surface, make unknown. Projection distance 108 feet. Picture 13 feet .8 inches by 11 feet 5 inches. Screen tipped forward at bottom so that sides are exactly parallel. (How can that be? If your picture is 13 feet by 8 inches wide and is undistorted, it then should be 10.27 feet high, not 11.5. Ed.). Projection mechanisms are equipped with the new asbestos cooling plates; also am using tin collars back of collector lenses. These collars are about one inch wide and ■ cut off, as judged by eyesight, about one-. third of the light. Poor Definition The trouble is poor definition of screen image. Has written manufacturer of lamps several times, stating his opinion, but they quashed the idea of the film buckling at .aperture, laid the cause to poor imagery and suggested the use of Roos lens in place of two perfectly matched Snaplite lenses. The house had the Roos lenses installed, whereupon while the light undoubtedly was increased quite a bit, the improvement in definition was slight. Trouble shows up worst on titles, letters, telegrams, etc. It is necessary to adjust the focus on all of them, and then to move the lens back to its former position for the regular titles and darker scenes. It seems to him that the projection lens ;must be shifted back and forth, though there ;is no actual buckling at the aperture since he installed the new cooling plates, and put in the condenser reducing ring. He uses 18 amperes at most, and the projection speed seldom drops below 75. Is informed that these lamps are giving excellent results using 22 to 28 amperes (Correct. Ed.). Says he seems to be running the trouble down, as results have been improved by the Roos lenses and new cooling plates. Another point he brings out in this way: “Went into a second and third run house last week and had a look at a feature which I worried about three months ago. The in-and-out-of-focus effect was very bad. Does this mean that the reflector arc is injuring the prints by making them impossible to focus? The projectionist in this case was using Mazda. He cooly informed me the effect was due to oil. Tried Everything “We have followed every recommendation made to us by the lamp manufacturer. All optical surfaces are kept cleaned and polished and no element of the lenses is reversed. If you don’t think the film buckles I will forward a sample, or take a look at a Powers aperture which has been using reflector arcs, and see how it is worn by the film buckling or cupping toward the screen. “Our management has permitted me to follow every recommendation of the maker of lamps, and naturally feels that screen results should improve in accordance with the outlay.” Now, gentlemen, I don’t know just what to say. There has been some trouble with films themselves, caused by improper procedure in the development rooms, but these complaints have largely ceased. I had therefore presumed the trouble had been remedied. It was caused by improper drying of the prints. I took the matter up with the producers at the time. There has been some trouble in the matter of definition with the reflector type lamp because of the fact that it distributes the light more nearly evenly all over the whole surface of the projection lens, than do other condensing systems, hence there was necessity for a higher correction of the outer zones of the lens than was found in the ordinary high grade projection lens. That is what the Roos lens was presumed to take care of. There is, so far as I know, no reason why the heat of the reflector lamp should cause any such effect, because Mazda forms, so far as we have been able to determine, just as hot a spot as does the reflector type lamp. There may be something in the fact that whereas films were only occasionally subjected to Mazda high temperature, they now must pass through an almost continuously high spot temperature, because the PROJECTION REPORT Title of Picture Number of Times Projected Amperes at Arc Mechanical Condition of Film Number of Bad Patches Number of Misframes Inspected by at your Exchange. Remarks Cooperation Appreciated Date Projectionist Fairmont Theatre Fairmont, W. Va. high intensity, the Mazda and the reflector type lamp are fast usurping the entire field. Whither or no this really is setting up a condition tending to cause film to refuse to lie flat over the aperture I don’t know, but it seems possible. I believe projectionists everywhere ought to report to this department exactly what their experience and observation has been on this point, being VERY careful to not exaggerate anything, but to state only that they have themselves experienced. You should do this for the good of the industry as a whole and of the profession of projection. If there is any general tendency to trouble of this sort it is time the laboratories got busy and found a remedy. Frankly the way Brother Crowell states his trouble I don’t know what to think about it. Apparently either the denser film buckles slightly while the clear ones lie flat, or vice versa. If heat causes the bucking, then logically it would be the dense film which would buckle, because it would absorb much more heat than would the clear. I shall hope to hear from many projectionists on this matter; also I again ask any of you who may feel able to help Crowell to write him direct, and at once. “Black Top” to Roxy (Continued from page 306) “Jaydee” nodded. “Sure,” he said. "But ‘Roxy’ was never lacking, when showmanship was needed, was he?” I agreed and “Jaydee” went on. “You’ve heard, of course, that the company that is building the Roxy Theatre, are also going to build several other houses in this territory? These houses will all be ‘first runs’ for the pictures the Roxy has shown can all be tied together in the newspaper and radio advertising, which the Roxy will put out. If this doesn’t come near revolutionizing our present system then I am mistaken, that’s all. “I’d just like to add, to that prediction I made first about another theatre as big or bigger, being built within two years, after the Roxy opens. It is this : In every im portant city there will be a big theatre planned along the same lines, with seven or eight other theatres in the same territory, to be operated in conjunction with it, as I have indicated the houses affiliated with the Roxy will be here. “In rental possibilities and in advertising concentration and space buying power, you'll admit it opens up opportunties that are distinctly new — and revolutionary— for the motion picture?” “Jaydee” is always an optimist on motion picture progress, so I didn’t try to argue with him. E'esides so far I have always found him to be right. The “black top” and the Roxy may not be so far apart after all. Each of them is only a milestone in the march of the motion picture, though I’ll admit that the Roxy looks to me like the last one. “Jaydee,” however, will say it is only the latest. Have You Ordered the New Bluebook of Projection? An Excellent Model For a Projectionist.