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102-469: Filmed professionally on black-and-white 35 mm stock , like theatrical motion pictures, they were printed on the more portable and economical 16 mm film. The Panoram "movie jukebox" was manufactured by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago. Each Panoram housed a 16 mm RCA film projector, with eight Soundies films threaded in an endless-loop arrangement. A system of mirrors flashed the image from

204-403: A beam splitter prism behind the camera lens. Two prints on half-thickness stock were made from the negative, one from only the red-filtered frames, the other from the green-filtered frames. After development, the silver images on the prints were chemically toned to convert them into images of the approximately complementary colors . The two strips were then cemented together back to back, forming

306-414: A mask in the theater projector, not in the camera) to obtain the "wide" aspect ratio. The standard, in some European countries, became 1.66:1 instead of 1.85:1, although some productions with pre-determined American distributors composed for the latter to appeal to US markets. In September 1953, 20th Century Fox debuted CinemaScope with their production of The Robe to great success. CinemaScope became

408-411: A niche market of enthusiasts and format lovers. Originally, film was a strip of cellulose nitrate coated with black-and-white photographic emulsion . Early film pioneers, like D. W. Griffith , color tinted or toned portions of their movies for dramatic impact, and by 1920, 80 to 90 percent of all films were tinted. The first successful natural color process was Britain's Kinemacolor (1909–1915),

510-565: A 68 mm film that used friction feed, not sprocket holes, to move the film through the camera. A court judgment in March 1902 invalidated Edison's claim, allowing any producer or distributor to use the Edison 35 mm film design without license. Filmmakers were already doing so in Britain and Europe, where Edison did not file patents. At the time, film stock was usually supplied unperforated and punched by

612-519: A SuperScope variant became the predecessor to the modern Super 35 format that is popular today. The concept behind Super 35 originated with the Tushinsky Brothers' SuperScope format, particularly the SuperScope 235 specification from 1956. In 1982, Joe Dunton revived the format for Dance Craze , and Technicolor soon marketed it under the name "Super Techniscope" before the industry settled on

714-647: A burlesque dancer who crossed paths with Faith frequently, Faith was a lesbian out of necessity as her mother kept her from men. Later in her life, as her work dried up, there were reports of heavy alcohol and drug use. Bacon's career in burlesque began in the 1920s in Paris. In a 1930 interview, Bacon stated she decided to become a dancer when she visited Paris despite never having had any training. While in Paris, she met Maurice Chevalier and later premiered in his revue. During her career, she used bubbles , flowers and fans in her nude dance routines. After returning to

816-442: A fairly large stretch of film: 2–3 ft or approximately 2 seconds. Also, polyester film will melt if exposed to the projector lamp for too long. Original camera negative is still made on a triacetate base, and some intermediate films (certainly including internegatives or "dupe" negatives, but not necessarily including interpositives or "master" positives) are also made on a triacetate base as such films must be spliced during

918-595: A grand jury decided against indicting Bacon, Carroll and her fellow cast members. Following her performance in Earl Carroll's Vanities , Bacon appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 from July to November 1931. In 1933, she went to Chicago to perform at the 1933 World's Fair after learning that rival dancer Sally Rand was performing a fan dance. Bacon, who maintained she originated the dance for Earl Carroll in 1930, billed herself as "The Original Fan Dancer". At

1020-525: A hardened gelatin relief image was made from each negative, and the three matrices transferred color dyes into a blank film to create the print. Two-color processes, however, were far from extinct. In 1934, William T. Crispinel and Alan M. Gundelfinger revived the Multicolor process under the company name Cinecolor . Cinecolor saw considerable use in animation and low-budget pictures, mainly because it cost much less than three-color Technicolor. If color design

1122-613: A hurry. [She] shuffled away, after promising to drop backstage the next day to visit. We never saw her again. By 1956, Bacon was living in Erie, Pennsylvania but decided to travel to Chicago to find work. Upon arriving, she checked into a hotel and spent three weeks looking for work but could not find any. On September 26, 1956, Bacon jumped out of her window at the Alan Hotel at 2004 Lincoln Park West in Chicago, falling two stories before landing on

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1224-548: A lens turret in the same manner as an anamorphic lens. In contrast, the Panavision system uses a spectral comb filter system, but their combination splitter-filter-lens is physically similar to the Technicolor assembly and can be used in the same way. No other modifications are required to the projector for either system, though for the Technicolor system a silver screen is necessary, as it would be with polarised-light digital 3D. Thus

1326-411: A number of systems had been proposed for 3D systems based on 35 mm film by Technicolor , Panavision and others. These systems are improved versions of the "over-under" stereo 3D prints first introduced in the 1960s. To be attractive to exhibitors, these schemes offered 3D films that can be projected by a standard 35 mm cinema projector with minimal modification, and so they are based on

1428-416: A programme can readily include both 2D and 3D segments with only the lens needing to be changed between them. In June 2012, Panavision 3D systems for both 35 mm film and digital projection were withdrawn from the market by DVPO theatrical (who marketed these system on behalf of Panavision) citing "challenging global economic and 3D market conditions". In the transition period centered around 2010–2015,

