Movietones’ cameras
It is quite likely that, when British Movietone News started in 1928, that one of the cameras in use would have been The Eyemo. This camera was built by Bell and Howell at Wheeling, Illinois.
The Eyemo had been introduced in 1925. It is still in use within the film industry.
The camera, of 1928, was a hand-held light 35mm camera. It had an optical viewfinder working in parallax with the camera lenses. By the time, in 1929, it would have reached Movietone, it would have had a three-lens turret.
The camera took 100-foot Daylight Loading Spools. This enabled the cameraman to re-load the camera in daylight and without the use of a changing bag. The winding of the film acted as light shield protecting the inner windings of the film from exposure. However, it was obvious that, by this means, the outer “windings” of the film would be fogged at both ends.
If my conjecture is correct, the Eyemo would not have been used, during the first two years of Movietone, as a camera which would film a complete story. It was intended in those early years to obtain “Cutaways” and “Cut-ins”.The sound camera in use by Movietone was the Wall. This camera had a four-lens turret which could be rotated while the camera was running. Of course, in doing so, the image was ruined. The Eymo was used to gather shots that could be used to cover these lens changes as well as points where the editor had chosen consecutive sections from the Wall camera.
“Cutaways” were used to distract the audience from the scene while the scene was changed. Alternatively, the “Cut-in” might, sometimes, be a big close-up of a person or object shown in the preceding scene.
In 1929, Tommy Scales, recently arrived at Movietone, was sent to New York for three months to study the use of a sound camera.
Initially, the Wall camera, a sound on film camera, used a “Movietone Sound System”, but, eventually, it would adopt, under licence, the Western Electric Variable Density system. I believe this licensing programme existed until Movietone stopped using sound on film in favour of magnetic tape.
Back to the camera. This was developed by the Wall Company in Syracuse, New York. It was able to record Variable Density sound on a track placed inside the perforations on one side of the 35mm film. Because of the requirement to reduce the size of the camera, it was necessary to have the sound recording head only nine frames away from the picture head. This was in contrast to the normal advancement of the sound track to nineteen frames ahead of the picture during projection.
Because of this, on occasion, when we were screening rushes from the Wall camera, we were looking at a negative picture that was out of sync. But we got used to it. It was always necessary to re-record the negative sound track from the Wall to a separate sound track before it could be edited. This would be printed on fine grain stock to provide the best possible sound re-production.
Paul Wyand's camera at the Tyneside Cinema - picture ©Colin Gallacher
As previously stated, the Wall camera had a four-lens turret which rotated while the camera continued to run. Prior to shooting, the cameraman would focus all the lenses to the subject and adjust the f-stop of each lens, so that when he did rotate the lenses, he was still in focus and his film correctly exposed.
The viewfinder was a parallax, optical viewfinder. However, I do seem to recall that the Wall had a device which could be inserted into the right side of the camera where a mirror would enable the operator to focus each lens. The device would be withdrawn prior to filming.
The Wall was used through the thirties, and during the war on a number of battle fronts, especially by Paul Wyand. The cameras were used by all Movietone “Sound cameramen” until the 1970s. Some of them are in museums around the world.
After a couple of years, during which, Movietone attempted to film ever story with sound, they realised that it was not necessary and that some stories were not enhanced by the additional of sound.
About this time, along came the Newman and Sinclair camera. This camera was issued to all the Movietone cameramen.
It was a heavy-duty camera constructed of formed Duralumin no parts were cast metal.
It had a single lens aperture with a parallax optical viewfinder. It was clockwork driven. The clockwork motor being able to run the full length of the 200 foot magazine without re-winding. 200 feet of 35mm would run for two minutes 13 seconds. Sometimes enough for a short news item. It used an internal magazine, which made for speedy reloading in full sunlight. It would be normal for a cameraman to load several magazines at their base so that it would be unnecessary to re-load a magazine using a changing bag on location.
Newman Sinclair camera at the Tyneside Cinema - picture ©Colin Gallacher
The camera would be used by the “sound” cameramen to pick up shots away from their Wall camera position.
The camera was noisy during operation. There have been a few stories of the camera being subjected to severe punishment.
Stanley Kubrick talking about the making of The Clockwork Orange was asked :…
“How did you manage the subjective shot of Alex’s suicide attempt?“
Kubrick replied: “We bought an old Newman Sinclair clockwork mechanism camera (no pun intended) for 40 Pounds. It’s a beautiful camera and it’s built like a battleship. We made a number of polystyrene boxes which gave about 18 inches of protection around the camera, and cut out a slice for the lens. We then threw the camera off a roof. In order to get it to land lens first, we had to do this six times and the camera survived all six drops. On the final one it landed right on the lens and smashed it but it didn’t do a bit of harm to the camera. This, despite the fact that the polystyrene was literally blasted away from it each time by the impact. The next day we shot a steady test on the camera and found there wasn’t a thing wrong with it. On this basis, I would say that the Newman Sinclair must be the most indestructible camera ever made”.
I remember that Newman and Sinclair had a shop on the corner of Northumberland Avenue and The Strand. Their cameras were on display in the window and inside, there were all sorts of accessories and other film equipment manufactured by them. As a lad, I would have to go down there from time to time to pick up spare parts for Victor Mardon, Movietone’s brilliant engineer, who kept all the cameras running.
