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Also at this time the most common and practically only kind of a splice being made in the exchanges, as well as by the operators, was known, and is still known today, as the "full hole splice." Furthermore, at the time of which I speak, there were no adequate machines or devices on the market for making splices, so I developed several rather crude affairs, in order that the film could be a little bit more speedily handled and at the same time insure a better splice. However, these methods were entirely hand methods and did not seem to be much use in improving our film conditions.
I soon learned that in order to improve conditions, my first job was to standardize on the method, as well as equipment, and we also began an educational program in our exchanges, teaching inspectors something about the film itself, as well as what was required of the film in theatres, and enlightened them as much as possible along these lines. However, the turnover of the personnel in our inspection departments was so great that we never found the same bunch of inspectors in an exchange on our next visit. Our next step was to put each department in charge of a supervisor. In doing this we endeavored to install the girl who had shown the greatest intelligence in the handling of the film.
These methods improved film conditions considerably, but we were still receiving quite a lot of complaints and our film damage continued.
We had great trouble with film cements. A number of different brands were on the market and practically every brand being used more or less in different localities. We kept on the lookout for some kind of device that would register the film and apply a pressure to the splicing, as we learned that it was practically impossible to make a lasting splice, unless a uniform pressure was applied to it.
Our next step was to install what was commonly known as a patch plate. This was the first real step in improving film conditions. Next we did away with the wet method of splicing and standardized on the dry scraping method, and we soon learned that razor blades were about the worst thing we could use in this Work, as the job of removing emulsion from film is a scraping job, and therefore required a scraping edge. So we adopted a standard scraping tool, which was nothing more than a flat piece of flexible steel, ground to a scraping edge, and not to a cutting edge.
With the adoption of these various methods and equipment and continual education, film conditions began to show considerable improvement.
About the time that this work was being carried on, I was continually experimenting and investigating, not only the film itself, but made hundreds of tests with splices of various widths and different kinds of film cement.
It next dawned upon me that the proper splicing of film consisted of two distinct operations, and unless both were properly used, that neither one meant anything. In other words, no matter if the film was perfectly cut and scraped, we would not get a good splice
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