Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Threading up a silent film without a soundtrack for reference

This is topic Threading up a silent film without a soundtrack for reference in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=010860

Posted by Robert Harrison (Member # 3202) on 04-08-2011, 07:52 PM:

I will be showing a couple of Harold Lloyd flicks this Sunday in 35mm (with live organ accompaniment). When I have had to show these in the past, there were soundtracks on the prints, so I used them as a reference when threading up. These prints have no soundtracks, so does anyone have any advice what I need to look for to make sure I don't have the film on the platter and in the projector wrong way?

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 04-08-2011, 08:10 PM:

Assuming a standard print stock....upsidedown image with emulsion facing you should thread up facing the lamphouse

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-08-2011, 09:00 PM:

I ran a silent film (reel to reel) last year of "Phantom of the Opera" (1925 - Lon Chaney) and had to project that film at 20fps.

We had variacs on our Simplex XL units to project at that speed along with adding a three wing shutter.

There is a name for these films that are reduced to fit in the standard frame area with the black-out soundtrack area, but now can't remember.

..and it was printed on polyester base stock.

-Monte

Posted by Robert Harrison (Member # 3202) on 04-08-2011, 09:48 PM:

Well, upon closer inspection, I noticed that, while the prints don't have analog optical soundtracks, they do have Dolby Digital tracks between the sprocket holes. I suppose someone was concerned with not cropping the original image, while still maintaining musical accompaniment for screenings where a live organist won't be present. Assuming, of course, one has Dolby Digital, which we don't.

Thanx for your replies.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-08-2011, 09:48 PM:

Glad to hear there is a good print of that floating around.

The one I ran, years ago, was in such bad shape the film would literally crumble in your hands. I could only start it on the polyester leader and, once it started it would stay running. If the projector had to be stopped, mid-movie, you risked breaking the film when it started again.

It wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have to stop and restart for the orchestra rehearsal.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 04-09-2011, 01:11 AM:

I ran four silents on 35mm so far this year and all were in excellent condition -- Fox Archive, BFI and IIRC one was from UCLA -- so they are "out there" !

Posted by Andy Frodsham (Member # 4061) on 04-09-2011, 04:20 AM:

Once you have established the correct orientation of the print, temporarily add a length of scrap (soundtracked) film before the leader (orientated the right way with the main film). This should help you keep everything the right way round as you thread-up your platter.

I find the printed captions especially useful in ensuring that the print is the correct way around when making-up. If you imagine yourself to be a bat hanging upside down in the projector's lamphouse and looking at the film in the gate, the image would look normal if you have threaded it okay! I keep this in mind when preparing the print. Do check each part thoroughly though; I've come across the odd surpise before now!

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 04-09-2011, 05:34 AM:

Andy is right -- never assume that if you've gotten the head correctly oriented that it will follow thru correctly to the end of that reel. Check EVERY splice. With full-frame (no-track) silent prints, every splice is a potential problem waiting to bite you in the butt. Never assume the guy before you was careful enough to make a correct splice without reversing the image.

I am glad they are still striking new prints of these silents, but I am a little surprised that they went thru the considerable trouble and expense to make a reduction sound print but without doing a correction to 24fps. Are you 100% sure it is actually a 20fps speed print and hasn't been resolved to be run at 24fps? I know digital can do magic, but would the Dolby processor be able to deal with a drop in speed to 20fps?

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 04-09-2011, 06:35 AM:

Frank; the Dolby Digital is probably only just because the printer was set up that way. I would doubt that anything is recorded there. (I don't think the Dolby license agreement allows Digital without backup.) Louis

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-09-2011, 07:29 AM:

Columbia recently reprinted a bunch of Harold Lloyd silents. They are indeed full-frame silent with an SRD music track. They are to be shown at 24fps. I assume that the original poster has one (or more) of these prints.

Re-printing silent films to fit within the Academy frame and/or stretch-printing early silents to play at 24fps (when they were originally supposed to run slower) is pretty high on my list of pet peeves. It is in the same category as reprinting 1.37 titles to fit within 1.85 to accommodate theatres that can't show 1.37 properly. This sort of thing screws over properly equipped theatres by compromising quality to cater to the needs of improperly equipped ones.

Posted by Andy Frodsham (Member # 4061) on 04-09-2011, 07:30 AM:

We have a second set of motors on each of our projectors which are geared-down in such a way to produce 16fps.

In all my 35 years as a projectionist, and quite a few silent prints, I have never used this setting once! All the prints we have received ran at 24fps!

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-09-2011, 08:25 AM:

I'm curious to know if anything was ever "supposed" to run at 16fps.

Films shot on hand cranked cameras were shown on hand cranked projectors,so there was no "standard" silent film rate in the very early years, but motors were added to almost everything even before sound. When was 24fps standardized?

