Robert Harris on The Bits - 4/7/04 column - OFFICIAL THREAD (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

A few replies from Film-Tech, with thanks to those professionals who added to the informatiion:

"Since the shutter is directly tied to the rest of the gear train, any variation in speed will vary the shutter speed accordingly -- keeping the shutter in time with your pull down rate. No extra adjustment necessary.

The further below 24fps you go the more you'll be wanting to use a three blade shutter."

"Some 16mm machines such as the Graflex had a shutter controlled by a spring-loaded centrifugal device that automatically changed the two-bladed shutter to a three-bladed one when you slowed the machine to 16fps. I don't think that a 44hz flicker rate would be objectionable if you were projecting at 22fps. In fact, I doubt that you'd notice much of a difference at all. I'll bet that there's a SMPE paper on it way back in the archives."

"The shutter will maintain sync but if the machine has a fire shutter it will probably driop if it has a mechanical govenor on it below 20fps."

"The shutter always has the same degree opening unless your projectors are fitted with a 2/3 blade shutter, which to my knowledge was only available on a few 16mm machines. What will change is the flicker duration since the shutter is running slower. I've run some silent stuff in the past and have found that below 22fps you need to install a three bladed shutter on the projector. At 20 to 21 fps with a two blade shutter the flicker would drive you insane in a short time. Below 20 with a two blade its actually difficult to look at the picture for very long, you'll get a bad headache from looking at it, especially if there are any bright scenes and assuming SMPTE screen brightness levels are kept constant."

 

[Ernest Rister]

The pity is that Mr. Annakin's work, which should have been discovered by many for the first time, will be seen via less than perfect means. With its many long shots and aerial views, my vote would have been to give MM a second disc for the extras and allow the feature itself to shine as it did in its 70mm road show performances.

That said, I must recommend Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew From London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes* to anyone with the desire to simply sit back, relax and enjoy Mr. Annakin's beautiful film.
-- Robert Harris

-----

Mr. Harris, I realize this is like asking Santa Claus if he has seen snow, but have you seen Ken Annakin's The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men? Like so many live-action Disney period titles of the 50's and 60's, this has been largely forgotten by the public, and yet it is a wonderful little gem of a film that deserves exposure on DVD. I would appreciate your thoughts on it if you've seen it.

Best regards,

Ernest Rister

p.s.

Dude.

p.s.s.

A short video of Ken Annakin discussing the making of the live-action Disney version of Robin Hood can be found here:

http://play.rbn.com/?bvig/disney/g2d...in_hood_dsl.rm

 

[Jeff_HR]

To cut through all of the technical talk, what version of the 1920's Phantom is the best DVD version?

 

[Patrick McCart]

For the 1930 International version, get the Milestone edition...

For the 1925 edition, same thing.

However, it's probably a good idea to also have the Image/Film Preservation Associates version of the '30 version since it's basically the GEH positive + the Tech. print all the way through, with little or no modification. Also, the Reel Classics DVD (www.reelclassicdvd.com) has the Blackhawk Films edition with the Lee Erwin organ score (and the Lantern Man prologue with dubbed-in dialogue).

Between those 3 DVD's, you basically have the best of all worlds...

Kino WAS going to release a DVD of the '25 version from UCLA's restoration... but they cancelled it after the success of the Milestone DVD.

 

[Jeff_HR]

Thanks Patrick!

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Since Eating Raoul was mentioned, does anyone else think the transfer was boogered up? It looks like it was stretched horizontally from a narrower ratio to make it fit a 1.85:1 frame--that's particularly evident in an iris (as Paul & Mary leave the dominatrix's house the first time) that I believe should be a circle but is elliptical. But playing it at 1.33:1 is too squished. The iris is round at about 1.52:1, thanks to my variable aspect ratio Malata N996. Anyone know what the deal is here?

 

[PaulBigelow]

Interested in Mr. Harris' latest project?

Here's the link:

Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot

Nice little read. Always glad to see something rescued from "the brink".