1530-496: A removable aperture plate in the film projector gate, the top and bottom of the frame could be cropped to create a wider aspect ratio. Paramount Pictures began this trend with their aspect ratio of 1.66:1, first used in Shane , which was originally shot for Academy ratio . It was Universal Studios, however, with their May release of Thunder Bay that introduced the now standard 1.85:1 format to American audiences and brought attention to

1632-409: A routine in which she stood nude and motionless onstage while lights "played over" her body. At the time, indecent exposure laws prohibited dancers from moving while appearing nude onstage. According to Bacon, she and Carroll tried several different tricks to get around these laws before finally coming up with the idea of the fan dance. The dance was an immediate hit. On July 9, 1930, police raided

1734-446: A safer film base , formulated to capture color, has accommodated a bevy of widescreen formats, and has incorporated digital sound data into nearly all of its non-frame areas. Eastman Kodak , Fujifilm and Agfa-Gevaert are some companies that offered 35 mm films. As of 2015, Kodak is the last remaining manufacturer of motion picture film. The ubiquity of 35 mm movie projectors in commercial movie theaters made 35 mm

1836-514: A shade smaller than those now in use. This standardized film size of 1889 has remained, with only minor variations, unaltered to date". Until 1953, the 35 mm film was seen as "basic technology" in the film industry, rather than optional, despite other gauges being available. In 1908, Edison formed "a cartel of production companies", a trust called the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), pooling patents for collective use in

1938-409: A single strip similar to duplitized film. In 1928, Technicolor started making their prints by the imbibition process, which was mechanical rather than photographic and allowed the color components to be combined on the same side of the film. Using two matrix films bearing hardened gelatin relief images, thicker where the image was darker, aniline color dyes were transferred into the gelatin coating on

2040-461: A standard had momentous impact on the development and spread of cinema. The standard gauge made it possible for films to be shown in every country of the world… It provided a uniform, reliable and predictable format for production, distribution and exhibition of movies, facilitating the rapid spread and acceptance of the movies as a world-wide device for entertainment and communication. When the MPPC adopted

2142-448: A standard process for feature film post-production, 3-perf is becoming increasingly popular for feature film productions which would otherwise be averse to an optical conversion stage. Faith Bacon Faith Bacon (born Frances Yvonne Bacon ; July 19, 1910  – September 26, 1956) was an American burlesque dancer and actress. During the height of her career, she was billed as "America's Most Beautiful Dancer". Bacon

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2244-447: A third, blank strip of film. Technicolor re-emerged as a three-color process for cartoons in 1932 and live action in 1934. Using a different arrangement of a beam-splitter cube and color filters behind the lens, the camera simultaneously exposed three individual strips of black-and-white film, each one recording one-third of the spectrum , which allowed virtually the entire spectrum of colors to be reproduced. A printing matrix with

2346-482: A two-color additive process that used a rotating disk with red and green filters in front of the camera lens and the projector lens. But any process that photographed and projected the colors sequentially was subject to color "fringing" around moving objects, and a general color flickering. In 1916, William Van Doren Kelley began developing Prizma , the first commercially viable American color process using 35 mm film. Initially, like Kinemacolor, it photographed

2448-613: Is as old as Cleopatra. [...] She can't sue me for that." In 1938, Bacon made her only acting film appearance in Prison Train , directed by Gordon Wiles , in which she played the role of 'Maxine'. She did appear on film in 1942 in two short recordings: "Lady with the Fans" and "Dance of Shame". On April 23, 1939, she was arrested for a second time for disorderly conduct after staging a publicity stunt on Park Avenue in New York City. Bacon, who

2550-453: Is credited as the inventor of 35 mm movie film in 1889, when the Edison company was using Eastman film. The company still received film from Blair after this; at first Blair would supply only 40 mm ( 1 + 9 ⁄ 16  in) film stock that would be trimmed and perforated at the Edison lab to create 1 + 3 ⁄ 8 -inch (35 mm) gauge filmstrips, then at some point in 1894 or 1895, Blair began sending stock to Edison that

2652-496: Is four perforations per frame along both edges, which results in 16 frames per foot of film. A variety of largely proprietary gauges were devised for the numerous camera and projection systems being developed independently in the late 19th century and early 20th century, as well as a variety of film feeding systems. This resulted in cameras, projectors, and other equipment having to be calibrated to each gauge. The 35 mm width, originally specified as 1 + 3 ⁄ 8 inches,

2754-419: Is retained, minimising the need for modifications to the projector or to long-play systems. The linear speed of film through the projector and sound playback both remain exactly the same as in normal 2D operation. The Technicolor system uses the polarisation of light to separate the left and right eye images and for this they rent to exhibitors a combination splitter-polarizer-lens assembly which can be fitted to

