We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
FILM SPLICING
By J. H. McNabb
SYNOPSIS
The paper contains a brief historical resume of the art, including the development of the Automatic Film Splicing Machine, with comparative results of various methods of splicing both the negative and positive film, and the results in printing spliced film. The figures show the superiority of automatic film splicing over the method of splicing by hand and with film clamping devices. An endeavor is made to prove greater longevity of film spliced by machine methods. The paper also contains other technical data pertaining to splicing and joining of film.
IN THE early days of the motion picture, when subjects ranged in length anywhere from twenty-five to two hundred feet, the art of film splicing required only scant consideration; but, with the natural evolution in the perfection of the mechanics employed in the industry, film splicing has become an operation that requires very serious and important consideration. Authors who have written about motion pictures have dwelt sparingly on the subject, so that few, if any, references to the prior art can be found. Most of the veterans in the industry, however, can readily recall how the operations were performed, and the conventional equipment used for making splices. There was then nothing very formidable in the operation of cementing two pieces of motion picture film in a continuous strip; the only tools required being: a pair of shears, a knife, and a bottle of cement.
To many it would seem logical that the crude methods of those early days should soon have been supplanted by mechanical means; yet, a recent investigation disclosed the fact that in one of the largest exchange centers in the country less than twenty-five per cent of film splicing is being accomplished by mechanical means; while the antiquated hand method is invariably employed in the majority of the film exchanges.
Earlier Practices
Until the advent of semi-mechanical means for film splicing some twenty years ago, in the form of a small, hand operated clamping or pressing machine, the patch was not a weld in the film but merely a temporary connection. It was reasoned that, with the application of pressure during the splicing operation, the pieces of film would become bonded and the splice made permanent. With this idea in view, the Edison Company produced a hand-operated splicing device, which presented a great improvement in results over the plain hand-made splice. The Edison clamp may be considered the first real practical device, and nearly all other hand operated machines built since its introduction were patterned along identical lines of
40