Motion Picture Film Research Articles

"Less is More": How Understanding the Process of Motion Picture Film Scanning Can Make Your Life Easier

"Less is More": How Understanding the Process of Motion Picture Film Scanning Can Make Your Life Easier

‘What a funny looking video’: Using allegorical representations of technological change to reflect on future digital communication and design challenges

This paper presents a reflective examination of challenges to design and communication from the current digital revolution, using the prism of a 1980s television advertisement for the Yellow Pages. Originating at the same time as the height of the desktop publishing revolution, the advert illuminates a transitional period in the evolution of digital technology and media communications, marked by changing user practices and experiences. The advert’s storyline follows a young man’s quest to convert an old cine film (of his father) to videotape for his mother’s birthday, in the process showcasing the impending shift from analogue to digital technologies and encapsulating the multifaceted implications and transitional challenges of the period. The hybrid setting of technologies, alongside the tensions, confusion and ambiguities of different stakeholders metaphorically symbolises and can be contrasted alongside, the challenges impacting the design, media and communications industry of the period and can inform reflection on contemporary challenges. Engaging with the narrative, the Yellow Pages advert is used as a creative device which functions as a cultural, historical, narrative lens with which to contrast against contemporary (and future) transitional challenges within the digital revolution.

Chromogenic dyes in motion picture films at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries: a multi-technique comparative study

The cyan, magenta and yellow dyes in a series of four chromogenic motion picture films, dating from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, were characterized based on the use of Sequentially-Shifted Excitation (SSE™) Raman spectroscopy and/or (according to the amount of sample available) chromatographic techniques such as thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), coupled with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and mass spectrometry (MS), respectively. All methods were simply applied to samples of the emulsion layers removed from the films. The aim of this study was to gather information about the dyes that could be useful for the digital restoration of color motion picture films. In particular, the molecular classes of the couplers from which the dyes are derived, and to which different degradation processes can be associated, could be hypothesized thanks to the Raman and SERS spectra (the latter if obtainable) and the comparison with the corresponding spectra of reference dyes. Furthermore, an excellent match was found between the differences in Raman spectral patterns and mass spectrometric data for the examined dyes, thus proposing SSE™ Raman spectroscopy applied to emulsion samples as an easy-to-use method to discriminate the dyes themselves. Finally, the further correspondence between the analytical data and the spectral density curves of the films, when available, was verified, in order to constitute the first nucleus of a database that could provide those involved in digital restoration with valuable knowledge for reconstruction of the original colors.

Marion Evelyn Hong before and after the Curse of the Quon Gwon (1916)

This article is a result of an invitation to share the authors’ knowledge and family stories and offer perspectives about Marion E. Hong (1895–1969, also known as Marion Evelyn Wong). The intent is to provide scholars and researchers with first-hand knowledge about Marion’s life milestones and experiences directly from her family. The main source for the content of this article comes from remembrances of Marion’s descendants and documents as well as photographs in the Kumaradjaja Family History Archive. As Marion’s direct descendants, the authors offer first-hand knowledge about her and insight into possible motivations for making the silent motion picture film The Curse of the Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West (dir. Marion E. Wong, Mandarin Film Company, US, 1916). Lisa Kumaradjaja is Marion’s granddaughter; Lisa’s mother, Arabella Hong Young, is Marion’s daughter who followed in Marion’s footsteps as a singer, performer, and entrepreneur. This article is written by the granddaughter and great-grandson of Marion E. Hong, Lisa Kumaradjaja and Chris Kumaradjaja, who now serve as the family historians. Information for this article has been gathered from the Kumaradjaja Family History Archive, family oral histories, as well as Lisa’s direct recollections of Marion.