2856-482: Is stored between the perforations on the sound side; SDDS , stored in two redundant strips along the outside edges (beyond the perforations); and DTS , in which sound data is stored on separate compact discs synchronized by a timecode track on the film just to the right of the analog soundtrack and left of the frame. Because these soundtrack systems appear on different parts of the film, one movie can contain all of them, allowing broad distribution without regard for

2958-608: The 1939 World's Fair in New York, she had an official position as fan dancer. After appearing at the World's Fair in 1933, Bacon's career began to decline. Over the years, she had gained a reputation of being difficult. While working in the show Temptations in the winter of 1936 at the Lake Theater in Chicago, Bacon cut her thighs when she fell through a glass drum on which she was posing nude. The cuts left her thighs scarred and she sued

3060-608: The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences on May 9, 1893. The Kinetoscope was a film loop system intended for one-person viewing. Edison, along with assistant William Kennedy Dickson , followed that up with the Kinetophone , which combined the Kinetoscope with Edison's cylinder phonograph . Beginning in March 1892, Eastman and then, from April 1893 into 1896, New York's Blair Camera Co. supplied Edison with film stock. Dickson

3162-476: The New Amsterdam Theatre and arrested Bacon, Earl Carroll and other cast members for "giving an indecent performance". She was appearing in a scene entitled "A Window at Merls". Although the show underwent some changes after the raid, Bacon continued to perform the fan dance. However, Earl Carroll stated that Bacon wore a "chiffon arrangement" during the performance and was not fully nude. In August 1930,

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3264-584: The "1930 standard", studios which followed the suggested practice of marking their camera viewfinders for this ratio were: Paramount-Famous-Lasky, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, United Artists, Pathe, Universal, RKO, Tiffany-Stahl, Mack Sennett, Darmour, and Educational. The Fox Studio markings were the same width but allowed .04 in more height. In 1932, in refining this ratio, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expanded upon this 1930 standard. The camera aperture became 22 by 16 mm (0.87 by 0.63 in), and

3366-503: The "Academy" ratio is referred to as having an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, it is done so mistakenly. The commonly used anamorphic format uses a similar four-perf frame, but an anamorphic lens is used on the camera and projector to produce a wider image, today with an aspect ratio of about 2.39:1 (more commonly referred to as 2.40:1). The ratio was formerly 2.35:1—and is still often mistakenly referred to as such—until an SMPTE revision of projection standards in 1970. The image, as recorded on

3468-449: The "negative assembly" process, and the extant negative assembly process is solvent-based. Polyester films are not compatible with solvent-based assembly processes. Besides black & white and color negative films, there are black & white and color reversal films , which when developed create a positive ("natural") image that is projectable. There are also films sensitive to non-visible wavelengths of light , such as infrared . In

3570-400: The 35 mm format, Bell & Howell produced cameras, projectors, and perforators for the medium of an "exceptionally high quality", further cementing it as the standard. Edison and Eastman's form of business manipulation was ruled unlawful in 1914, but by this time the technology had become the established standard. In 1917, the new Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPE) "acknowledged

3672-606: The 70 mm to size would have created waste). 35 mm was immediately accepted as standard by the Lumière brothers , and became the main film used in the UK because it was the stock sold to these filmmakers by the Blair company. Edison claimed exclusive patent rights to the design of 35 mm motion picture film , with four sprocket holes (perforations) per frame, forcing his only major filmmaking competitor, American Mutoscope & Biograph , to use

3774-497: The CinemaScope lenses' technical limitations with their own lenses, and by 1967, CinemaScope was replaced by Panavision and other third-party manufacturers. The 1950s and 1960s saw many other novel processes using 35 mm, such as VistaVision , SuperScope, and Technirama , most of which ultimately became obsolete. VistaVision, however, would be revived decades later by Lucasfilm and other studios for special effects work, while

3876-537: The Lake Theater Corporation for $ 100,000 in damages. She later settled for $ 5,000 which she spent on a ten carat diamond. The accident scars and ensuing leg pain diminished her dancing abilities. In October 1938, Bacon sued dancer Sally Rand for $ 375,000 in damages and sought an injunction barring her from performing the fan dance which Bacon still maintained that she originated. Rand denied Bacon's accusations, claiming jealousy. Rand stated, "The fan idea

3978-599: The Official prints and negatives). The trade publication Billboard reported in February 1951 that Official Films had spent $ 300,000 preparing the Soundies film library for television syndication, under the series title "Music Hall Varieties"; Official earned more than $ 700,000 from local TV stations. Three documentaries have been produced about Soundies. Don McGlynn produced and edited The Soundies in 1986, hosted by Cab Calloway ;

4080-562: The Soundies machines and films became obsolete. Almost all of the Panoram jukeboxes were either junked or modified into self-service "peepshow" machines. Most remaining Panorams are in the hands of collectors and are occasionally offered for sale. The library of approximately 1,800 Soundies films was made available first to home-movie companies Castle Films and Official Films , then to television via Official's TV division, and ultimately to home video (via England's Charly Records , which acquired