 

[Henry G Belot]

There was a family of professional projectors in which the shutter and pulldown were not mechanically linked. The Eastman 285 film chain projector, and presumably its cousin, the Eastman 25B 16mm auditorium projector, had three separate motors---for its shutter, its film transport, and for the reels. The shutter was a single blade which spun at 7200 rpm (see below). It and the pulldown were interlocked by line frequency. There was no provision in the 285 for adjusting shutter rate independent of film speed which was strictly 24 fps. But, of course, there was provision for timing it to the pulldown, although we never found it necessary.

The 285 and 25B also had a lever to quickly switch the focus of the sound between standard and reversal film stocks.

Incidentally, the shutter rate for analog film chains was 120 Hz, hence 7200 rpm for a single blade. TV pickup tubes have their own version of "persistence of vision" based on the field rate of 60 fields per second. In the 285 (and in 35mm film chain projectors) it was necessary to add a mechanical accelerator to the pulldown so the film would advance fast enough to be covered by the short duration of the shutter. All of these were Geneva cross star intermittents where the pulldown is accomplished with a sprocket. The shuttle-type pulldowns in most 16mm gear were sometimes fast enough to work without modification. The alternative approach to shutters in TV projectors is to use a five-blade shutter. Back in college, we modified off-the-shelf Bell and Howell 542s for a TV installation making one blade slightly larger than the others. It worked fine.

As a teenager I had a spec sheet for the Eastman auditorium projectors. As I remember, they were sound-only projectors, but with the independent shutter it's at least theoretically possible that you could change pulldown and shutter rates independently.

As for the noticeability of flicker at slower speeds, think about TV at 25 frames as in Europe versus 30 frames in the states. When I first sit down to watch PAL programming at 25 frames, the flicker drives me nuts. After an hour, I'm used to it. Europeans coming to this country may not even notice that our sets are flicker-free. In projection the perception of flicker depends not only on the rate at which the image blinks, but also on the brightness of the image, how dark the room is, and the duration of the blackout. That Hortson projector back in college put out a lot of light, probably significantly more than the SMPTE standard. That may be why 20 fps-40 Hz worked for us.

 

[richardWI]

deleted

 

[oscar_merkx]

Paul

Thanks for that link about Williamsburg, very informative indeed

Oscar

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Robert,

Please let the forum (and/or Bits readers) know when the restored "Story of a Patriot" is to be shown. I have family living in Norfolk, VA and will be sure to check it out. Will the projected prints of the restoration be in the same VV format as previously shown? Those projectors must be pretty unique.

Regards,

 

[Robert Harris]

Patriot has been running at Colonial Williamsburg in 70mm since the late '70s.

It will be screened for donors beginning sometime in May, and will then go into continuous release.

RAH

 

[Henry G Belot]

Was the Williamsburg Visitors Center the only place where true 8-perf VistaVison was shown? On the one hand, the process was so impractical for general distribution feature films, it seems improbable that there would be many places where you could see it. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that Paramount would launch VistaVision without insuring that it could be seen as intended in major markets. Add to that that the official specs for conversion to standard 4-perf prints changed the aspect ratio, it would seem that there must have been some places where you could see the real thing---at the very least, New York and LA.

For the uninitiated: Real 8-perf VistaVison films were transported sideways in the projector instead of up and down. This would mean that the projectors could be used only for VistaVision. (At least the ones I saw in the Williamsburg theaters were strictly VistaVison.) Unless you had a really huge projection booth (fairly rare), you would have to have four projectors to accommodate VistaVison and conventional films. It's not impossible, however, that there were such installations. I've been in at least one theater that had three projectors, not counting Cinerama.

As for aspect ratio, the conversion standard called for you to contact-print the image at right angles onto four-perf film. This lopped off the sides of the image, but held the grain and detail constant. However, it meant that there was nothing that really distinguished the process from run-of-the-mill films. Except in the front rows, the image wouldn't have stood out from cropped widescreen films.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I'm not sure if the Williamsburg projectors were the only ones used to show 8-perf Vistavision in its native format, but they were certainly the only ones doing it for a number of years. Also, their set-up may have been unique due to the multichannel magnetic stereo track.

Regards,

 

[Robert Harris]

The Colonial Williamsburg theatres were designed around the VistaVision system and their six track magnetic audio.

 

[Ernest Rister]

*cough*
Ken Annakin's Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men
*cough*
dude
*cough*