Towards a natural history of film form: silver salts and the aesthetics of early studio-era Hollywood cinema

In 1948, outspoken émigré director Erich von Stroheim offered a now-famous account of the troubled post-production history of his notorious 1924 exercise in naturalism, Greed. According to von Stroheim, a cadre of MGM studio executives, led by Irving Thalberg, had pressured him to cut his gritty, sprawling masterpiece – an attempt to ‘reproduce life as it actually was’ – from its eight-hour, 42-reel initial assembly down to a more studio-friendly 12 reels.1 When he refused, the film was given to a cutter at thirty dollars a week who [sic] had never read the book nor the script, and on whose mind was nothing but a hat [ …] my picture was arbitrarily cut to nine or ten [reels]. The rest of the negative was burned to get the forty-three cents of silver out.2 In standard production histories of the film, this anecdote has served to reinforce a familiar narrative about the consolidation of classical Hollywood film aesthetics across the course of the 1920s.3 For proponents of this narrative, these aesthetic changes were a function of industrial developments in Hollywood’s ‘mode of production’, which between 1914 and 1930 saw the will of the director increasingly subordinated to that of the producer within a newly integrated studio system.4 Yet closer attention to von Stroheim’s anecdote demands a revision of this narrative. For by the end of the story it would appear that the director’s true object is neither the studio system at large, nor its functionary, the ‘cutter’, but the silver content of the photographic film stock itself – cast here as pettily desirable scrap metal, or, as von Stroheim puts it, ‘forty-three cents [worth] of silver’. In this respect, the reminiscence obliquely suggests a relationship between two things we commonly keep apart. The first is an aesthetic outcome that has become a byword for the vicissitudes of the early studio system; the second is one of the key ingredients of early motion picture film stock – light-sensitive silver halide crystals.

Senator Elbert Thomas and the Hope for Industrial Equity

Senator Elbert Thomas and the Hope for Industrial Equity

Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia

Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia

PRINCIPLES OF ULTRASOUND TECHNOLOGY IN MEDICAL IMAGING OF NON IONIZATION IMAGES

The X-ray tube is one of the most important components in any X-ray system. In the beginning, physicists and physicians used gas ion tubes. The so-called Coolidge tube applied a high vacuum and is still used today. Medical examinations have required continuously improved designs of X-ray tubes (smaller focal spots at a higher output). The principle of the Goetze line focus is still applied in any diagnostic X-ray tube. Different anode materials and the rotating anode contributed to an increased output and reduced exposure time. Bearings needed special attention. Spiral groove bearings are the most advanced design today. The heat storage capacity of the anode and the tube housing assembly influences examination time and patient throughput. Cardiac imaging required less motion blurring in cine film images and increasing radiation exposure in interventional procedures called for measures to reduce dose. Protection against radiation and electric shock has always been a concern of design engineers. Focal spot sizes dedicated to specific applications and heat management within the total tube housing assembly will be future issues. Even with the event of ultrasound and MR technology, X-ray procedures will still be applied for diagnostic and interventional purposes.

A Spectral Approach to Digitally Restore a Faded Agfacolor Print from 1945

The negative-positive chromogenic process, despite being an important milestone in the evolution of color motion picture film technology, exhibits significant fading of its image dyes, leading to the loss of chromatic integrity. A complete spectral approach for the digital restoration of chromogenic film is proposed. A material-based image processing method allows to extract the residual color information associated with the analytical densities, selectively enhance the faded dyes, and finally recreate the original aesthetics by associating the spectral properties of the film stock.

PRINCIPLES OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE TECHNOLOGY IN MEDICAL IMAGING OF NON IONIZATION IMAGES

The X-ray tube is one of the most important components in any X-ray system. In the beginning, physicists and physicians used gas ion tubes. The so-called Coolidge tube applied a high vacuum and is still used today. Medical examinations have required continuously improved designs of X-ray tubes (smaller focal spots at a higher output). The principle of the Goetze line focus is still applied in any diagnostic X-ray tube. Different anode materials and the rotating anode contributed to an increased output and reduced exposure time. Bearings needed special attention. Spiral groove bearings are the most advanced design today. The heat storage capacity of the anode and the tube housing assembly influences examination time and patient throughput. Cardiac imaging required less motion blurring in cine film images and increasing radiation exposure in interventional procedures called for measures to reduce dose. Protection against radiation and electric shock has always been a concern of design engineers. Focal spot sizes dedicated to specific applications and heat management within the total tube housing assembly will be future issues. Even with the event of ultrasound and MR technology, X-ray procedures will still be applied for diagnostic and interventional purposes.

