Reel and Slide (Mar-Dec 1918)

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REEL and SLIDE 23 Non-inflammable Film— How and When? The Leading Makers of Projection Machines Will Voice Their Views on This Important Question in the Columns of REEL and SLIDE. This Is the Fourth Article. By Willard B. Cook (Pathescope Company of America, in an address delivered before the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, Cleveland, November 20) At the last meeting in April, at Rochester, your society adopted a new size of narrow width, slow-burning film as the standard for all portable projectors. As the firm with which the writer is connected has had nearly five years of experience with a similar product, the chairman of your Papers Committee has requested me to prepare and submit to you some actual facts of the advantages pertaining thereto. We owe a profound debt of gratitude, which will be better appreciated in later years, for the high and noble motives which actuated the sponsers of the new standard and also those members of your W. B. Cook society who co-operated so earnestly in the adoption of a standard which is designed to remove the portable projector industry from a severe and menacing cloud of public mistrust and legislative restriction. The clearly recognized hazards of the use and even the storage of celluloid film have been not only pointed out by the Underwriters' Laboratories, but have been by them so insistently urged that not only the states, but practically all important municipalities have been compelled to surround the use and storage of celluloid films within their jurisdiction with such wise and protective restrictions as would tend to reduce to a minimum the hazards to which the members of the commonwealth are constantly subjected in attending public or private cinematograph exhibitions. In the last few years the growth and expanding fields of usefulness of the motion picture have surpassed the wildest imagination of its earlier advocates. It has long been obvious that a medium of such wonderful educational value would inevitably be recognized as an essential for public instruction as well as entertainment. Progressive schools, churches and institutions have been quick to realize that in the motion picture lies one of the best aids to their usefulness. The Necessity for Portability It very soon became evident that the principal drawbacks to the general adoption of the motion picture in school, church and institutional work were the expense of the standard theatrical projectors, the specialized skill and knowledge required in their operation, and the deplorable lack of film subjects for institutional use. The first and second objections were sought to be overcome by the manufacture of cheaper and similar forms of portable projectors, which could be easily carried from one room to another instead of being limited to a single auditorium, and whose simplicity of construction and operation would enable them to be operated by persons of very moderate mechanical skill. But our very efficient guardians of life and property — the insurance authorities — promptly pointed out that the principal hazard attendant upon such exhibitions lay, not in any hazard or use in the projector itself, but in the use and storage of the celluloid film used as a medium therein. The very advantages claimed in the use of the portable projector, namely, use without a booth and by people of limited mechanical skill,_ tremendously increased the film hazard beyond that attending its use in the standard machines enclosed in fireproof booths and under the operation of skillful projectionists. The obvious solution of the problem of hazard lay in the adoption of approved, slow-burning film, but the Underwriters' Laboratories again pointed out that unless the portable projector should be so constructed that it would be impossible _ to use ordinary celluloid film therein, it was a foregone conclusion that in the absence of any considerable quantity of available slowburning film, the owners of such projectors would be sure to attempt the use of celluloid films therein (if such use should be possible) and the potential hazard would still remain exactly as before. To cover the situation properly, the Underwriters' Laboratories suggested, and the National Association of Fire Prevention adopted, the specific qualification: "Approved miniature projectors must be so constructed that they cannot be used with films employed on the full sized commercial moving picture machine." (National Electric Code, Rule 38, Section V, paragraph 6.) Various attempts have been made to comply with this requirement, such attempts being principally confined to the use of some form of odd perforation for standard width, slow-burning film, to fit a sprocket so constructed that it would mutilate ordinary celluloid film of standard perforation. None of these attempts have met with any practical success and all of them are open to the serious, if not insurmountable, objection that in the hands of any ordinarily intelligent but unscrupulous owner the mutilating sprocket could be very easily exchanged or altered so that it will run standard celluloid film. Urges Adoption of Narrow Width Anything less than this is obviously not deserving and therefore cannot hope for permanent success. It is only through the fact that the buyers are ignorant of the Underwriters' code and the criminal risk involved that they now purchase and use small portable projectors employing inflammable film. This intolerable condition has greatly retarded the natural expansion of the portable projector industry and the sooner we unite in removing it, the quicker will we enjoy the benefits of a healthy growth and expansion. Some manufacturers as long as seven or eight years ago took the lead boldly by adopting both an odd size and an odd perforation for use exclusively with slow-burning film, with the idea of insuring a thoroughly safe and approved apparatus. These oddsized machines and their films were, of course, regarded as outlaws and suffered from the combined attacks of all other manufacturers of portable projectors designed to use the ordinary celluloid film. In spite of the fact that the early users of the odd-sized machines were limited to the use of very restricted repertoires of available subjects; in spite even of the fact that the earlier models of these machines had rather narrow limitations as to size and brilliance of picture, they have achieved some measure of success, as evidenced by the simple fact that more than ten thousand of one make have been sold and are used all over the world, and many millions of feet of printed positive on slow burning stock has been made therefor. The only possible explanation of this success lies in the fact that it was something that the public wanted. But why did they want it? At every stage of their career these odd-sized machines have been exposed to the keenest individual and collective competition of all makers of portable projectors using standard celluloid film. The answer requires but one word — safety. If safety were the single and only advantage to be derived from this adoption of the new width and perforation, it would still be more than, amply justified. But there are also other good and important advantages inherent therein. As a matter of fact, the adoption of the new standard is not merely a matter of business policy, but as pointed out above, it is an imperative necessity for the self preservation and insured permanency of the portable projector industry. Anything short of a real approved projector is regarded as dangerous by the insurance, state and municipal authorities, and the user thereof with celluloid films is regarded as a menace to public safety. Having decided that the industry absolutely required a new standard width and perforation, your society naturally and wisely adopted one that makes immediately available some 25,000,000 feet of existing positive stock and also the facilities of several established plants for the further production of additional films, as they may be required. Economy in the Use of the New Standard In these days of increasing cost of materials, the item of economy is certainly one to be seriously considered. The Eastman Company have been furnishing the new standard narrowwidth film at 80 per cent of the cost per foot for ordinary width. Fwrthermore, the new standard narrow-width film will contain twenty pictures per foot instead of the sixteen of the present celluloid film. These two factors result in a combined economy or saving of 36 per cent in the cost of stock for any given production. There is also, of course, a very considerable saving in the use of chemicals for developing, and also in the general handling and transportation of the narrow-width film, of which 800 feet in length is equivalent to the ordinary 1,000 foot celluloid reel.