Position of optical sound on film in Switzerland and France

[Gordon McLeod]

Very few theatres ever projected silent movies at 16fps. That was well documented and as Erpi cited in Chicago the average silent projection speed was 90 feet per min in the major downtown houses
If you look through many old cinematography journals most camerman were cranking faster because they were away theatres were projecting much faster than 16fps

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Not so. The hand cranking cameraman was to count "one thousand" for each full turn of the camera crank.. That is why Bill Shepherd said it was so difficult to do while watching something that was very exciting happening in front of the lens. I assume that the camera took more than one frame of picture for each of those cranks. The film stock was not very light sensitive so the shutter angle would have been pretty great. Tripods were very necessary both to reduce motion blurring and steadying the camera during cranking.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Very few theatres ever projected silent movies at 16fps. That was well documented and as Erpi cited in Chicago the average silent projection speed was 90 feet per min in the major downtown houses
If you look through many old cinematography journals most camerman were cranking faster because they were away theatres were projecting much faster than 16fps

Actually, all Lee Deforest sound movies ran at 16 fps. That was part of the "Compatibility problem with his projection systems later on when Movietone stole his design.

[Leo Enticknap]

My understanding is that the original De Forest Phonofilms system ran at 20 FPS, though Wikipedia says "about 21." It's true, though, that he tried to buck the trend of increasing frame rates, which was being caused primarily by bigger theaters needing more light, and therefore pushing projector manufacturers to move from three-blade to two-blade shutters, that need frame rates well into the 20s to avoid perceived (to the point of being distracting) flicker. 24 had become an unofficial standard by the mid-1920s, and when the need for an official, enforced one was necessitated by sync sound, that was the obvious choice. Early variants of RCA Photophone ran at 22.

I'd also nit pick a little over "Movietone stole his [de Forest's] design. What actually happened is that one of De Forest's contractors, Theodore Case, made a big improvement in the sensitivity of the light source that was used to expose the variable density negative, that boosted the dynamic range of the signal by several KHz. De Forest tried to take the credit for this and use Case's patented IP without permission, as a result of which Case developed his own fully blown system and licensed it to Fox. Both sides stole from each other, to a great extent. For example, the use of a weighted idler drum to reduce wow and flutter to acceptable levels was completely a De Forest invention, which Case and RCA were both able to nick because De Forest's patent attorneys hadn't covered the bases as efficiently as Case's had.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

[Quiote] I'd also nit pick a little over "Movietone stole his [de Forest's] design. What actually happened is that one of De Forest's contractors, Theodore Case, made a big improvement in the sensitivity of the light source that was used to expose the variable density negative, that boosted the dynamic range of the signal by several KHz. De Forest tried to take the credit for this and use Case's patented IP without permission, as a result of which Case developed his own fully blown system and licensed it to Fox. Both sides stole from each other, to a great extent. For example, the use of a weighted idler drum to reduce wow and flutter to acceptable levels was completely a De Forest invention, which Case and RCA were both able to nick because De Forest's patent attorneys hadn't covered the bases as efficiently as Case's had.[/QUOTE]

The courts however felt differently;y and awarded DeForest in the ensuing lawsuit. Increasing the sensitivity was only an improvement to an already existing system.

[Jim Cassedy]

About 8 yrs ago, I bought a real good book about Theodore Case. I've re-read it a couple of times. Unfortunately, at the moment it's in storage, so I can't remember the title. (No, it's not "Now We're Talking"- - it's the other one) On the topic of film speed. If you look at motion picture trade magazines (such as MOVING PICTURE WORLD, and EXHIBITOR's HERALD" from the 1900's until 'talking pictures' came along they very rarely gave the running time of a movie when reviewing the title. They usually just gave the film length in feet, or in number of (1000ft) reels, since cranking (projector) speed could vary from one venue to the next.

I've run archival silent prints at several large film festivals, often with a complete orchestra. The orchestras I've worked with at these events are usually professional musicians whose specialty is playing with silent films. Those guys really "know" the print, although usually these shows still require one or more complete or partial rehearsals. One time I was told that the running speed of the film was 18fps. But I mis-typed the speed into the motor controller and I was 1 or 2 fps 'off'. The orchestra leader KNEW this and called me on the radio less than 30sec into the first rehearsal to correct the speed error I'd made. (If you ever want to see 60 totally confused musicians, try aputting on the wrong reel. I've seen it happen. . . fortunately not on a show I was running)

I had a projection-buddy who doesn't run changeovers too often, and several years ago he was going to be running a silent film at local film fest. While inspecting the film, he was obsessing over the change-overs. (Yes, I know cue marks weren't standardized till late 1930, but most archive prints have been properly cued) But he kept thinking that because the film was running slower, he was going to have to thread up the projector differently. I explained several times that the films were cued by 'feet', not by time, and so he didn't have to change his thread-up point at all. '12feet is 12feet", I kept telling him, no matter how fast or slow you're projecting. But he just couldn't seem to grasp that concept for some reason. I just told him to trust me & thread normally and 'don't worry about it' . It wasn't until the morning of his show that he called to tell me that while lying in bed the previous night, he finally "got it". (And his show went just fine) Actually I've had to explain this on more than one occasion to people who don't run silent film changeovers often.

> EDIT: I recall the title of the book about T.Case I mentioned above: "Breaking The Silence On Film"
It came out in around 2000, & I got a used/good copy on Amazon about 8 years ago.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

Theodore Chase's home and research laboratories in now the home to the county museum in Auburn New York. Apparently at one time they planned to expand the museum to include the research laboratories but never finished the project. When I was there a few years ago, I asked the the woman minding the museum about it and she opened up the buildings for me. No tour, she told me that I probably new more about what is there than she did. I did. She just let me wonder around. There was equipment all over the place, the original Chase sound stage, and an old Movietone newsreel truck among other items of interest. The next to last picture below is a Simplex projector with a DeForest sound head mounted on top. While the reduced in size pictures below doesn't show the nameplate clearly, the much larger original clearly reads "Property Of DeForest Photofilms, Inc". The last picture shows another Simplex projector with the Chase sound head below the picture head where it remains to this day.

chase museum 1.jpg

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[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Mitchell, DeForest had sound movies in 1922.

[Leo Enticknap]

But only in Berlin. He returned to the USA either late in '23 or early '24 (can't remember which, and don't have easy access to the notes that would tell me), and it wasn't until '24 that he was working with Case on trying to exploit the system commercially on a significant scale.

[Jim Cassedy]

Returning to the topic of film silent film speed for a moment, this
paragraph is from the June 1926 American Cinematographer:
AmCitgrphr061926.jpg
(If you "do the math", this works out to 16fps)
So it seems there was an official camera speed, but projection
speed might have been at the mercy of managers trying to
squeeze an extra show or short subject into the the theatre's
schedule, or perhaps a projectionist trying to go home a little
earlier after the last show.

[Steve Kraus]

Regarding Dolby Digital, I have always presumed that the offset was greater than analog optical to give basement reader designers maximum flexibility to design readers. Yes, the point of a basement reader is to make use of the existing film path and stabilization components so the scanning point should be the same give or take a perf. But there's always a chance someone might want to design something different. An early read can be delayed with little trouble so allowing this extra flexibility comes at no cost.