Leo Anthony Vale

Ah, 'Blake's 7'. Guys in Robin Hood outfits sitting around talking exposition until the last five minutes, when we're "treated" to an awful looking BBC film sequence. The only entertainment was a pudgy Jackie Pierce hamming it up' Also on the less cerebral side are 'Satellite in the Sky', 'Devil Girl from Mars' and 'Fire Maidens from Outer Space'. One of the best titles ever. It promises evil, sex and outer space. What more could one want? But puzzling why the earth men were unwilling to go to Mars with Patricia Laffan. The space craft was proto-gerry Anderson. When I saw this as a kid, I misunderstood why they were taking a nuclear bomb into orbit. I thought the mission was to blow up the earth. So the shot of one of the astronaut's wife waking up was rather poignent. I just don't know what to say about this one. & what the heck, this one isn't British. But I've never seen this poster to 'World without End' before. & this rocket is a Chesley Bonestell design, made for a late 40s trip to the moon movie that was never made. It finally showed up in the Cinecolor 'Flight to Mars'

Perhaps he wants the serial numbers of the specific lenses, in addition to the focal lengths and T stops.

I've heard or read that most if not all of the movie footage of the landing was dpopped into the sea.

Actually it's two slightly smaller than techniscope frames in a standard CinemaScope space. Lenny Lipton is now involved with an incomatible 3d film projection system: http://oculus3d.com/ it's a similar sense rotation system, a side by side rotated pair in a CinemaScope frame.

Au contraire. 10 year old episodes of 'Da Vinci's Inquest' are run at 3:00 AM Sunday nights here. In Pittsburgh, the local newscasts, including the local NPR news, excitedly announced that Sidney Crosby hit the medal winning goal, ignoring who lost the game. The Penguins trump USA, even though Geo.Washington almost single handedly started the French and Indian War to keep Pittsburgh from becoming part of Quebec.

The S16 version of this lens that Angenieux offered was around 7.5mm. Just as the S16/1"video version of the 12-120mm was 15mm-150mm. So I'm not so sure the VP version completely covers the S16 frame.

The 1939 edition of 'The AC Handbook's film stock section lists the speed difference between the daylight and tungsten exposures for the various panchromatic stocks as 2/3 of a stop compared to today's 1/3 stop. Gaevert B/W stocks from the 50s also had a 2/3 stop difference between daylight and tungsten exposures.

Way back in Sandy Mackendrick's classes, he told us that on 'The Sweet Smell of Success', he would constantly have dolly moves that crossed the "line" so that the producers couldn't edit the scenes differently from what he had planned.

But for daylight interiors, they had banks of lights outside the windows. There's a site about Kubrick, which I can't find now, that has, i think the AC article about 'Barry Lyndon'.

The 3-d movies from the early 50s, the early 70s & the early 80s all used polaroid veiwers. "That red and green thing" was for comic books and magazines. The early 70s and 80s movies were mostly shot with single camera systems, while the 50s were mostly double camera systems, as 'Capt.Eo'was. So it was basicly 50s technology. Anaglyph,"that red and green thing", was used for part 3-d movies, like the Canadian classic 'The Mask', porn, TV and the 70s/80s prints of 'it came from Outer Space' and 'The Creature from the Black lagoon'

Perhaps your projector was out whack. & the shutter needs adjusting.

There's some of those in John Ford's gem of a WWII propaganda short, 'the Battle of Midway' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi4HwxOZDJw

Could it be because MGM/UA, the distributor, might have sunk money into it? &most of the location scenes were shot in Cleveland. But it's "follow the money" that determines a movies's nationality .

An out of focus background will seem grainier than a "deep focus" background on the same stock. The eye will look for the sharpest detail. If the image is blurred or soft, the eye will lock onto the grain.

'Seinfeld' was shot on Agfacolor until the stock was discontinued. & for most of the run the credits said "filmed in Panavision"

I'm not yet at the top of the library's waiting list for this movie, but i did read the book. There were 'Star war' references in the book. The goat starers liked to refer to themselves as Jedi warriors. & the end of the book is dark, going into torture & MK Ultra.

The obits for John Forsyte dislodged a memory from deep down in the pit of my mind. When I was a kid, an issue of the 'TV Graphic' section in the Sunday paper had a brief article about filming 'Bachelor Father'. It seems that Maureen Corchran, or something similar, who played Forsyte's niece had such a heavily freckled face, she was lit with a red key to wash out the freckles. Seemed clever to me.

Taped sitcoms, such as the Norman Lear shows, would have used 1 1/4" (30mm) tubes.

He also wanted to do 'American Graffitti' in Super 16. But then it would have to have been shot on Ektachrome EF, grainy and projection contrast.

MGM wouldn't have approved shooting an expensive historical spectacle in B/W under any condition.

The history section of www.cookeoptics.com is not always accurate. The page that John Sprung referred to states: 1940s : Bell & Howell 1940s The Series II Cooke Speed Panchros for cinematography were distributed exclusively through Bell & Howell in London and Chicago. The Series II lenses were developed for higher definition in wide screen presentations and to cover standard format 0.723 x 0.980 inches. By 1945 they came in focal lengths: 18, 25, 32, 40, 50 and 75mm. The 100mm, f/2.5 Deep Field Panchro was released in 1946. Series II Speed Panchros in the 40s? An 18mm lens? Wide screen? I think they hired a writer unfamiliar with the field and gave him a cabinet full of undated brochures to go through.

Some theatres can show 1.66. Others would have no qualms about showing a 1.66 movie at 1.85. When i was a kid and in high school most of the theatres around here projected in 1.66/1. the last movie i saw at my neighborhood theatre before the owners burnt it down was 'Fitzcaralldo', which was shot with a 1.85 hard matte and projected at 1.66. So yes, the edges of the hard matte showed on the screen.

Many had their innards bebuilt to 8-perf horizontal for VistaVision and Technirama. Note the 2000' mag and the humongous Delrama/Technirama anamorphic prism. Also Disney has a couple of three-strip cameras which were used for their sodium vapor travelling matte process. The original prisms were replaced with ones which would seperate the sodium vapor light on the yellow backing from the normal light on the foreground.

Also see if a library near you has bound back issues of 'The Journal of the SMPE', the original name of 'SMPTE Journal' Also see if they have the 1939 edition of 'The American Cinematographer & Reference Guide'.

The swirlly lettering would have been shot throgh a ripple glass or a tray of agitated water.