AVAILABLE NOW

A new book that looks at the developments of motion picture film technology from a British perspective from 1895 to 2015.

For film archivists and those interested in the technical side of film, there are chapters on How It Worked; The Film Business Gets Going; The 1920s - Time of Change; A Quest For Colour; The 1930s and 40s; New Film, New Colour, New Sound, New Screens of the 1950s & 60s; The Film Laboratory, and Slow Fade Out covering from the 1970s to 2015.

The chapters cover the very first cameras and projectors and how they worked; the development of equipment for both professional and amateur film making; colour and

sound; Kodak and other manufacturer’s motion picture film stocks; how film was developed and printed at the laboratory; and cinema, non-theatric and home projection.

How Films Were Made and Shownby David Cleveland and Brian Pritchard

A4 size, 453 pages with 622 b/w and 363 colour illustrations Cost price £30 plus postage and packing £15 – total £45 (UK only)

Please order through Brian Pritchard’s website using PayPal (for overseas postage contact Brian Pritchard on his website before ordering)

Kevin Brownlow says the book “is not only unputdownable - it's heavy enough to be unpickupable”.

ISBN 978-0-9558271-8-1For more info see www.brianpritchard.com

The film strips on the cover are actual size.

Sample page from the chapter A Quest For Colour

Pictures and text samples

A Moy and Bastie camera of 1909. This held 300 feet of film Here a cartoon figure of Arthur Askey has beenloaded into wooden box ‘magazines’ – enough for five minutes matted into the shot. The character talks to the filming. Here the scene is focused by the lens onto the film in real Arthur Askey in this Technicolor advertisementthe gate – useful for lining up the shot accurately and checking for immersion heaters called Before Your Very focus. The camera also has a moveable tube which enabled the Eyes of 1954. cameraman to compose the shot, checking it from the back ofthe camera without opening the door and fogging the film. Toview down the tube, the sliding metal plate on the back of thecamera (seen on the right of the picture) is lifted. When down,as it is here, it prevents light getting in along the tube andfogging the film.

Some twenty-six graders worked at Humphries FilmLaboratories in Whitfield Street in London. Here is William

Bush at the back with Bob King in the colour correction room in 1970

A Super 8mm optical sound film. The sound track was 22 Film show time at home with a Heurtier triple gaugeframes in advance of the picture. Note the faded colour projector capable of showing Standard 8mm, 9.5mm and of this Eastman colour print. 16mm films.

When films are restored or reconstructed to the original release

information, all remaining negative, intermediate and printmaterials are examined to find the best quality material. HereClaire West, of the BFI National Archive at the John Paul GettyJnr. Conservation Centre at Berkhamsted, compares positives

and negatives on a special synchronising bench capable ofrunning up to four rolls of film.

HOW FILMS WERE MADE AND SHOWN

From the authorsDavid Cleveland

This book is for all those archivists and researchers working with the various types of motion picture film. It follows on from Films Were Made Volume 1 – The Region at Work (2009), and Films Were Made Volume 2 – Local History (2011) in which I attempted to show the range of films held in one of the regional public film archives – in this case the East Anglian Film Archive at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Now I feel it is time to put down some of what I discovered of the technicalities and uses of motion picture film. I often thought of writing a book when I was teaching on the MA in Film and Television Archiving Course at UEA, but I was busy also running the East Anglian Film Archive, and continuing to learn. I am still learning now. Everyday I find out a bit more, either by practical filming or projection; by physically examining and watching films, or by coming across a little bit of information that makes sense of something I have wondered about for years. This is the last of the large size, heavy-to-hold books about motion picture film that I have produced, this one in conjunction with my long-term friend and colleague, Brian Pritchard.

Brian Pritchard

I have spent the whole of my working life in the photographic and motion picture industry, firstly in 1962 with Kodak Ltd in their Research Laboratory and then the Motion Picture Sales Division. In 1971 I moved to Filmatic Laboratories where I became Technical Director; subsequently to Humphries Film Laboratories and finally to Henderson’s Film Laboratories. I became a Film Archive Consultant in 2002 with many major organisations as customers. During the 1990’s I was a member of the Gamma group, a European organisation made up of film archives and film laboratories publishing research results of technical and ethical problems in film archive work. I have always been fascinated with the technical side of motion picture film and particularly with archive film. As the film laboratory industry disappears I have been concerned that much of the knowledge andinformation will be lost; this book tries to address this issue.

Edge numbers on a negative which have been printed throughto the rush print by separate edge lights in the printer gate.The exposure of the numbers was not affected by grading ofthe shots. Edge (or footage numbers) made negative cuttingeasier. If there were no edge numbers printed through, thefilm would have to be eye matched - that is the technician

searching for the negative shot by looking through every pieceof negative until he or she recognised it.

