Standard 9mm film

[John Armer]

Not a typo - but I watched my standard 8mm print of THE TORCH with Paulette Goddard tonight. It was a Derann release.

The second 400ft spool has a problem in that the film is actually a bit wider than 8mm. It catches on the film channel under the first sprocket on my Eumig 810D and makes a loud squeaking sound as it gets dragged through. It projects OK, but has poor sound on that reel too (the others had good sound). I’m guessing the low sound was due to this increased width - either it recorded poorly as it didn’t sit flat on the recording heads, or my playback was poor for the same reason.

Is there anyway to shave a fraction off the film so it projects more smoothly? It’s been filmguarded.

[Steve Klare]

Derann made prints by doing a double run on 16mm stock with 8mm Perfs and then running it through a slitter. This could mean somewhere out there is a 7mm print that was this one's twin!

I remember people talking about commercial slitters existing that could fix this. Without it, it would be a nightmare task.

We forget how long a couple of hundred feet of film really is until we are forced to deal with them inch by inch!

[Lee Mannering]

Carnall did a small gizmo to remove stripe and one for correcting width of 8mm film John UK made of course :-) You could also get a Standard 8 film splitter, open it up and adapt it to 8mm with perhaps.

The Carnall stripe remover was similar to the edge trimmer having a blade at the side so in theory you could adapt the stripe remover to the cutter version.

Here's on on fleabay anyway 324267794997 and something to tinker with on rainy days.

[Brian Fretwell]

That was called the Equaliser (noting to do with Edward Woodward and the show being repeated on Forces TV). I got one from CHC a couple of years ago to deal with a badly split print and some standard 8 home processed film.

[Adrian Winchester]

Brian - have you managed to successfully use your Equaliser? I obtained a similar device but I haven't yet managed to mount it in a way that would enable me to try it out.

John - presumably the extra width is entirely on the non-sprocket side? There may be a chance that the sound is poor because the width is causing the film to bow in the sound head area, and thus not lie flat over the sound head.

[Brian Fretwell]

Yes the film was wide enough that you could see then balance stripe from the partner copy outside of the main stripe in places. I did the sections slowly with the device balanced on an editor/viewer screen surround (made of metal, not plastic) held with one hand and turning the take up handle with the other. I felt glad that it wasn't the whole 400ft that was affected.

[John Armer]

John - presumably the extra width is entirely on the non-sprocket side? There may be a chance that the sound is poor because the width is causing the film to bow in the sound head area, and thus not lie flat over the sound head.

Yes it is, Adrian - the sprocket holes line up perfectly. It think it's a double rank film that has been imperfectly split.

I've managed to get hold of an Equaliser from Phil at CHC so I'll see if I can trim it successfully. It might just be the reason the sound is poor on playback - though of course it may have been problematic when recording too. Weren't these Derann releases recorded on interlocked projectors?

[Brian Fretwell]

I know the Standard 8 Deranns (especially the features used for hire) were originally done on interlocked projectors in early days but don't know when that stopped.

[John Armer]

Well, there's nothing quite like having the right tool for the job. I managed to obtain a Carnall Equaliser from Phil at CHC and set to work reducing the width of part 2 of THE TORCH that had been dragging on my projector.

The Equaliser is a very simple device that you mount between rewinds. It has a blade set between two rollers; the blade is mounted at exactly 8mm distance from a flange on a roller so that as the film is passes over the roller and between the flange and the blade, it shaves off the correct amount film to leave you with a film strip exactly 8mm wide. The instructions mentioned that you should trim particularly wide film in two passes - use a paper shim to set the blade a fraction further away. My film wasn't so keen on going through in one pass so I figured it was too wide and fitted a shim.

Ribbons of film were soon coming off and in ten minutes I had completed the first pass. I removed the shim which left the blade at exactly 8mm wide. If anything even more film came off the second time but again it was a fairly quick job.

The result: the film now goes through the projector smoothly and the sound is much better. Clearly the additional width of the film meant that it wasn't sitting flat against the sound head when being projected - as a result the sound was unintelligible. It's still not perfect - there's more distortion so I imagine the extra width caused problems when recording, but at least you can now tell what they are saying!

This job would have been IMPOSSIBLE without the correct tool.

[Lee Mannering]

Takes me back to the 70's with mine mounted on a bracket using a silent Std 8 projector happily trimming film back nice and slowly. Oh those were fun times and a simple solution in 1976 at £5.90 from Carnall.