4182-626: The United States, Bacon appeared on Broadway in Earl Carroll's Vanities from August 1928 to February 1929. The program listed her performance as "Fan Dance - Heart of the Daisies." She went on to dance in Fioretta and Earl Carroll's Sketch Book , in 1929 and 1930, respectively. In July 1930, she appeared as a "principal nude" in another production of Earl Carroll's Vanities . She initially performed

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4284-492: The United States. In 1948, she was hired to headline a girl review, however on the last day of the performance she claimed she was owed $ 5,044 in back salary. She claimed the owner tried to terrorize her and sued the carnival promoter for $ 55,444, accusing him of putting tacks on the stage on which she was dancing barefoot. Bacon lost the case. By the mid-1950s, she attempted to start a dance school in Indiana but that failed and she

4386-465: The additional optical printing stage required made this an unattractive option at the time for most film makers. However, in television production , where compatibility with an installed base of 35 mm film projectors is unnecessary, the 3-perf format is sometimes used, giving—if used with Super 35 —the 16:9 ratio used by HDTV and reducing film usage by 25 percent. Because of 3-perf's incompatibility with standard 4-perf equipment, it can utilize

4488-453: The anamorphic projection standard. This allows an "anamorphic" frame to be captured with non-anamorphic lenses, which are much more common. Up to 2000, once the film was photographed in Super 35, an optical printer was used to anamorphose (squeeze) the image. This optical step reduced the overall quality of the image and made Super 35 a controversial subject among cinematographers, many who preferred

4590-400: The aspect ratio in the computer allows the studios to perform all post-production and editing of the movie in its original aspect (1.33:1 or 1.78:1) and to then release the cropped version, while still having the original when necessary (for Pan & Scan, HDTV transmission, etc.). The non-anamorphic widescreen ratios (most commonly 1.85:1) used in modern feature films makes inefficient use of

4692-462: The available image area on 35 mm film using the standard 4-perf pulldown; the height of a 1.85:1 frame occupying only 65% of the distance between the frames. It is clear, therefore, that a change to a 3-perf pulldown would allow for a 25% reduction in film consumption whilst still accommodating the full 1.85:1 frame. Ever since the introduction of these widescreen formats in the 1950s various film directors and cinematographers have argued in favour of

4794-416: The cheap and widely-available 35 mm. Dickson said in 1933: At the end of the year 1889, I increased the width of the picture from + 1 ⁄ 2 inch to + 3 ⁄ 4 inch, then, to 1 inch by + 3 ⁄ 4 inch high. The actual width of the film was 1 + 3 ⁄ 8 inches to allow for the perforations now punched on both edges, 4 holes to the phase or picture, which perforations were

4896-429: The color elements one after the other and projected the results by additive synthesis . Ultimately, Prizma was refined to bipack photography, with two strips of film, one treated to be sensitive to red and the other not, running through the camera face to face. Each negative was printed on one surface of the same duplitized print stock and each resulting series of black-and-white images was chemically toned to transform

4998-435: The conventional motion picture format, frames are four perforations tall, with an aspect ratio of 1.375:1, 22 by 16 mm (0.866 by 0.630 in). This is a derivation of the aspect ratio and frame size designated by Thomas Edison (24.89 by 18.67 millimetres or 0.980 by 0.735 inches) at the dawn of motion pictures, which was an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The first sound features were released in 1926–27, and while Warner Bros.

5100-573: The de facto status of 35mm as the industry's dominant film gauge, adopting it as an engineering standard". When film editing was done by physically cutting the film, editing the picture could only have been done on the frame line. However, the sound was stored for the whole frame between each of the four sprocket holes, and so the sound editors could cut on any arbitrary set of holes, and thus get + 1 ⁄ 4 -frame edit resolution. With this technique, an audio edit could be accurate to within 10.41  ms ." A limitation of analog optical recording

5202-546: The encounter: We came out the stage door of the Rivoli Theatre in Seattle after the midnight show. Off to one side in the alley, in the shadows, stood what we would now call a bag lady . We started past her when my wife pulled up short and said 'My God, Faith?' Needless to say it was Faith Bacon. She was down on her luck and needed a handout. My wife gave her some money and talked with her a few minutes, but [Faith] seemed to be in

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5304-520: The end of the year, 20th Century Fox had narrowly "won" a race to obtain an anamorphic optical system invented by Henri Chrétien , and soon began promoting the Cinemascope technology as early as the production phase. Looking for a similar alternative, other major studios hit upon a simpler, less expensive solution by April 1953: the camera and projector used conventional spherical lenses (rather than much more expensive anamorphic lenses), but by using

5406-427: The film supplied for Eastman Kodak cameras in 1889, a transparent 70 mm celluloid film, in his development of a more suitable film stock , and "simply slit this film in half"; it was initially developed for the Kinetoscope, a one-person viewer, not to be projected. The image was still of high quality, even when magnified, and was more economical than 70 mm film (and more economical than any other gauge, as cutting

5508-958: The film was broadcast nationally on PBS . Dewey Russell compiled an hourlong, direct-to-video history, "Soundies: Music Video from the '40s" in 1987, narrated by Michael Sollazzo. Chris Lamson produced "Soundies: A Musical History," hosted by Michael Feinstein , in 2007 for PBS. For today's filmmakers and archivists, Soundies are known for preserving rare performances of African-American artists who had fewer opportunities to perform in mainstream films. Such artists as The Ink Spots , Fats Waller , Duke Ellington , Louis Jordan , Sister Rosetta Tharpe , Dorothy Dandridge , Big Joe Turner , Bob Howard , Billy Eckstine , Count Basie , The Mills Brothers , Herb Jeffries , Cab Calloway , Meade Lux Lewis , Lena Horne , Louis Armstrong , Nat King Cole , and Stepin Fetchit all made Soundies (several of these were excerpted from longer theatrical films). The Soundies concept

5610-478: The filmmaker to their standards with perforation equipment. A variation developed by the Lumière brothers used a single circular perforation on each side of the frame towards the middle of the horizontal axis. When films began to be projected, several projection devices were unsuccessful and fell into obscurity because of technical failure, lack of business acumen on the part of their promoters, or both. The Vitascope ,

5712-669: The films were changed weekly. The completed Soundies were generally made available within a few weeks of their filming, by the Soundies Distributing Corporation of America. Several production companies filmed the Soundies shorts in New York City, Hollywood, and Chicago: James Roosevelt 's Globe Productions (1940–41), Cinemasters (1940–41), Minoco Productions (owned by Mills Novelty, 1941–43), RCM Productions (1941–46), LOL Productions (1943), Glamourettes (1943), Filmcraft Productions (1943–46), and Alexander Productions (1946) led by William D. Alexander ). The performers recorded

5814-416: The first marketable usage of an anamorphic widescreen process and became the basis for a host of "formats", usually suffixed with -scope, that were otherwise identical in specification, although sometimes inferior in optical quality. (Some developments, such as SuperScope and Techniscope , however, were truly entirely different formats.) By the early 1960s, however, Panavision would eventually solve many of

5916-510: The first projection device to use 35 mm, was technologically superior and compatible with the many motion pictures produced on 35 mm film. Edison bought the device in 1895–96; the Lumiere's 35 mm projection Cinematograph also premiered in 1895, and they established 35 mm as the standard for exhibition. Standardization in recording came from monopolization of the business by Eastman and Edison, and because of Edison's typical business model involving

6018-459: The first transparent, flexible film. Eastman also produced these components, and his was the first major company to mass-produce such film when, in 1889, Eastman realized that the dry-gelatino-bromide emulsion could be coated onto this clear base, eliminating the paper. With the advent of flexible film, Thomas Edison quickly set out on his invention, the Kinetoscope , which was first shown at

6120-562: The higher image quality and frame negative area of anamorphic photography (especially with regard to granularity ). With the advent of digital intermediates (DI) at the beginning of the 21st century, however, Super 35 photography has become even more popular, since everything could be done digitally, scanning the original 4-perf 1.33:1 (or 3-perf 1.78:1) picture and cropping it to the 2.39:1 frame already in-computer, without anamorphosing stages, and also without creating an additional optical generation with increased grain. This process of creating

6222-412: The incandescent exciter lamp with a complementary colored red LED or laser . These LED or laser exciters are backwards-compatible with older tracks. The film Anything Else (2003) was the first to be released with only cyan tracks. To facilitate this changeover, intermediate prints known as "high magenta" prints were distributed. These prints used a silver plus dye soundtrack that were printed into

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6324-430: The industry and positioning Edison's own technology as the standard to be licensed out. 35 mm became the "official" standard of the newly formed MPPC, which agreed in 1909 to what would become the standard: 35 mm gauge, with Edison perforations and a 1.3 3 :1 (4:3) aspect ratio (also developed by Dickson). Scholar Paul C. Spehr describes the importance of these developments: The early acceptance of 35 mm as

6426-421: The industry could change over completely over the course of ten-years. However, the movie industry did not make the change mainly because it would have required the modification of the thousands of existing 35 mm projectors in movie theaters all over the world. Whilst it would have been possible to shoot in 3-perf and then convert to standard 4-perf for release prints the extra complications this would cause and

6528-582: The industry making such a change. The Canadian cinematographer Miklos Lente invented and patented a three-perforation pull down system which he called "Trilent 35" in 1975 though he was unable to persuade the industry to adopt it. The idea was later taken up by the Swedish film-maker Rune Ericson who was a strong advocate for the 3-perf system. Ericson shot his 51st feature Pirates of the Lake in 1986 using two Panaflex cameras modified to 3-perf pulldown and suggested that

6630-417: The industry the capability and low cost of equipping theaters for this transition. Other studios followed suit with aspect ratios of 1.75:1 up to 2:1. For a time, these various ratios were used by different studios in different productions, but by 1956, the aspect ratio of 1.85:1 became the "standard" US format. These flat films are photographed with the full Academy frame , but are matted (most often with

6732-503: The leading Soundies performers. Many stars of the future made appearances in Soundies at the beginning of their careers, including Gale Storm , Dorothy Dandridge , Ricardo Montalbán , Liberace , Doris Day , Gloria Grahame , Cyd Charisse , Alan Ladd , Marilyn Maxwell , and Yvonne DeCarlo . Many nightclub and recording artists also made Soundies, including Harry "The Hipster" Gibson , Benny Fields , Frances Faye , Gloria Parker , Charles Magnante , Milton DeLugg , and Gus Van . In

6834-435: The lower half of the cabinet onto a front-facing screen in the top half. Because of the mirror arrangement, the films had to be printed with the image "flipped" (with the titles appearing backwards on the screen). Each film cost 10 cents to play, with no choice of song; the patron saw whatever film was next in the queue. Panorams could be found in public amusement centers, nightclubs, taverns, restaurants, and factory lounges, and

6936-439: The magenta dye layer. The advantage gained was an optical soundtrack, with low levels of sibilant (cross-modulation) distortion, on both types of sound heads. The success of digitally projected 3D movies in the first two decades of the 21st century led to a demand from some theater owners to be able to show these movies in 3D without incurring the high capital cost of installing digital projection equipment. To satisfy that demand,

7038-807: The market for jukebox films, the other companies disbanded, and some sold their films to the Soundies concern. Soundies emphasized variety from their beginning; the first three bandleaders who contracted for Soundies were boogie-woogie specialist Will Bradley , established popular music maestro Vincent Lopez , and Hawaiian singer-leader Ray Kinney . Soundies displayed all genres of music, from classical to big-band swing, and from hillbilly novelties to patriotic songs. Harry McClintock , Jimmy Dorsey , Louis Jordan , Spike Jones , Stan Kenton , Kay Starr , Johnnie Johnston , Les Brown , The Hoosier Hot Shots , Charlie Spivak , Cliff Edwards , Martha Tilton , Sally Rand , Nick Lucas , Gene Krupa , Anita O'Day , Jimmie Dodd , Merle Travis , and Lawrence Welk were some of

7140-597: The mid-1940s, during a moratorium imposed by James Petrillo of the musicians' union, Soundies resorted to filming nonmusical vaudeville acts, featuring exotic dancers Sally Rand and Faith Bacon , animal acts, acrobats, impressionists, and jugglers. Beginning in 1941, Soundies experimented with expanding its format, and filmed comedy Soundies with Our Gang actor Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer , Broadway comic Willie Howard , dialect comedians Smith and Dale , Harry Langdon , Snub Pollard , and The Keystone Cops . Most of these films were nonmusical, and were not as well received as

7242-587: The mid-1960s, Scopitone jukeboxes had spread across England and the United States. 35 mm movie film 35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking , and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on film, 35 mm is the most commonly used gauge. The name of the gauge is not a direct measurement, and refers to the nominal width of the 35 mm format photographic film , which consists of strips 1.377 ± 0.001 inches (34.976 ± 0.025 mm) wide. The standard image exposure length on 35 mm for movies ("single-frame" format)

7344-576: The music in advance, and mimed to the soundtrack during filming. The movie-jukebox idea developed several imitations and variations of the technical design; the most successful of these imitators were the Techniprocess company (managed by Rudy Vallee ) and the Featurettes company, which used original novelty songs and usually unknown talent (17-year-old Gwen Verdon appears in a couple of the Featurettes as "Gwen Verdun"). As Soundies quickly gained most of

7446-512: The musical Soundies. Soundies abandoned the comedy-sketch idea, but continued to produce filmed versions of comic novelty songs. Some bandleaders recognized the promotional value of Soundies. Will Bradley, Vincent Lopez, and Ray Kinney were the first, as has been mentioned, and Ozzie Nelson , Cab Calloway , Louis Armstrong , Lawrence Welk , and Louis Jordan followed. The most prolific Soundies bandleaders were Johnny Long (18 titles) and Stan Kenton (17 titles); cowboy entertainer Red River Dave

7548-463: The name Super 35. The central driving idea behind the process is to return to shooting in the original silent "Edison" 1.33:1 full 4-perf negative area (24.89 by 18.67 millimetres or 0.980 by 0.735 inches), and then crop the frame either from the bottom or the center (like 1.85:1) to create a 2.40:1 aspect ratio (matching that of anamorphic lenses) with an area of 24 by 10 mm (0.94 by 0.39 in). Although this cropping may seem extreme, by expanding

7650-490: The negative and print, is horizontally compressed (squeezed) by a factor of 2. The unexpected success of the Cinerama widescreen process in 1952 led to a boom in film format innovations to compete with the growing audiences of television and the dwindling audiences in movie theaters. These processes could give theatergoers an experience that television could not at that time—color, stereophonic sound and panoramic vision. Before

7752-476: The negative area out perf-to-perf, Super 35 creates a 2.40:1 aspect ratio with an overall negative area of 240 square millimetres (0.37 sq in), only 9 square millimetres (0.014 sq in) less than the 1.85:1 crop of the Academy frame (248.81 square millimetres or 0.38566 square inches). The cropped frame is then converted at the intermediate stage to a 4-perf anamorphically squeezed print compatible with