Introduction

From the first ‘animated pictures’ of the 1890s through to almost the end of the 20th century, moving images shown on a screen - be it in a cinema, movies at home, commercial, industrial, scientific films in the workplace, or whatever - the images everyone saw were made possible by the use of motion picture film – a long, thin ribbon of clear plastic coated with a light-sensitive emulsion developed to form small transparent pictures. This was a photographic and mechanical method of capturing and reproducing moving images. As motion picture film has now disappeared from British cinemas, non-theatrical applications, and domestic use, it is worth recording how things were done to achieve the fantastic results that cine film gave us on the screen, without the viewer thinking about how it got there. We also want to record, and put into context, the range of skills, hard work, and discipline that went into motion picture film research, technical film production, and film presentations - in fact all to do with getting pictures in front of an audience - be it for one or two people - or a thousand. From 1895 to the coming of sound films in the mid 1920s, engineers, cinematographers and exhibitors were grappling with the technicalities of making and showing moving images. The pioneers and businessmen saw numerous possibilities that film had to offer, and were inventive in the applications of ‘animated pictures’. Motion picture film (as we are calling it here) was finding its place. We have tried, with the aid of papers, documents, records, books, and personal accounts, along with a certain amount of our own experience of filming, processing, projection, archival restoration work, recreating systems, etc, to show the difficulties encountered in those early days as the mechanics were worked out, and filmmakers experimented to see what the camera could do. Film began to be used in theatres, fairgrounds, the home, and the new picture palaces, as well as for scientific and other uses. This was an exciting time, when anything and everything was explored.

Once the mechanics were more or less set, little change took place in the technical working of motion picture film. After the first few chapters that follow the beginnings of moving images, we can look at some of the developments and improvements that took place over the next six decades or so. In the 1980s and through the 1990s, new electronic and digital systems were developed and improved, and by the end of the 20th century, film was declining fast in all its uses, although 35mm release prints for the cinema continued to be distributed until 2012 by which time digital projectors had been installed in nearly all cinemas across the country. It was also the year that Kodak, who had produced the majority of all motion picture film stocks throughout the 20th century, filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States, and Fuji announced they were to discontinue camera negative and projection print film stocks in March 2013. However a few continued to use film and arrangements were made with Kodak in 2015 for camera stocks to be continued, with Kodak announcing that they “would not abandon 35mm film production”. Today our work is keeping, conserving, restoring, and loving motion picture film - whether it is a 35mm cinema picture, or an 8mm home movie. Pictures and frames of film have been reproduced for the purpose of research and private study, and education and teaching. We would like to thank the many people and organisations who over the years have allowed the use of these. However, we have been unable to trace or contact every organisation and there are some images that we know not from where they came.

Original frames held in the National Media Museum at Bradford of Rough Sea At Dover filmed by Birt Acres, and according to the British Film Catalogue by Denis

Gifford, first recorded in June 1895. Note the shape of the perforations and the un-sharp pictures of this early forty feet long film. Acres wrote that he “applied to R. W.

Munro to make for him a rotary perforator”.

A film show at home using 28mm film in 1913.

Poole’s Picture Palace in Ipswich in 1909. Note the musicstands in front of the stage indicating a four piece orchestra(includes the conductor who probably played an instrument),

hard benches to sit on, and the exit signs on the balcony level.This picture theatre complied with the Cinematograph Act.

The other end of the scale in the mid-1920s was the smallcountry town cinema. This one was at Manningtree in Essex,

here seen with the staff outside. The population of Manningtreeand the surrounding villages of Lawford and Mistley amounted

to about 2,900.

Alfred Warminger’s travelling cinema. This handbill is dated March 1937. A year later his advertising tells us the villages he was at were Coltishall (Monday evening); Brancaster (Tuesday evening); Docking (Friday evening); and Hingham (Saturday evening). Each show included that week’s Gaumont British News.

Once Technicolor was up and running in Britain, someadvertising shorts were made such as this for Austin carsin 1939. This 2001 print was made from a colour duplicate

negative which itself was made from the original nitrate copy.Note part of the Kodak barcode (introduced in 1989) has

been printed through from the duplicate colour negative.

An example of numbering in the 1950s when films beganarriving in 2000 feet (though single reels continued for a time

with some distributors) lengths ready to be wound onto a spoolin one go without joining. Two 1000 feet prints (approx) werejoined together by the film laboratories to make a large roll– numbered (in this case) as Part 3. The first 1000 feet was

labeled at the beginning of the roll as Part 3a, the second halfbeing 3b. This made a roll about 2000 feet long.

The projectionist made up the ‘Sales’ trailers for ice creams,Kia-Ora drinks, sweets etc., often splicing on a title saying

‘The attendants are ready to serve you’ - making sure after thisthe lights came up and there was an interval. Some ‘Sales’ weremute like this Butterkist advert, so a record was played on the

‘non-sync’ turntables. David Tate said that “the ABC circuithad a complete cinema sales trailer to cover all products,silent in the 50’s with a 78rpm disc which was recorded by

Joseph Seal to accompany it. An optical sound track was usedon the 60’s cinema sales trailers”.

