|
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Eidophor Projector
|
|
|
|
|
Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
|
posted 12-16-2002 09:38 AM
The Odeon Leicester Square in London had an Eidophor permanently installed at one time, there's a picture of it here: Eidophor at Odeon. I don't know of any other permanent installations in cinemas, but they were sometimes put in for special events. The same site also has a picture of a very early Eidorphor here: Early Eidorphor.
I would love to know how they used the carbon arc ones; did they do changeovers with them, or were they only used for short periods?
I only saw Eidophors used a few times, they were brighter than just about anything else available at the time, but that's about the only good thing they had going for them. They were very expensive, very large, very heavy, needed a lengthly alignment procedure, and constant knob twiddling to keep a reasonably stable picture on screen.
In the mid '60s I saw an outdoor demonstration of colour television done with six monochrome ones, two for each colour all registered (sort of) on the screen, to get enough light.
[ 01-21-2003, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Stephen Furley ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hugh McCullough
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 147
From: Old Coulsdon, Surrey, UK
Registered: Jan 2003
|
posted 01-20-2003 05:20 PM
I worked on the Eidophor during the 1970s at the Odeon Leicester Square.
It was mostly used for the Royal Film Performance, Mohammed Alli fights, and American Football.
This was the monochrome machine that was owned by the Odeon.
Yes, they were very expensive, and this was probably the main reason that they did not get brought by the cinema chains in large numbers.
The Odeon machine cost £14,000. A complete projection set up of three Vic 10s, three Zenith arcs, three penthouse 4/6 track mag sound heads, preamps, and 12 lens cost £6465.
The Eidophor was indeed trouble to keep running, and a very long set up time was required. It was not unusual to take as long as six hours to pump out the vacuum. This extended set up time, plus the running time meant that it was prone to overheat in the Summer months.
To overcome this problem we used to surround the machine with as many fans as we could beg, steal, or borrow from other parts of the building. Oh yes, us projectionists were very popular when we had to do this.
I can remember getting into trouble during an American Football game when we showed the American commercials. New York was supposed to telephone us 10 minutes before the commercial break so that we could cap the lens at the correct time. Unfortunately this time they did not notify us, and we showed the first two adverts.
On very special occasions we used to hire a colour Eidophor, but this was set up, and operated by technicians supplied by the hire firm.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
|
posted 01-21-2003 03:49 AM
Hi Hugh, you are almost a neighbour of mine, I am living in Station Approach, Coulsdon North, at the moment, but looking to move up to North Yorkshire sometime in the next year or two. I take the 60 bus home, from work, but get off at the Red Lion, I,ve never stayed on it as far as old Coulsdon.
I visited the new London Weekend Television studios on the South Bank soon after they opened, they had a monochrome Eidophor there, as far as I remember it looked the same as the Odeon one. I remember that there were several 5 litre bottles of de-ionised water standing next to it, which were marked that they were to be kept with the Eidophor; what would they have been used for?
How often did the Odeon use their machine? By my day, '60s onwards, video projection in cinemas was very rare, the odd boxing match was advertised, but that's about all. I think the Odeon, ex Gaumont Palace, Lewisham, and the Astoria, Old Kent Road, did a few of these. Having no interest whatsoever in boxing, I never saw any of these. I am surprised that the Odeon found it worthwhile to buy a machine, rather than hireing in when required.
Were the GK Vistavision projectors still at the Odeon when you were there? I am very interested in these machines, but have not been able to find out when they were removed. The photographs of them show the BTH SUPAs in the background, so I am guessing that they may have been taken out when the Vic. Xs were installed, but I've seen no real evidence for this.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
|
posted 01-22-2003 06:57 PM
Hugh wrote:
quote:
The VistaVision projectors were placed one each side of the box with the SUPA projectors between them.
When they were removed, and what became of them I do not know.
Hugh,
In May/June last year I had some communication with somebody about the Vista projectors. This was by private e-mail, so I cannot quote their reply to me without their permission. I think it is ok for me to give myself permission to quote part of the text which I wrote to them.
I wrote:
quote:
Is it possible that the Odeon was the only cinema to have the Kalee machines, and that the other pair were supplied new to Pinewood, and never were installed in a public cinema? Do you know how long the machines remained at Pinewood, or indeed, if they are still there. I know that they had a large triple head rear projection system there, which I believe could run 8 perf plates, and ,of course, Vista cameras have been used in recent times for original photography for special effects shots, so Pinewood would have had a need for Vista projectors long after they became redundant in normal cinemas.
