During the WWII years of the 1940s My Dad who was an engineer working at Vickers Supermarine Plant building Welingtons and Lancaster bombers would entertain us with films on a 9.5mm home Cine projector. I remember such films as ‘The Loch Ness Monster’, very scarey and the world cruise of one of the giant German Airships.
So I became interested in cinephotography and when I was 16 my Dad bought me an old Pathe Baby cine camera. It was of around 1927 vintage and had a special large clockwork motor screwed on the side to make it work. It used 9.5mm gauge film in chargers which lasted 75 seconds. Film was expensive and I used to buy tins of three 30ft. rolls which I would load into the chargers. With the help of my Dad I built a processing unit out of Perspex consisting of a six sided frame which rotated in a semi cylindrical bath. The film would be wound on the frame into notches filed in a spiral path. I would buy chemicals from the local Chemist, who fortunately was interested in photography himself, to make up the various processing solutions. It was a reversal process so the film was developed to a negative image which was bleached out, exposed to a bright light and the remaining emulsion developed again to give a positive image. After fixing and drying the film was ready to project.
I would film my jounger brother and his friends, I was a one man production unit! I would devise a plot, draw out a storyboard, direct and film may players, process the film, edit the film and present it to our family.
9.5 mm film still lives on Grahame Newnham's web pages at http://www.pathefilm.freeserve.co.uk
There is also good information by Pierre Gauriat who's grandfather held the Patent for the Pathe Ace projector http://pierreg.online.fr/cine95/index.html
Here is some film, not too good in quality because it was filmed off a projection screen.
The Troll
Is a soapbox trolley which my brother John and his friend Robin built. They used to run it
up and down our road, no cars about in those days!
Robin of the Yard.
After a TV show at the time 'Fabian of the Yard' The shopkeep played by 'Little Bob' is
held up and the till stolen. Bob calles for the Police who arrive post hast on the
'Troll.' The detective played by Robin talks a description of the robber and goes to look
for him. The robber, played by John is seen running away and a chase takes place ending in
a fight where the robber is overcome and the till returned to the shop.
John Maverick.
Maverick, the card playing star of a current TV show. John and Robin are playing cards and
John wins with the help of some extra cards tucked up his sleeve. Robin does not like this
but is knowed down and John runs off with the money. Later robin lies in wait for John and
jumps on him as he is counting his ill-gotton gains. The usual fight ensues and Robin get
his money back.
Unfortunately my brother passed away far too young aged 51 so this little film is to his memory.
9.5mm film was becoming harder to get and so when I started work I bought an 8mm gauge Kodak Brownie cine camera. For this I could buy colour film, Kodachrome which included the cost of processing. I did manage to process some 8mm colour film but it require great contol of temperature and I did not always get it right.
Midnight Joker
This is a little film I made with my work collegues Tony, Ron, Mike, Denzil and again my
brother John. Difficult to film close ups without a 'through the lens' viewfinder and the
film speeds are slow so lots of light is required. Outside we used a single Photoflood and
inside we used two but it does lend some atmosphere to the film.
After this time my filming was restricted to holidays and family moments and I moved on to the new format 'Super Eight' which was run only once through the camera ns had a larger frame size. For me sound was not used in those days. I did have a projector which could be controlled by the tape from a tape recorder and I bought a second hand sprocket and sprocketed tape from a guy at a local TV shop.
Eventually I was able to afford a Video Camera and could take hours of
film at almost no cost. The first camera was a Sanyo 8mm and I had to use it on my
shoulder. I had to make a large battery pack which I carried on the other shoulder in
order to get enought filming time. We had that camera stolen whilst on holiday in France
and I often wonder what they did with a PAL system camera and without the box which
enabled it to be plugged into a TV etc.! It was not that easy to edit the film which had
to be copied onto a VHS tape adding music through a home made mixer and titles generated
by my BBC Microcomputer. Every time I copied a tape it became more and more fuzzy! Now I
have a digital camera and it is just so good. The films can be loaded into an everyday
computer and edited with music, titles overlays and special transition effects so easily.
No matter how many times the film is copied it is always exactly the same quality. Now we
have HD to look forward to as soon as HD DVD writers come into normal price range! The for
real cinema size picture there are digital projectors, where will it all end?
Like Steam Trains the age of mechanical and chemical films and photography has passed and
the digital world presents us with new tools and way of doing things that were difficult
to dream of not very long ago!