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Unusual projector from John Lanser

Have you ever encountered a projector like the one which appears in the attached photos?
It is, seemingly, a hybrid (part UK, part Australian), standard 8mm gauge magnetic stripe
record and reproduce machine. The identification plates indicate it was manufactured by
Herofon Engineering (the name under which Harry Medak traded) for Sixteen Millimetre
Australia.

The picture head (ie, the projector component), is obviously of Bell & Howell origin, possibly
a model 606H (distributed here by Sixteen Millimetre Australia) which has been separated
from its pedestal base and mounted atop a record/replay “deck” and amplifier built by
Herofon; note the slight colour difference in the sprayed crinkle paintwork. The film path,
after leaving the gate, travels around a series of rollers and sprockets, passing en route a
permanent magnet erase “head” and a combined record/replay head before reaching the
take-up spool. A function switch selects record or play and there is a magic eye level
indicator.

Although there are numerous promotions in industry magazines of the late 1950s/early
1960s for Herofon’s other “add-on” magnetic sound attachments, ie, for Bell & Howell
16mm optical sound projectors and the stand-alone Fil-Mag unit for adding striped sound to
any 8/9.5/16mm projector, my searches have not unearthed any advertisements for, or
reviews of, a machine like this one. It would have been expensive to manufacture and one
prospect is that this is a prototype which did not progress into full production.
Unfortunately, Harry Medak died in either 2006 or 2007 so there is no prospect of any more
information from that source and the serial number on the identification plate, which is
153016/251.5, tells me nothing.

Feel free to reproduce these images in Reel Deals if you wish. That might flush out from
some of your subscribers further information about the unit or about Harry Medak’s output
generally which, so far as I know, has never really been written up anywhere (and probably
deserves to be). He seems to have been an ‘inventive’ individual who straddled the
amateur/professional divide. Apart from his various sound attachments for amateurs he
designed and manufactured the Synchrosound 16mm sprocketed tape recorder, essentially a
“poor man’s Magnasync” designed to be mechanically linked to a camera or projector; quite
a number were used professionally. He also pops up occasionally as sound recordist on
some low budget Australian films of the 1960s and at one time he was in a business
relationship with an organisation called Robin Hill Recordings, a sound dubbing facility at St
Leonards in Sydney which seems to have vanished without trace.
Main picture – see front cover

Additional information – ed.

A service was conducted at Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium, Sydney for Harry
Medak on the 17 July 2007 (internet - unconfirmed).

Filmography – Harry Medak Sound Department (2 titles) Source: www.IMDB.com
1969 Live Between Evil (sound mixer)
1969 A Christmas Carol (TV movie) (sound mixer)