PRINCIPLES OF X-RAY TECHNOLOGY IN MEDICAL IMAGING AND IMPROVEMENT OF RADIOLOGICAL IMAGES

The X-ray tube is one of the most important components in any X-ray system. In the beginning, physicists and physicians used gas ion tubes. The so-called Coolidge tube applied a high vacuum and is still used today. Medical examinations have required continuously improved designs of X-ray tubes (smaller focal spots at a higher output). The principle of the Goetze line focus is still applied in any diagnostic X-ray tube. Different anode materials and the rotating anode contributed to an increased output and reduced exposure time. Bearings needed special attention. Spiral groove bearings are the most advanced design today. The heat storage capacity of the anode and the tube housing assembly influences examination time and patient throughput. Cardiac imaging required less motion blurring in cine film images and increasing radiation exposure in interventional procedures calling for measures to reduce dose. Protection against radiation and electric shock has always been a concern of design engineers. Focal spot sizes dedicated to specific applications and heat management within the total tube housing assembly will be future issues. Even in the event of ultrasound and MR technology, X-ray procedures will still be applied for diagnostic and interventional purposes.

Triumph of the Will: A memorial in film

Despite Hitler’s efforts to transform Berlin into Germania, the capital of the new world he envisioned and which he believed would bear comparison with Ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Rome, there is little in the way of monumental architecture to bear witness to that ambition. Though there is only limited public evidence of Hitler’s architectural hubris present either in stone or steel, the same cannot be said of film. Leni Riefenstahl’s masterpiece Triumph of the Will (1935) (German: Triumph des Willens) is the most famous propaganda film of all time and a staple of university film schools and secondary schools across the world. At the time of its creation, celluloid motion picture film was a relatively new technology and the documentary format a nascent art form. Nevertheless, it was lauded almost immediately as a visually stunning imagining of the new regime and its leader. Though the film maker was subsequently reviled for her Nazi associations, as an art work her film has retained an almost miasmic aura that justifies continued re-assessment of its standing as a monument to the Nazi regime and the horrors perpetrated in its name.

A catalogue of the motion picture films of the Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus).

ABSTRACT As a companion to the Thylacine Image Registry (Sleightholme & Campbell, 2021), the authors present the first comprehensive catalogue of the thirteen known motion picture films of the Thylacine or Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus). The films date from 1911 to 1935, are all black and white, and range from 5 to 59 seconds in duration. The authors provide detail on the content and history behind each of the films, the cinematographers responsible for their creation, the locations in which they were filmed, and the identity, or probable identity, of each of the Thylacines shown.

Hollywood’s Social Construction of Innocence: Entertainment Media’s Deviant Portrayal of Black Children

The analysis is a sociohistorical examination of entertainment media’s representation of black children from the 1970s to 2000s. Each decade of media production provides insight into the presentation of black children in regards to the stereotypes and biased messages conveyed. The analysis delineates the narrowly defined yet deviant manner in which black children have been depicted. Examples derived from motion picture films and television shows are set forth to illustrate the manner in which black children have traditionally been included, or perhaps excluded, in the perpetuation of racial stereotypes reflective of the coinciding stereotypes usually projected on to black adults.

Revelando as imagens fotográficas de Roland Oliveira: desenvolvimento de um tratamento de desenrolamento e planificação para negativos 35 mm em gelatina e prata

The photographic collection by the sports photographer Roland Oliveira (1920-2007), belonging to Sport Lisboa e Benfica, is comprised of an estimate of 40000 images captured in 35 mm silver gelatine negative film, which are currently rolled and stiffened. This study has strived to survey the current procedures undertaken by Portuguese institutions concerning the conservation of these type of materials, by conducting a questionnaire. It became evident that new treatments to allow the flattening of rolled films were needed. Therefore, a conservation treatment was developed to unroll and restore the original flatness of the negatives under study. The main purpose of the treatment was to enable proper handling, digitization and storage of this collection. The developed procedure was based on a de-shrinking process (chamber with vapours of glycerol, acetone and water) adapted from the conservation of motion-picture film literature, combined with flattening under weights. This paper discusses the adopted methodology which allowed to achieve positive results.

Removing of the Sulfur Compounds by Impregnated Polypropylene Fibers with Silver Nanoparticles-Cellulose Derivatives for Air Odor Correction.

