The Nickelodeon (Feb-Sep 1909)

» February, 1909. THE NICKELODEON. 45 Some Questions AnsAvered By David S. Hulfist In this department, answers will be given to questions upon any subject in connection with the conduct of moving picture exhibitions, the operation or construction of moving picture machines, the making of pictures or films, or any questions pertaining to the amusement business which can be answered without specific reference to any person or persons. Questions are invited, and will be answered as promptly and as fully as space will permit. If I buy a motion picture machine of any particular make, will I have any difficulty in procuring picture films for it, or will all of the picture films on the market fit any make of machine? —A. H. If you buy a professional machine, all of the films ofifered by film makers or film exchanges will fit the machine. All professional films are uniformly of such sizes and of such marginal perforations as to be run by any make of professional projecting machine, and by many toy kinetoscopes. The standard picture film measures one and threeeighths inches in width, although a slight variation is unimportant, since the edges of the film are not used in the machine. When the picture fills the film, so that it is intended to fill the screen when projected, the pictures are just one inch by three-quarters of an inch in size, being one inch wide and three-quarters of an inch high. They are spaced crosswise on the strip of film, making a row of pictures one inch wide, and each picture taking up three-quarters of an inch in the length of the film. The first picture of the series on a strip of film has its head at the end of the film and its foot toward the second picture of the series. The picture film therefore is fed head-first through the projecting machine. The holes in the professional film, which are for the purpose of feeding it through the projecting machine, are along the edges, outside of the row of pictures. The pictures form a long row like a stripe one inch wide down the middle of a one-and-three-eighths film, thus leaving three-sixteenths of an inch of margin on the film strip, and in this margin on both sides the feed holes are punched. The standard punching for feed holes is four holes per picture. The shape of the holes may be anything the film maker may think best, and there is a difference in opinion on this point. Some film makers use square holes. Other makers use a square cornered hole, but rather oblong in shape. Others use a round hole, and still others a hole having something of the shape of a squat barrel, being straight edged at top and bottom, and curved at the sides. The pictures in the strip need not be always one inch by three-quarters, but they always take up that much space on the film ; no matter how small the separate pictures may be, they are spaced three-quarters of an inch apart on the film. The remaining dimensions of the film are its thickness and its length. The thickness usually is 1-200 inch of celluloid, with a gelatine surface about 1-1000 inch, making 6-1000 inch total thickness. The length is anything the makers desire, since pieces of any length may be spliced together. The raw film comes from the factory in spools of 200 or 400 feet, and the picture then is printed upon it, and it may be cut or spliced into lengths from two feet to two thousand feet. A desirable length of picture is five hundred feet. This runs ten minutes on the screen, and permits a picture entertainment of the usual length to comprise two pictures. The usual length of film roll put in a projecting machine for an exhibition is one thousand feet. This may comprise a single picture one thousand feet in length and running for twenty minutes, or it may be composed of two pictures each five hundred feet in length, or it may be made up of two pictures, a short one and a long one, making a total of a thousand feet, or three shorter ones, etc. Thus the standard unit of picture film comes to be one thousand feet. All standard or professional projecting machines are made to take this standard size of reel containing one thousand feet, and it is the custom of moving picture theaters to base their entertainment upon that unit, running either one reel or two reels of film for one complete entertainment. The renting exchanges base their schedules of charges on the number of reels, each reel being assumed to represent a thousand feet of film, giving a twenty-minute entertainment when thrown upon the screen. If you are buying a professional machine, you need have no thought of any standard film not fitting your machine. If you are buying only a toy, you should select one which will take the standard films of the dimensions given below, since you may desire at any time to purchase a print of some standard film picture seen at some entertainment. In buying a toy kinetoscope, measure the picture films which always accompany such an outfit, and accept only such a machine as uses films corresponding to the sizes given above. An easy method to determine whether a toy film is of standard size is to match it over the accompanying picture, which shows a length of five pictures of film. This illustration is slightly narrower than the standard film, but the size of the pictures and the spacing of the holes along the edges of the film will match very closely with any film of standard size. E. A. G., whose question, "What is a moving picture," was answered in the January number of The Nickelodeon, is invited to study the successive positions of the arm of the figure in the white coat in the accompanying illustration representing a short piece of picture film. Is there on the market a film gate so designed that the film will not stick in it? — L. S., Texas. The sticking "in the filin gate," which is the source