You also say that the other pair went to a local technical college. Was this the then Wandsworth Tech. (Now South Thames College)? When I left school in 1974, I attended this institution for four years, training to be an audio visual technician with the I.L.E.A., which I remained until 1990, when I moved to my present post as an I.T. technician at Croydon College. I remember one day being suprised to see some 35mm slides with an optical track on the top edge, I was not aware of the existance of Vistavision at this time. I was shown a short roll of print, from which the slides had been cut, and was told that the projectors had been taken to the College when they were removed from the cinema, I don't think that they said which cinema this was, but that they were no longer there.
The main hall of the old building had, until fairy recently at that time, several 35mm machines installed, but these had all been removed, and the hall had been taken over by builders. When the builders moved out, just a single Elf 3000 16mm xenon machine was installed, two more firsts for me, the first time I had seen 16mm used on a large screen, and the first xenon I had seen.
There were two staff I remember who taught projection, by this time just 16mm on portable machines, but we had to learn, and be tested on, all the models that the ILEA had in use at that time, their names were, if I remember correctly, Ted Church and Harry Court. Ted was quite old at the time, and Harry had been ill, so I don't know if either of these gentlemen is still alive, but they had stories going back to sound on disk days.
<Snip>
Anyway, back to Vistavision. Did you attend the event a Grip House Studios a few years ago at which some VV was shown? this was done using a modern projector, using a reel of the old 'Battle of the River Plate' print. I think this must have been from the print which ran at the Odeon. The print was very badly faded, almost no colour left, but it still looked impressive. No soundhead was fitted to the projector, but the track was Magenta VD, similar to that found on some old Disney 16mm prints. This is interesting, because I have heard that this was the only film shown in this country, but I remember that the film I saw at college had a duo-bilateral VA track, and therefore would seem to have been from a different film.
I believe that at least certain parts of these projectors still exist, though possibly not enough to re-assemble a complete machine. Some parts appear to have been common with other 'modern', i.e. post-war, gold-coloured Kalee standard 35mm machines. Whether it would be technically possible to rebuild a Kalee Vistavision machine, using partly original perts, partly standard Kalee parts, and making the remaining parts new, I don't know. It might be an expensive exercise.
It's a pity that one of these machines was not preserved somewhere in working order.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
|
posted 01-22-2003 07:13 PM
Hugh wrote:
quote:
Thank you Gordon for mentioning my web site.
Never been up the hill to Old Coulsdon Stephen? You haven't lived.
The water was used as a cooling agent to keep the operating temperature of the oil layer at, I think, 10C.
It was pumped through hoses into the vacuum chamber, and a cooling pipe fixed to the revolving mirror.
A funny idea as water boils in a vacuum, but it worked.
In the winter we had to be careful that the water did not freeze during the night when the cinema was empty. To this end we drained the water out. We could not take the chance of the pipe bursting in the mirror cassette as these were very expensive to replace.
The Eidophor was purchased to replace the Rank Cintel machine.
Hugh, I hadn't realised that was your site, some interesting material there.
I thought the water might be for cooling, but have I understood you correctly, that it was actually used inside the vacuum chamber? I don't understand how you could maintain a high vacuum in contact with water; or have I misunderstood you, was the water inside a container of some sort, which was inside the vacuum chamber, but the water itself was not in direct contact with the vacuum?
Do you know anything about the Cintel machine? How did it work? Was this the same type of machine which was installed in the Telekinema at the Festival of Britain?
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
|
posted 01-23-2003 09:58 AM
Gordon wrote:
quote:
I remeber a previous thread on this subject and something of the fact they ended up in the Swiss regions
Gordon, the discussion I had by e-mail came out of that thread. It was with another member of these forums, and updated the information given in that thread, but I do not have that persons permission to quote his reply to me.
What about the American, Century?, Vistavision machines; do any of them still exist? I think there were a few more of them than there were of the GK ones.
I assume that the projector built by Mark Gulbrandsen, with pictures on the Film-Tech site is still around. I'm not sure what the modern machine I saw at Grip House Studios in London was, I don't think it was Marks one, It looked different.
I know that on both the GK and Century machines the film ran from bottom to top, and the sound head was below the gate, so the sound must have been printed in retard of the picture, but I don't know by how many frames, does anyone know this, and also the position of the magnetic sound intended to be used on Technirama 8 perf prints?
The usual reason given for the film running upwards is that it avoided having to lift full 6000 foot spools into the top spool box, yet projectionists have to lift 15000 foot spools onto towers. Was it that the top spool box was further away from the operator, due to the horizontal gate, which would have involved stretching out, or leaning forwards with a heavy spool, rather than just lifting it?
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic