Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

PRINCIPLES OF MOVIES 13
changing film in the field. For film bought in semi-bulk for profes-
sional use at a station, the price varies between $3 and $5 per
hundred feet of picture stock, while for sound stock it is around $ 1
and rewound onto
per hundred feet. If bought in 1000-foot lengths
the reels in use in the various cameras the is price lower, but here
another source of poor quality is found. This work has to be done in
total darkness, hence there is a strong likelihood of finger marks
getting onto the emulsion during this process.
The actual developing, or processing of film as it has come to be
called, is almost always done by a laboratory specializing
in this kind
of work. For one thing it is a complicated process, not so much by
the method for standard film, but because of the mass of film in-
volved. Even 100 feet of film seem an awful lot when they are
curled around one's legs on the darkroom floor! The equipment
necessary to develop, fix, and dry film, and then print a positive is
very expensive and certainly outside the budget of any but the larg-
est station or studio unless outside work can be obtained to help
pay for it. For that reason most film these days is sent to one or another
of the processing labs which exist in most cities of any size. Usu-
ally a film taken there in the morning is ready by the evening of the
same day. These laboratories often have sound-dubbing equipment,
and can print the sound track, or marry it, to the picture negative in
cases where the double sound system is used. Very often, too, they
have projection rooms where the film can be projected while the
sound is recorded in cases where the sound was not recorded at the
time the print was made. In this way a synchronized
sound film
can be made using a silent camera if the players say their words
while acting so that they can lip sync them when projected on the
screen. The only requirement is that the camera be driven by a syn-
chronous electric motor so that the speed of the film will not vary
and thus throw the sound out of synchronization.
It has already been mentioned that both 35 mm film and 16
mm film pass through the projector at the rate of 24 frames per
second. This is the standard rate for sound in frames per second, but
not in feet per second, or lineal speed. For 35 mm film the lineal
speed is 90 feet per minute, while for 16 mm it is 36 feet per minute.