7854-477: The older screen ratio of 1.33:1. Furthermore, every theater chain had their own house aperture plate size in which the picture was projected. These sizes often did not match up even between theaters and studios owned by the same company, and therefore, uneven projection practices occurred. In November 1929, the Society of Motion Picture Engineers set a standard aperture ratio of 0.800 in by 0.600 in. Known as

7956-479: The only motion picture format that could be played in almost any cinema in the world, until digital projection largely superseded it. In 1880, George Eastman began to manufacture gelatin dry photographic plates in Rochester, New York . Along with W. H. Walker, Eastman invented a holder for a roll of picture-carrying gelatin layer-coated paper. Hannibal Goodwin then invented a nitrocellulose film base in 1887,

8058-415: The original Soundies "jukebox" concept was revived by French company Cameca as Scopitone . Similar to Soundies, Scopitones are short musical films designed to be played on a specially designed coin-operated jukebox, but with new technical improvements - color and high-fidelity sound. Scopitones were printed on color 16mm film with magnetic sound, instead of Soundies' black-and-white film with optical sound. By

8160-471: The patent system: Eastman and Edison managed their film patents well – Edison filed the 35 mm patent in 1896, the year after Dickson left his employ – and so controlled the use and development of film. Dickson left the Edison company in 1895, going on to help competitors produce cameras and other film gauges that would not infringe on Edison's patents . However, by 1900, filmmakers found it too expensive to develop and use other gauges, and went back to using

8262-552: The projected image would use an aperture plate size of 0.825 by 0.600 in (21.0 by 15.2 mm), yielding an aspect ratio of 1.375:1. This became known as the " Academy " ratio. Since the 1950s the aspect ratio of some theatrically released motion picture films has been 1.85:1 (1.66:1 in Europe) or 2.35:1 (2.40:1 after 1970). The image area for "TV transmission" is slightly smaller than the full "Academy" ratio at 21 by 16 mm (0.83 by 0.63 in), an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Hence when

8364-450: The rapid conversion of the cinema exhibition industry to digital projection saw 35 mm film projectors removed from most of the projection rooms as they were replaced by digital projectors. By the mid-2010s, most of the theaters across the world had been converted to digital projection, while others continued running 35 mm projectors. In spite of the uptake in digital projectors installed in global cinemas, 35 mm film remains in

8466-450: The roof of an adjacent building. Bacon's roommate, grocery store clerk Ruth Bishop, tried to intervene by grabbing Bacon's skirt as she climbed out of the window but Bacon tore free of her grasp. She suffered a fractured skull, perforated lung and internal injuries; she died of her injuries at Grant Hospital later that night. Bishop later said that Bacon appeared to be depressed before her death. Bishop stated, "She wanted to get back into

8568-420: The safer triacetate stock. By 1952, all camera and projector films were triacetate-based. Most if not all film prints today are made from synthetic polyester safety base (which started replacing Triacetate film for prints in the early 1990s). The downside of polyester film is that it is extremely strong, and, in case of a fault, will stretch and not break–potentially causing damage to the projector and ruining

8670-440: The same strip of film. An improved version in 1952 was quickly adopted by Hollywood, making the use of three-strip Technicolor cameras and bipack cameras (used in two-color systems such as Cinecolor ) obsolete in color cinematography. This "monopack" structure is made up of three separate emulsion layers, one sensitive to red light, one to green and one to blue. Although Eastman Kodak had first introduced acetate -based film, it

8772-492: The silver into a monochrome color, either orange-red or blue-green, resulting in a two-sided, two-colored print that could be shown with any ordinary projector. This system of two-color bipack photography and two-sided prints was the basis for many later color processes, such as Multicolor , Brewster Color and Cinecolor . Although it had been available previously, color in Hollywood feature films first became truly practical from

8874-522: The sound system installed at individual theatres. The analogue optical track technology has also changed: in the early years of the 21st century, distributors changed to using cyan dye optical soundtracks instead of applicated tracks, which use environmentally unfriendly chemicals to retain a silver (black-and-white) soundtrack. Because traditional incandescent exciter lamps produce copious amounts of infrared light , and cyan tracks do not absorb infrared light, this change has required theaters to replace

8976-620: The studios' commercial perspective with the advent of Technicolor , whose main advantage was quality prints in less time than its competitors. In its earliest incarnations, Technicolor was another two-color system that could reproduce a range of reds, muted bluish greens, pinks, browns, tans and grays, but not real blues or yellows. The Toll of the Sea , released in 1922, was the first film printed in their subtractive color system. Technicolor's camera photographed each pair of color-filtered frames simultaneously on one strip of black-and-white film by means of

9078-453: The use of "over-under" film prints. In these prints a left-right pair of 2.39:1 non-anamorphic images are substituted for the one 2.39:1 anamorphic image of a 2D "scope" print. The frame dimensions are based on those of the Techniscope 2-perf camera format used in the 1960s and 1970s. However, when used for 3D the left and right frames are pulled down together, thus the standard 4-perf pulldown