After the war, Victor Mardon converted a Wall camera as a telerecording camera and it was based at Alexandra Palace with the B.B.C. Television Service, where, from time to time, he could record live events on to 35mm film. Although the Newman and Sinclair camera would be used for many more years, Movietone started to use the Cameflex by Éclair.
The camera was well balanced and made for easy hand-holding. The main advantage for the newsreels was that the sprocket drive for the movement of the film was in the magazine and not in the camera body. Every magazine had its own sprocket drive. Thus it was possible to change magazines in a few seconds with no elaborate threading of the film. While covering football, it was possible to remove a magazine when the ball passed over the goal line and replace the magazine ready to re-commence filming before the goalkeeper could take the ensuing goal kick.
Movietone cameraman Ron Collins with Malcolm Furness using a Cameflex camera
The Cameflex, not being as sturdy as the Newman Sinclair, would break if dropped from a considerable height. One year, at the Derby, a cameraman, who shall remain nameless, dropped his camera from the top of his stand on Tattenham Corner at the Epsom Derby. The stand would have been some fifty feet high. The camera was smashed and Movietone were able to claim complete replacement costs. What seemed strange, at the time, was that the insurance company allowed Movietone to retain the damaged camera for “spares’.
Victor Mardon had other ideas and he spent the next two years re-building the camera. The camera was returned to full service.
There was another advantage of the Cameflex in that it had a rotating shutter which had a variable gap. This meant that, providing light conditions allowed, it was possible to reduce the gap and, thus, improve the quality of the individual frame. This was important when the camera was being used for analysis, especially of sporting action.
The Cameflex was to remain in service with Movietonews until its closure in 1979.
When commercial television arrived in 1955, Movietonews became involved in filming high quality production for Rediffusion. Soon it became necessary to record synchronous magnetic tape with the film. Quarter inch tape recorders were being used, such as Perfectone and Nagra, but Movietone found the Arricord, built by Arnold and Richter of Munich, more convenient.
Arricord camera
The Arricord was a self-blimped camera which exposed 35mm film on one side while recording, synchronously, 17.5mm sprocketed tape on the other. It was to be used on quality programmes for Rediffusion by Norman Fisher and Ron E Collins on camera, with Malcolm Furness on sound.
Movietonews took possession of a remarkable, and possibly ancient, camera which they purchased from British Paramount News when they ceased production of their newsreel. It was one of only two ever made.
The camera was a Debrie possibly L Debrie GV. This camera, originally developed in 1920, was driven by hand and was capable of exposing 240 frames per second. What was remarkable about the camera that Movietone obtained is that it could be started at 24 frames per second, suddenly wound up to 240 frames per second and then back to 24 frames per second without affecting the exposure in the process.
This piece of magic was possible because the camera had a “flying shutter”. As the revolutions of the shutter increased while it went into slow-motion mode, the shutter opened out, so that as the speed of the film through the gate increased, so did the exposure through the shutter. As the film was slowed down, the shutter would close, to its original position, to compensate for the reduction in speed.
The speed of exposure was obtainable, without ripping the film, because the camera was equipped with claws on each side of the 35mm film, allowing for equal drag on both sides of the film. The French call these “Contre-Griffes”.
The ace operator of this device was W.G. “Bill” Carrington, who was an occasional free-lance cameraman for Movietone, but who, in his day job, was Manager of Vickers Armstrong Photographic Department. He had been employed by Vickers from1914 to 1956.
In his early days at Vickers, he used as hand-driven Debrie when filming launches at Barrow-in-Furness. He had done considerable work for Pathe News and Paramount News before the Second World War. Perhaps when he worked with Paramount, he became familiar with the Debrie Slow Motion camera. When he worked for Movietone News, it is likely that he would have been the only active film cameraman who had operated a hand-driven camera.
At the Grand national,. he would take up position at the side of a jump where the horses could be seen approaching from the right and departing to the left. When the first row of horses were about to jump, he would change to 240 frames per second and then the last row of horses touched down on the other side, he would revert to 24 frames per second.
At the Cup finals, up to 1956, Bill Carrington would be set up behind the west goal where he would wait for goalmouth action. As the ball came over from the wing, he would go into slow-motion mode which, on the cinema screen, before your very eyes, the players took on the role of ballet dancers describing giant leaps which left them in the air for up to ten seconds. It was a beautiful and magnificent sight.
In the late eighties, I had a need for a slow-motion camera. I was offered a selection of cameras, some of which could exposed 1,200 frames per second. I was also told that there was nothing on the Planet that was so fast that it could not be slowed down by a slow-motion camera.
What none of them could do was what the Debrie had done and that would be to maintain exposure while you changed the speed of the camera from 24 frames a second to 240 frames.
Norman Fisher with a Wall camera filming Trooping The Colour
With the help of Victor Mardon, Movietone’s brilliant service engineer, the cameras were in use for many more years that they might have been. Cameras tended to be in use for long periods with regular check-ups in the workshop,
I doubt that Movietone purchased a Newman & Sinclair camera after about 1948, yet Ken Hanshaw retired with one in 1973. I’ll bet it still works.
The Movietone Wall cameras seem to have ended their days in museums around the world. I wonder if the visitors to the museums ever wonder what pictures had been taken with those cameras.
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Main photo taken at the Tyneside Cinema ©Colin Gallacher
