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Silvie Hauser

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  1. I know it is a bit tricky. Still, some more digging produced some more precise results! I found this extended version of the article I quoted above on Enticknap's personal website: http://enticknap.net/leo/index.php/research/chapters/gpo/ In there he goes into more detail as to what technology was used. The information I gained was that the fastest film stock available at the time (before 1938) had EI40. And he also mentions Gasparcolor but since Gaspar was specialised in colour film the stock for Coal Face was probably a different brand. One option I'll try is certainly to leave a comment on Enticknap's website and ask whether he knows more. Clearly he did a lot of research on their technology and might just know it. The information I got on the dvd version is as follows: it is part of a relatively new (10 years old) dvd package released by BFI in 2008, named "Addressing the Nation: The GPO Film Unit Collection, Volume 1" In the booklet it has extra information on the films and the transfer process, I'll quote the relevant parts: So I guess this mentioned Steve Foxon is another person I could try to find and contact. Thanks a lot for the idea of trying the DVD as a source, extra helpful that it even gives a name to try. I'll see how far I get there and will report back. I think at the moment this is something I can do myself to just try and contact them but if it requires someone going there personally I'd be very grateful for your help indeed. If I manage to get more exact data on the film stock I might even be able to estimate by how many stops they pushed the material.
  2. Hello everyone, I've got some questions about materials and push-processing in the 30s. I'm working on a the British documentary "Coal Face" (1935) by GPO film unit. There is quite a bit of information on GPO in general but almost nothing on that particular film. I studied photography, so I could tell just looking at the film that some parts of it were heavily pushed. Since it's a scientific paper I can't just "know" it's the case, I have to bring arguments in favour of it. And while I know that the extreme graininess and high contrast are good indicators for push-processing, it would be even better if I could find further proof, and that's where my questions start. I'll include two screenshots from the film, that demonstrate the huge difference in quality. The first screenshot is from a scene above ground inside a building whereas the second was made in a coal mine. According to one of my sources [Enticknap, Leo. "Technology and the GPO Film Unit" The Projection of Britain: A History of the GPO Film Unit. Eds. Scott Anthony and James G. Mansell. London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of British Film Institute, 2011. 188-198.], the camera used by GPO was a Autokine with a 50mm/2in lens with a minimum aperture of f1.9, most likely one of these: https://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10405810 Does anyone know where I could find out which stock they used? At the time most likely panchromatic, but that's about as far as I got. The other thing is, I found lots of information for photography and push-processing but next to nothing on film and push-processing, though I'm assuming it must have been quite common, especially in the documentary movement. If anyone knows of any (quotable) source for this kind of information, it would be a great help. I found some websites but a published book or an article in a journal is always preferable. Thanks a lot!
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