Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Silent Film Aspect Ratio

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Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 05-09-2007, 06:12 PM:

We are running a film festival soon. I know we are getting a few print that are silent films from the 1920's and 30's. What is the aspect ratio. I remember reading at some point that 1::33 and 1:33 silent ratio was different. Am I wrong........Oh yes, I did say 1920's print......NITRATE????? I will deal with that issue if and when it arrives. [Eek!]

Posted by Bernie Anderson Jr (Member # 410) on 05-09-2007, 06:18 PM:

Silent or anything sound on disc without an optical track on film was full fram 1.33. Once a track was put on the film anything pre Scope or Vistavision was 1.37 The way we cut plates for silent was to splice RP40 together except at the splice flip the film sountrack opposite soundtrack, this way it will flip the image backwards but the aperture line will be correct. Otherwise, you have a blank soundtrack area that you will be cutting into without any reference.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-09-2007, 06:39 PM:

quote: Richard May
......NITRATE????? I will deal with that issue if and when it arrives.

..just hope that your location has a ins policy for usage of flammable material like that..

(still, if you were doing nitrate, hope the film hasn't done any shrinking being a very old film stock..let alone any dedragation like that..)

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 05-09-2007, 07:31 PM:

If it's nitrate, we are not running it.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 05-09-2007, 08:04 PM:

Chickens! Actually, it would be quite odd if a Nitrate print were casually shipped about...they are pretty well known by those that do these sort of things. Those that handle Nitrate these days are properly equipped (UCLA and Library of Congress come to mind but there are others).

As to the Silent frame...from the era you speak of...the proper aperture size is .680 x .910 or about 1.34:1. I've measured many machines from the era and within a couple 1000ths they all have that aperture (fixed apertures too...none of this aperture PLATE business).

The mobious loop RP40 is definately the poor man's way of getting it done though one has to pick the sides a little carefully. .680 is .680, which is close enough to .690, which is the "anamorphic" line on current 35PA. I've never been burned by going that far. In truth most of the prints one could go out to .725 without getting into oddities (no worry about boom mics...for obvious reasons). I have a couple of customers that have my "Super-Silent" plates...basically just inside the perforations and just inside of the frame lines...they see EVERYTHING but that is for special viewings, not a regular thing.

Anyway...the .825 line is going to be a little wide if use that to center but you should get away with it. I've found that Silents are more forgiving of having too tall a plate than too wide.

Boston Light & Sound had a custom target struck that, among other things, had both center lines for with and without a soundtrack...with that target one could cut a Silent plate, all centered and sized with no problem. It was magenta too so it stood up to heat well. I'm pretty sure it is no longer available now but it might be worth asking.

Steve

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 05-09-2007, 08:41 PM:

Turns out it's a 16MM print. Thanks anyway guys for your help.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 05-09-2007, 09:31 PM:

Well then yes...that would be a 1.33 print [Wink]

.286"x.380"

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 05-09-2007, 10:03 PM:

BTW, this is the wrong thread, but SMPTE RP40 is expensive because its shot on a camera. How much error would show up if you printed an RP40 pattern on a contact printer? Are we talking 0.001"? 0.005"? 0.010"?

Just curious.

--jhawk

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-10-2007, 02:33 AM:

Given the camera apertures and printing technology in use pre-1930, the variance is purely academic if we're dealing with the silent frame.

quote: Steve Guttag
Actually, it would be quite odd if a Nitrate print were casually shipped about...they are pretty well known by those that do these sort of things. Those that handle Nitrate these days are properly equipped (UCLA and Library of Congress come to mind but there are others).

Nitrate elements can't legally be shipped about without going through a lot of formalities. A couple of AMIA conferences ago Rosa Garaisa from UCLA gave a detailed presentation on the packaging and shipping requirements for nitrate in the US. I can't remember the details, though it took her 30-40 Powerpoint slides to fully explain them! If I remember correctly, each state imposes its own health and safety requirements, and if you're shipping the nitrate between states (which of course almost all nitrate shipments are, because most of them are between UCLA, the LoC at Dayton, Ohio, NARA in Washington DC and MoMA in Pennsylvania, which between them account for almost all the nitrate being permanently kept by US archives), the number of boxes needing to be ticked increases significantly.

In Britain, the procedure is that you ring up the courier, tell them the UN materials classification data for nitrate (1324/4.1 if I remember correctly), and then they have a Tex Avery moment when the details come up on their monitor. Then they either refuse to touch the stuff or tell you that it'll cost you serious money.

On the aspect ratio issue, the other thing to bear in mind besides the full-gate plate and lens is that the optical centre of the frame - and thus the alignmnent of the projector - is in a different place with a full width frame. One way of correcting the beam is to use an offset barrel in the lens holder - but if one isn't available, you've got to physically move the projector if you need to get the picture centred on the screen.

quote: Bernie Anderson Jr
Once a track was put on the film anything pre Scope or Vistavision was 1.37

Not quite true. For a short period (1928-33 approx.) before the 'Academy ratio' of 1:1.38 was standardised, an optical soundtrack would be superimposed over a full height frame but without any horizontal matte, thereby giving you the 'early sound' ratio of approx. 1:1.19. If the backing lens and anamorph for your 'scope lens are separate units (either screwed together, or with the anamorph on a swing bracket), this ratio can be shown in very nearly the correct size by using your 'scope plate and backing lens, but without the anamorph. Sunrise and M are two examples of well-known early sound ratio films. The Criterion DVD of M preserves the ratio by putting a vertical black matte on the 4:3 video ratio.