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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Optical sound on Cinemascope.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 02-24-2008 07:34 AM
quote: John Belton, 'Widescreen Cinema' (Cambridge, MA, Harvard UP, 1992), p. 154
Fox's campaign to convert the nation's exhibitors to stereo magnetic sound had proved only partially successful. Though all of the 3,234 theaters that had installed CinemaScope by April 1954 had bought stereo as part of the entire package, exhibitor resistance to Fox's stereo-only policy throughout 1953 and the spring of 1954 forced the studio to begin releasing CinemaScope films in three different versions - with monaural optical, with one-track magnetic, and with four-track magnetic soundtracks. In June 1956, in order to reduce the costs involved in striking separate optical and magnetic release prints, Fox announced that it would release all future productions, starting with Bus Stop, in a combined magnetic and optical format which was subsequently referred to as 'magoptical' and which provided both kinds of tracks on a single print.[footnote] At the same time Fox also abandoned its 'Fox hole' perforations, returning to the larger ones favoured by the majority of producers and exhibitors. However, in order to add an optical soundtrack to its revamped CinemaScope film frame, Fox was forced to reduce the picture area by 10 per cent. This step reduced the overall aspect ration from 1:2.55 to 1:2.35, which remains the current anamorphic aspect ratio for release prints in use today.
[footnote] According to Aubrey Solomon, Fox saved $3 million annually by using magoptical prints: Twentieth Century-Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (Methuen, NJ, Scarecrow Press, 1988) p. 89.
In other words, just as Hollywood was unable to exclusively package the conversion to sound with widescreen in the late 20s/early 30s, the studios' attempts to tie stereo to widescreen in the 1950s were also largely unsuccessful, apart from in prestige roadshow venues. By the late '50s it became apparent that a mass market was there for the former, but not the latter.
My guess would be that the widespread take up of consumer stereo audio technology prompted the film industry to undertake a mass-rollout of stereo in the 1980s, just as the increasing popularity of radio and recorded music was a big factor in the conversion to sound in the late '20s - both in terms of the development of the technology itself and in creating consumer demand for it.
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 02-24-2008 07:42 PM
But still, it was very interesting that "Snow White and the Three Stooges" was printed on "foxhole" sprocket film, but only with an optical track release. Thus, to my knowledge, this was the only FOX film that had those blue colorcoded film wraps (being red as CinemaScope-Optical .black was CinemaScope-mag/optical and green being a "Regular" (flat) print release)
(I thought that the full-mag release prints were in a 2.66:1 ratio without the optical track printed on the film...but, oh well..)
quote:
At the same time Fox also abandoned its 'Fox hole' perforations, returning to the larger ones favoured by the majority of producers and exhibitors.
...not to question this statement, but if the foxhole sprockets were abandoned, then would this be the camera negative part of the production, since all the mag that I ran in the early 70's were the common 'foxhole', mag/opt, print releases?
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 02-25-2008 01:02 AM
I think what he must have meant was 'Fox abandoned exclusive release printing on Fox-holed stock and gave exhibitors the option of prints with conventional perforations', and then the editor cut it down to conserve word length, unaware that this was bringing ambiguity in.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but camera negative stock has its own perforation type anyway, and as extra space freed up by the Fox holes was used for mag track, not frame area, I wouldn't have thought that the dual inventory release printing issue would have affected what went on in the studio one way or another.
I've noticed several statements in Belton's book which are either oversimplifications or quite simply wrong (and I seem to remember that someone once compiled a list of all of them and circulated it on the Internet, though I may be mistaken). On first glance you think there's no way that someone with his reputation could make such a blunder: then on second it looks suspiciously like an publisher's editor who doesn't know the subject found what seemed like an elegant way of hacking a paragraph down into a single sentence by getting rid of ifs, buts and qualifications. The problem is that the ifs and buts are crucial to the argument, not just unnecessary detail.
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Hugh McCullough
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 147
From: Old Coulsdon, Surrey, UK
Registered: Jan 2003
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posted 02-26-2008 05:50 PM
A lot of the trouble with the smaller Fox hole perfs was caused by projectionists damaging the prints by running them on the standard size sprocket, and not the correct smaller Fox hole sprocket.
In the 1970s I showed at least two Bond films with 3 track mag stripe, and a mono optical track. These prints had the normal size sprocket holes.
There was also a Gordons Gin advert doing the rounds with three track mag, but no optical.
There was a film in the late 1960s, can't remember it's title, that had a mono mag track completely covering the optical track. It also had a mute mag track on the opposite side to keep the film flat in the gate.
We were told, by the film company, that when the print had finished the rounds of cinemas equipped for mag it would be washed off, their words not mine, to give a pristine optical track. It then could be shown in optical only cinemas.
Never saw another film like this, so I assume that the experiment was a failure.
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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-26-2008 06:08 PM
quote: Leo Enticknap
I've noticed several statements in Belton's book which are either oversimplifications or quite simply wrong (and I seem to remember that someone once compiled a list of all of them and circulated it on the Internet, though I may be mistaken).
I'm not aware of a compilation of errors in Belton's "Widescreen Cinema." I'd be interested in seeing such a list should one exist, although I think the general perception from historians and widescreen enthusiasts has been that Belton's book is devoid of any major faux pas and is considered the best book written thus far on the subject.
Perhaps, Leo, the corrections you're thinking of pertain to the similarly-titled "Wide Screen Movies" by Robert Carr & R.M. Hayes (McFarland, 1988). Dan Sherlock compiled the infamous corrections document, and it's widely available on the Internet incuding here at film-tech in the TIPS section.
There's also the lengthy list of corrections I had the (dis)pleasure of compiling for Richard Haines' The Moviegoing Experience, 1968-2001 (McFarland, 2003). I posted my review in a thread a couple of years ago and some discussion ensued, although due to length I did not include the corrections supplement in the post.
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