9180-486: The use of rubber and precious metals, prioritizing these resources for military use during wartime. This meant that Mills Novelty could no longer build and sell Panoram machines, and had to confine its activities to keeping the existing projectors supplied with films. Soundies became strictly a production company, dedicated to making its own musical shorts. The Soundies Distributing Corporation of America remained active until 1947. With commercial television developing rapidly,

9282-480: The whole negative area between the perforations ( Super 35 mm film ) without worrying about compatibility with existing equipment; the Super 35 image area includes what would be the soundtrack area in a standard print. All 3-perf negatives require optical or digital conversion to standard 4-perf if a film print is desired, though 3-perf can easily be transferred to video with little to no difficulty by modern telecine or film scanners . With digital intermediate now

9384-399: Was almost as prolific (14 titles). More than 1,800 Soundies minimusicals were made, many of which have been released on home video. The Soundies films were regularly described and reviewed in the entertainment and music trade publications, such as Billboard . During their first year, the Soundies made millions of dollars (in dimes). However, in late 1941, the federal government restricted

9486-547: Was born Frances Yvonne Bacon in Los Angeles, California to Francis Page Bacon and his wife Charmion, who wed on July 10, 1909. The couple divorced several years later. In 1945, she and Sanford Hunt Dickinson—a Buffalo businessman and songwriter—applied for a marriage license. As Bacon was rumored to be gay, she may have sought a marriage of convenience. It is unknown whether they ever actually married; they never lived together, but also never divorced. According to Tullah Innes ,

9588-442: Was carefully managed, the lack of colors such as true green could pass unnoticed. Although Cinecolor used the same duplitized stock as Prizma and Multicolor, it had the advantage that its printing and processing methods yielded larger quantities of finished film in less time. In 1950, Kodak announced the first Eastman color 35 mm negative film (along with a complementary positive film) that could record all three primary colors on

9690-540: Was cut exactly to specification. Edison's aperture defined a single frame of film at four perforations high. Around 1896, a 35mm projector known as a "photo-rotoscope" was made by W. C. Hughes in London , which advanced the film by means of a "dog" motion. For a time, it had been generally assumed that Dickson was following cinematography formats established by Eastman in producing the film, but Eastman had produced film in sheets that were then cut to order. Dickson used

9792-443: Was far too brittle and prone to shrinkage, so the dangerously flammable nitrate-based cellulose films were generally used for motion picture camera and print films. In 1949 Kodak began replacing all nitrocellulose (nitrate-based) films with the safer, more robust cellulose triacetate -based "Safety" films. In 1950 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Kodak with a Scientific and Technical Academy Award ( Oscar ) for

9894-474: Was found unconscious after reportedly overdosing on sleeping pills. After that, Bacon was unable to secure employment and ran out of money. Elaine Stuart, a dancer who previously worked with Bacon, was with her husband when she recognized Bacon in an alley as the couple were leaving through a stage door at a theatre in Seattle, Washington. In Burlesque: Legendary Stars of the Stage , Elaine's husband Lee Stuart described

9996-492: Was introduced around 1890 by William Kennedy Dickson and Thomas Edison , using 120 film stock supplied by George Eastman . Film 35 mm wide with four perforations per frame became accepted as the international standard gauge in 1909, and remained by far the dominant film gauge for image origination and projection until the advent of digital photography and cinematography. The gauge has been versatile in application. It has been modified to include sound, redesigned to create

10098-471: Was revived in 1951 by producer Louis D. Snader . Radio stations relied on transcriptions—recorded musical performances. Snader brought the idea to television with films, which he called " Snader Telescriptions ." Snader hired dozens of pop-music acts and vaudeville performers, many of whom had already appeared in Soundies, to star in his new films. Snader Telescriptions are often confused with Soundies because of their similarity in length and personnel. In 1958,

10200-423: Was scheduled to do a "Fawn Dance" at the 1939 New York World's Fair the following week, dressed in "wisps of chiffon" and maple leaves while walking a fawn on a leash. She was released on $ 500 bond. A review of her dance at the time stated "Faith Bacon parades through a moth-eaten fan dance that has lost its punch long ago." Throughout the 1940s, Bacon continued to perform her act at clubs and venues throughout

10302-412: Was the audio frequency would cut off, in a well-maintained theater, at around 12 kHz . Studios would often record audio on the transparent film strips, but with magnetic tape on one edge; recording audio on full 35 mm magnetic tape was more expensive. Three different digital soundtrack systems for 35 mm cinema release prints were introduced during the 1990s. They are: Dolby Digital , which

10404-465: Was using synchronized phonograph discs ( sound-on-disc ), Fox placed the soundtrack in an optical record directly on the film ( sound-on-film ) on a strip between the sprocket holes and the image frame. "Sound-on-film" was soon adopted by the other Hollywood studios, resulting in an almost square image ratio of 0.860 in by 0.820 in. By 1929, most movie studios had revamped this format using their own house aperture plate size to try to recreate

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