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Author
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Topic: Bizarre gauge
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Antoine Orsero
Master Film Handler
Posts: 374
From: marseille france
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted May 18, 2015 06:42 AM
This is a reel of approx 300 ft of special format 16mm film, being sequences from the 1946 British musical feature production The Lisbon Story.
The Harper Film Projection System was never commercially introduced, and equipment is rare or perhaps no longer existing. This film will not run on a normal 16mm projector.
‘Martin Harper, of the Miles Aircraft Company of Woodley, Reading, Berkshire, reasoned that the quality of 16mm Sound on film would be considerably improved if 35mm sound tracks could be directly contact printed, full size, on to 16mm picture prints, and then run, during projection at the correct linear speed for 35mm sound tracks of 18" per second … [which] left the problem of how to marry the 16mm picture speed of 72" per second with the 35mm sound track speed of 18" per second on the one strip of 16mm film. Harper's solution to this problem was to design a special dual purpose film printer for which he obtained a British Patent, applied for on January 4th 1938. To achieve his aim the area available on 16mm had to be reallocated. Edge perforations were no longer used. 3mm each side of the film were reserved for sound tracks leaving 10mm in the centre for the width of the 16mm picture frame. [Originally with two perforations per frame], at a later stage this format was modified slightly to accommodate a third centrally placed sprocket hole, apparently to ease the strain on the film now traveling at the higher speed of 18" per second.’
Conventional films were printed on alternate frame spaces (one set of pictures ‘upside down’ in relation to the other set), with two frames pulled down at each claw stroke on projection. When a reel was finished, it was simply replaced on the feed arm and threaded again. On the second run-through, the alternate pictures of the new scene (and the second soundtrack) were projected.
‘The sole function of the printer and projectors was to reproduce existing 35mm films onto the 16mm gauge with enhanced quality of sound reproduction.’ (Alan Lott) It is not known how many Harper projectors were made or what happened to them. It can now be seen that clever as it was the Harper system was the product of misplaced ingenuity and effort.
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Tony
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