So, was 16fps ever a real standard, or just something put on projectors in sort of an If this doesn't work, try this work around.

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 04-09-2011, 10:27 AM:

Full aperture negatives printed down to Academy aperture are generally called either "reduced aperture" or "FA/RA" (Full aperture to reduced aperture).
When done properly, there is nothing to get concerned about. It just allows the venue which does not have the lenses and aperture plates for the full (silent) aperture to present the film without any cropping of the image and there is no reason the audience would even know the difference.
In addition, those films produced in the transition period, where there is an optical track containing music and effects, but no dialog, can also be shown without the track chopping off the left 10% of the picture.
Many of the Warner Bros. features made during the Vitaphone era have this missing left side, and it is very obvious, especially during the titles. They were originally run with disc sound reproduction, and the picture retained the silent format. Once optical sound took over, these same negatives were used for composite prints, but leaving the full aperture negative obscured by the optical track on the left side.
Why make a print with an optical track containing music, but no dialog, when obviously a theater that had sound equipment would likely want the dialog? It was the foreign market. A movie could be printed using the silent negative, and foreign language intertitles exchanged for the original English ones.
Since the track negative was separate from the picture negative for printing, there would not be any interruption in the recorded music.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 04-09-2011, 05:16 PM:

Now, I remember the term: "Movietone" - where the image was reduced to fit in the standard sound print frame size and the soundtrack was blacked out - not a full frame silent frame.

Our presentation was accompanied with actual theatre pipe organ - as it was supposed to be presented in the 1925 release.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 04-10-2011, 04:39 AM:

quote: Richard P. May
Full aperture negatives printed down to Academy aperture are generally called either "reduced aperture" or "FA/RA" (Full aperture to reduced aperture).
When done properly, there is nothing to get concerned about. It just allows the venue which does not have the lenses and aperture plates for the full (silent) aperture to present the film without any cropping of the image and there is no reason the audience would even know the difference.

I have mixed feelings about this; the loss in picture area isn't great, but it's not negligible either. I can't remember the exact frame sizes off-hand, but I think it's something like 16% loss. Theatres which show silent film once are likely to do so again, so obtaining plates and lenses isn't a major issue. It's a bit more difficult for places with automatic aperture changers which only support 1.85 and Scope, but these would have the same problem with running an Academy print. These problems are not that difficult to get round.

Reducing to Academy does avoid the problem of re-centering the optical axis, which is often more difficult to do, unless the theatre has 70 mm machines.

I have no mixed feelings about the more extreme reduced frame formats, such as Academy within 1.85, or the anamorphic 'Academy' within Scope which was used for the re-release of something, was it 'Gone with the Wind'? I'm opposed to these for the same reason as Scott.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 04-10-2011, 09:20 AM:

I've run quite a few silent, "full frame" prints. If you
don't have a 'silent' aperture plate the you'll very often
cut off part of the image or the left side of title cards.

On a Century projector, this is no problem, since you can
slide the aperture plate out (towards you) a bit, abd then
use the eccentric knob on the lens carriage to center the
image on the screen. Yes, you'll still be cutting off a
tiny bit on each edge of the image, but it's better than
cutting off the first letter of each line on the title cards.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-10-2011, 11:42 AM:

24fps was the adopted by western electric when they did a survey of the actual measured cranking speed of projectors in chicago and the roxy in new york and the average was 24fps so if some were at 18 then some must have been running at 30 [Frown]

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 04-11-2011, 12:53 AM:

The way I see it, if a theater is going to care enough to take a gamble on silent films, they might as well "do it right" and have the proper plates/lenses for when silent-ap prints turn up. For that reason, I understand Sony/Harold Lloyd Estate's decision in printing full-aperture.

Incidentally, I also believe that live music makes the silent film, and while I understand budget and technical handicaps, it's a sad day when silent films are being presented with only tracks.

The silent movie projection speed is a point of debate in some circles—some later silents such as THE GENERAL were shot and run faster than 24fps. Printed evidence supports the fact that printed directions with almost all of the films specify to run the film at projection rates faster than taking rates. This policy continued into the transition period with silents that were shot to be accompanied with music and effects tracks. Watch THE JAZZ SINGER sometime and check out how fast the silent footage plays.

Posted by Andres Briano (Member # 4621) on 04-11-2011, 01:23 PM:

quote: Robert Harrison
Well, upon closer inspection, I noticed that, while the prints don't have analog optical soundtracks, they do have Dolby Digital tracks between the sprocket holes.

Robert,
I hope yesterday´s screenings were a success. Is there any chance that you took a picture of the stock (35mm full aperture with SR-D)? I would very much like to see it. If so, please upload.

Thanks,
Andrés