Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Film handling methods

This is topic Film handling methods - history. in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 01-08-2003, 03:16 PM:

The recent debate about the merits of various film handling methods had me wondering about the history of each. I know that 1000 foot spools were in use within a few years of the invention of film, but when were 2000 foot spools introduced for projection, and when did prints start getting sent out to cinemas in this form?

In the uk, the regulations required spool boxes constructed so as to contain no more than 2050 feet of film in nitrate days, so 6000 foot spools must have been introduced after safety film, but I think not long after, I have seen 1950s projectors with 6000 foot boxes, which I think are original, though not common at that time. were they introduced any earlier elsewhere?

I have no idea of when towers were introduced, does antone else know?

Large spools (12-15000 feet) on the carried on the projector itself have been around since at least the early '70s. Has any one seen any older than this? They obviously could not have been used before the introduction of xenon lamps. I have seen projectors of this type made by Philips and Fedi, both having one spool on each side of the base, Cinemeccanica, with both spools on the operating side, but overlapping, and the Kinoton FP-30 is available with large spools in the conventional position, one above the other. Are large spools like this a European thing?

The earliest platter I have seen dated from about about 1973, were there any before this?

What about endless loop platters, The only place I have seen these was at the now closed Museum of the Moving Image, in London, are they used in any conventional cinemas?

I have seen a couple of towers which were dual guage, but both were in 35mm only cinemas. Is anywhere actually running 70mm on a tower? A full spool of 35mm is about as much as I can lift onto a tower, I'm sure 70mm would be a two man job.

Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 01-08-2003, 03:26 PM:

Speaking of very early film handling history, I recal seeing an old advert for a projector posted somewhere online. The funny thing is, there was no lower magazine, it just had a large burlap sack for the take-up!!! [Eek!]

<now i'll have to hunt for that pic..>

Danny

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 01-08-2003, 03:35 PM:

Quite common in the early days, before even my time, there weren't any cinemas then, the projector was just set up in music halls etc., often in the middle of the audience! I'm not sure that was such a good idea. Fire regulations soon banned it.

Posted by Howard Johnson (Member # 62) on 01-08-2003, 05:39 PM:

I think that in the UK there was a fire to a projector in the middle of a hall in Edwardian days which caused a large loss of life and this led directly to the Cinematograph Act of 1909 which insisted on fireproof separate projection rooms, spoolboxes, porthole shutters etc. Another Cinematograph Act of 1952 recognised safety film but it was still not in 100% use. On the continent some projectors like Zeiss had large spoolboxes in the 1930s the Curzon cinema in Brighton had two with 3000 ft/1000 metres capacity. The Odeon Brighton had new Vic 8 projectors with 6000 ft spoolboxes in May 1964 which were the first I had seen.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 01-09-2003, 01:06 AM:

Edison's first publicly projected films were at Koster & Bial's Music Hall in NYC 1896; basically from endless loop spool cabinets.

Posted by Thomas Hauerslev (Member # 566) on 01-09-2003, 08:48 AM:

Jan Kotte of Philips Cinema once build the Non-rewind once widely known as the ST270. That happend in the early 1960s.

Read this article about Kotte written by his son, Anton. Pictures are missing.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 01-09-2003, 11:10 AM:

Nice article.

quote:
At that time Philips already was experimenting with equipment from companies like Western Electric, Loetafoon, Nitsche, Fox Movietone and James Miller. This equipment was used by Philips to help refine their own ideas in development.

What a smooth way to circumscribe industrial espionage!

Posted by Fred Georges (Member # 505) on 01-09-2003, 11:43 AM:

Here in the US 1000ft.reels were the standard till the mid thirtys though most spoolboxes could handle 2000ft. The first examples of the large capacity 5-7000ft. reels happened in 1952 for Cinerama & dual projector 3D. The Carbon Arc lamps could burn about an hour on a single trim so they were limited to that size. Fire Regulations still demanded closed spoolboxes with firetrap rollers. In Chicago, according to a fire inspector I know, the code that is still on the books from the Nitrate days renders platters & any open reel to reel system illegal though it's not enforced. [Smile]

Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 01-12-2003, 12:20 PM:

Platters date from the late 60's early 70's and were first introduced in West Germany.

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 01-12-2003, 12:41 PM:

There was also an intermediate larger spool used for the original two projector 3D projection... 3000' I think it may have been.

Posted by Bernard Tonks (Member # 809) on 01-12-2003, 02:41 PM:

How right you are Ken, the 3000' spools were for the Western Electric Universal Bases that could not be altered to accomodate the normal 5000' 3D spools. I remember the Palace, Aldershot that had to have two intervals during 3D projection. There must have been special assembled prints for these cinemas.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-13-2003, 01:57 AM:

Stephen writes:

quote:
What about endless loop platters, The only place I have seen these was at the now closed Museum of the Moving Image, in London, are they used in any conventional cinemas?

I hope not. I worked at MOMI and ran these platters, and we all hated them. They constantly jammed and the prints wore out so quickly that they had to be replaced about every six months. The idea was a pre-digital way of getting rid of projectionists: your average town centre three-screen (so the theory goes) would be visited by a projectionist every week who would change the programmes, which would be started simply by pressing a button in the manager's office. From what I was told they proved totally unreliable when used in this way, and when managers were repeatedly faced with a pile of film on the floor and the prospect of handing out hundreds of refunds, the idea was dropped. From then on, these platters were only used in special venues such as the MOMI exhibits.

Also at MOMI, we ran a 1940s 16mm endless loop platter attached to an RCA projector built into an early 'video jukebox' called a Panoram. The projector and platter sat on the base of the unit, with the picture bring projected through a series of mirrors onto a back-projection screen mounted at shoulder height. This was for the history of the pop video exhibition in I think, '91 or '92. I remember that it kept throwing a new triacetate print that was made of a few Soundies. Working on the basis that the propionate stock used for 16mm prints in those days would have been thinner than modern triacetate, we got a polyester print made and it worked a treat.