8mm Forum: A Question About 16mm 'dupes'

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Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on October 03, 2009, 05:28 PM:

I have a question.

I have a couple 16mm features and on all but one of them the optical soundtrack is visually very noticable. I have a print of Hitchcock's SECRET AGENT and when I first got it I thought it was silent because I couldn't see anything. It wasn't and it sounded ok.

Is this common on 'dupes' to look like this. I really am not that familiar with how to tell if a print is a dupe other than if it doesn't look that great. This film (Secret Agent) looks pretty good.

Bill

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on October 03, 2009, 08:04 PM:

Was it a variable density optical soundtrack? These look very different from a normal optical track and were quite common on older prints.

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on October 04, 2009, 03:16 AM:

Sounds like Paul is correct.
Check this out:
http://www.paulivester.com/films/filmstock/guide.htm

If you scroll down a bit you'll find some different types of soundtrack for comparison.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on October 04, 2009, 03:56 AM:

Hi Michael,

I have visited that page you mentioned and it is a new info for me that there are (apparently) several type of optical sound.

So my question, can those different type of soundtracks be playable in any optical projector. I am asking about compatibility.

If it is "yes", how can these different methods of soundtrack can be "read" by the exciter lamp in the same way?

thanks,

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on October 04, 2009, 08:47 AM:

Hi Winbert,
these different soundtracks are fully compatible on all optical sound projectors. Many years ago I bought a 16mm feature of "Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman". The print was ok apart from a lot of splices in the sequence where Larry Talbot is talking to the Burgomaster and Baroness Frankenstein prior to the Festival of the New wine celebrations. I later found an incomplete feature of this film with all of that sequence intact, however it had a variable density soundtrack. I spliced it in and it plays just fine with nobody noticing that the film is made up of two prints with different soundtracks. I have still kept the rest of the extra footage as I could make a mini feature of this film with the Castle 16mm digest.

Paul.

Posted by John Whittle (Member # 22) on October 05, 2009, 01:39 PM:

Variable Density and all the variants of Variable Area play the same way and are doing the same thing. What happens is that the light is changed in intensity as the sound track passes through the optics and interposes the scanning beam. The resulting change in light is changed to an electric current by the solar cell or phototube which is then amplified.

Back in the late 20's early 30's, sound "systems" were licensed and the license required that a WE (density at the time) license was necessary to play a density track. The studios were equipped from microphone to optical recorder by one system. For shorthand reference: WE was Variable Density, RCA was Variable Area. More basically the WE system used ribbons in a light valve, the RCA used a galvo which modulated a mirror. Both techniques were developed to the point you could record density with a Galvo and area with a Light Valve.

There are some weird exceptions to this, MGM was all Western Electric, but there are shorts which carry the RCA Photophone logo (such as the TravelTalks Technicolor series).

Some studios switched like Columbia that started as WE and changed to RCA.

But you can play both tracks without any conversion or problem.

There are problems with dupes and that involved the ability of the "duper" to do good lab work. A contract print of a sound track made off of a release prints will not sound as good as a print with a sound track made from a negative which was exposed in an optical sound recorder.

Also sometimes the wind of the print will be different (normal release print is B wind matching camera originals, many dupes if reversal are made from B wind prints and are A wind). An A wind print will play with lower sound output than a B wind print unless you have a projector (like the Kodak Pagents) which allows easy sound track focusing.

There are also problems of streaking and contrast build up which happens with PD films that have been duped and duped resulting in bromide smear (streaking from chemicals in processing of many dupe negative/positive generations).

Then there is color--but that's another issue and long and involved.

John

Posted by Lars Pettersson (Member # 762) on October 05, 2009, 02:55 PM:

Please John,

This is fascinating! [Smile]

Let´s hear about colour as well!

I Speak for millions

cheers
Lars

Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on October 05, 2009, 04:43 PM:

Guys,

Thanks for the link and all the info. It does appear to be a variable density track on the SECRET AGENT print.

Bill

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