The unpleasant odor that appears in the industrial and adjacent waste processing areas is a permanent concern for the protection of the environment and, especially, for the quality of life. Among the many variants for removing substance traces, which give an unpleasant smell to the air, membrane-based methods or techniques are viable options. Their advantages consist of installation simplicity and scaling possibility, selectivity; moreover, the flows of odorous substances are direct, automation is complete by accessible operating parameters (pH, temperature, ionic strength), and the operation costs are low. The paper presents the process of obtaining membranes from cellulosic derivatives containing silver nanoparticles, using accessible raw materials (namely motion picture films from abandoned archives). The technique used for membrane preparation was the immersion precipitation for phase inversion of cellulosic polymer solutions in methylene chloride: methanol, 2:1 volume. The membranes obtained were morphologically and structurally characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and high resolution SEM (HR SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), thermal analysis (TG, ATD). Then, the membrane performance process (extraction efficiency and species flux) was determined using hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and ethanethiol (C2H5SH) as target substances.

Recording the Self-Assembly Behavior of Nanomaterials Directed by Hydrogen Bonding

Controllable self-assembly is of great significance to the design and development of materials, determined by a complex interplay between the molecular interactions, kinetics, and entropic effects at the interface. So any comprehensive understanding of self-assembly behaviors was considered to be a challenge. We report a step-by-step mechanical action of the W-based complex powder and recorded the self-assembly behaviors like cine film with TEM images. The whole assembly process of a W-based complex from nanoparticle to nanosheets and, finally, to 1D well-shaped hollow nanotubes was presented completely. When affected by hydrogen bonding of water, the same complex was assembled to 3D spongy structures which transformated to an ultrathin 2D WO3 film with a superficial area as large as 80 mm2 after heating at 700 °C.

Composition of the white precipitate formed on the surface of damaged triacetyl cellulose-based motion picture films

To achieve a better understanding of the “vinegar syndrome” phenomenon, which has caused serious damage to triacetyl cellulose-based motion picture films, the white powder obtained from damaged film surfaces was analysed in this study. The powder was found to be soluble in acetone, diethyl ether, dimethylformamide, and chloroform, but insoluble in water. From the results of 1H, 13C and 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and X-ray fluorescence measurements, it was concluded that the white precipitate had a molecular weight of 326 amu and was composed of triphenyl phosphate (C18H15O4P).

Metaphysics in a Review of "Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science" (Rationality Without Foundations) by Stefano Gattei

This article is the result of a book review of a work by Stefano Gattei. The starting point of Popper's view is that "almost every phase of our scientific development is under metaphysical rule, that is, ideas that are tested, ideas which determine not only what problems we need to explain, but also what kinds of answers we will consider to be one that is important or satisfactory or accepted, and as a remedy, or guarantee, of a previous answer". Popper's indeterminism is important because Popper's custom begins by considering an intuitive Laplacian view of determinism: "the world is like a motion picture film: or a projected image. Parts of the film have proved to be the past. And unproven people are the past. front". Popper has always been claimed to be a metaphysical realist: to him, to be a realist means to think, in covenant with common sense, that the world of his existence is independent of human beings. It means, "my existence will end without the world coming to an end too". As well as other metaphysical positions, realism is a non-testable conjecture: "realism is neither proven nor disproved".

Stop-Motion Photography Techniques

Stop-motion is an animation technique in which an object is physically manipulated and photographed on a single frame of motion picture film so that it appears to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a fast sequence. With the advent of digital imaging technology, stop-motion can also be implemented using digital photographic cameras, and not only using traditional cinematographic cameras that allow photographing a frame by frame, which contributed a lot to the spread of this technique, and also facilitated the ability to control the final results of the speed of movement With computer software specialized in combining a set of stills into one video. There are difficulties facing maintaining the continuity of the event carried out with stop-motion because there is absolutely no event at all, as well as the difficulty of maintaining homogeneity between successive frames in terms of exposure, clarity, color and composition, in addition to the difficulty of showing the reality of movement and controlling its rhythm to an already static body. Therefore, in this research we will study all the techniques of stop-motion photography, whether those related to shooting, animating or transition between different shots, in order to find out how to achieve continuity, homogeneity and realism, in films implemented with stop-motion technique.