A home movie on Ilford Selo negative stock. The emulsion facedthe scene in the camera. On the right is a contact print from thenegative, with the emulsion facing the projector lamp. To viewthe print correctly look through the emulsion. The half-moon

notch on the side of the negative is for grading the next scene.The strange shapes on the left of the negative are the result ofcut-outs in the camera gate, indicating in this case it was shoton a Cine Kodak BB camera. This code has not been printed

through onto the positive – only the picture area printed. Notethe clear edges of a print.

Brian Pritchard grading a 16mm colour negative on a Kodakanalyser. The analyser worked using a black and white

television system where the image was scanned and projectedthrough rotating red, green and blue filters onto a small screen.

The red, blue and green content could be adjusted as well asthe brightness and contrast to achieve a perfect image. Theinformation was then passed to a punched tape. The systemwas inherently more stable than analysers that used a colour

television system, but rather noisy due to the rotating filters.

After fixing, the film was not sensitive to light, so could comeout into the open for the operators to see. The vertical tanks ofliquid were continuously agitated so as to develop evenly and

not produce deposits or streaks on the film. Note the squeegeethat removed excess water from the film as it left the washing

tank on its way into the drying cabinet. This last wash hada small amount of Photoflo (or equivalent make) added, a

kind of soapy chemical which prevented spots forming on theemulsion and base. In earlier times glycerine was used. Note

the machine is kept laced up with blank un-perforated leader.

Colour really took off in the mid-1960s when television was about to change from black and white.

Steve Tickner filming under difficult conditions for Loch Ness released in February 1996.

Steve Box animating a sequence for The Wrong Trousers at

Aardman Animations Ltd. of Bristol in 1993. This was shot on35mm film a frame at a time.

A 35mm print and an 8mm reduction copy of the 1925 silentfilm Shipshape starring Cliff Bowes and Virginia Vance.The 35mm copy with a British certificate was printed in

1926 from a 35mm dupe negative. The 8mm reduction wasmade via a negative in the 1960s. Note in this instance howpart of the picture on the left-hand side is missing from the8mm copy. This happened because it was reduction printed

through a sound gate, so the missing part is lost in thetrack area which has been shifted out of sight during the

reduction process.

The projectors and tower in action at the Corn Exchange Cinema in Ipswich in 1995. Paul Amos is beside one of the Westar machines with the tower behind. Note the film running over rollers to the projector and under the lamp house on its way back to the lower take-up spool on the tower. Note that the projectors have retained their top spool holders for when it was easier to run films with change-overs for just one showing

A 35mm motion picture film - combined picture and sound Eastman colour release print.

One of a range of Bolex Super 8mm sound projectors asadvertised in Movie Maker in August 1975. This one is the

“Bolex SP80 Special Sound Projector. Super vision andsuper acoustic sound, improved frequency response curve.Wide-angle HI-Fi 12.5-25mm f/1.2 zoom lens. Power output,continuous 10w, musical 15w. Takes Super 8mm reels up to600 feet”. Burlington Cameras in London were advertising

this for sale at £193.87.“With a Bolex Super 8 sound camera you can capture an

authentic record of the total scene, then add commentary andmusic as you wish for an impressively professional-sounding

and professional-looking presentation”.

This CTM Debrie 35mm six plate machine was typical of themodern types of editing and viewing tables. It could take twosound tracks which could be listened to separately or mixedfor viewing and editing purposes. Fitted with a video camera

this CTM could also provide a video output for quick VHSvideo tape viewing transfers.

Fuji stocks c2002. These 35mm colour negative films, balancedfor artificial light, were available in either 400 feet or 1000 feetlengths. There were also three daylight balanced emulsions -F64D, F250D and Reala 500D. Apart from the last, the same

speed stocks were also available in 16mm.

Panavision 65mm camera used to shoot sequences for the 2012feature The Master. Processing and making 70mm prints was

by FotoKem Film Labs in California. In Britain Technicolorwithdrew 70mm facilities in 2008 when they moved their film

laboratory to Pinewood.

The authors of How Films Were Made and Shown working on the restoration of the Lee Turner colour films of 1902-1903. Brian Pritchard built a special gate with register pins to

hold the unique 1½ inch wide film with one pair of circular perforations per frame. To retain the sequential nature of the system a 35mm duplicate negative was made of the black and white frames containing the colour information on this optical printer for future research

and restoration in case the originals should deteriorate. After scanning at 4k the frames were digitally combined with colour added to as near as possible to what Edward Turner intended on the screen had he been able to solve the problem of registering three moving images on

top of one another.