The Fox Movietone News Preservation Project: The Continuous Motion 35mm Film Transport

A film transport system was designed and manufactured for the Fox Movietone News Preservation Project. It is a complete system designed to accommodate nitrate-base 35mm film. The film transport was designed with a number of unique features that presented significant technical challenges; among them, the ability to allow for film format differences between silent and sound film, a strobe illumination system for the high-resolution black-and-white charge-coupled device (CCD) camera, and a sound reader. The system also had to incorporate numerous safeguards in the design to secure the integrity of the film. For example, the system had to be concerned with the brittle nature of the film, its combustibility, and poor or broken perforations. Moreover, owing to the tremendous volume of film to be passed through the film transport, the design had to consider mechanical wear and electronic monitoring in order not to place undue stress over time on the film. — Various technical approaches were evaluated for the design. The effort was complicated by the realization that the “best” approach might leave the film vulnerable. Thus, other avenues needed to be included even though they could add complexity and bulk. What evolved through this series of trade-offs is presented in this paper.

Print ISSN

0036-1682

Published

1996-09

Content type

Information

DOI

10.5594/J04608