Page 9 - Microsoft Word - RDcover11_03.doc

Prevention which number of pictures. Victor then built the first
stated:"Approved continuous reduction printer and offered it to
miniature proj- the industry. (Ref 11). He then set up a print
ectors must be so reduction laboratory in Chicago but he was a
constructed that lone voice. The 28mrn market began to fade
they cannot be away due to lack of cooperation from the film
used with films producers. In 1920 Victor produced his last
employed on the 28mm projector cal- led the Victor Home
full sized com- Cinema. It was a basic hand operated projector
metrical moving built to a very low price in an effort to keep
picture machine" 28mm alive but by now it was a lost cause in
(Ref 12). the USA. (Fig 5, Ref 11). With the introduction
My own Victor of 16mm by Eastman Kodak in 1922 Alexander
Safety Cinema Victor immediately lost interest in 28mm and
has a small turned his attention to this new gauge. Another
inscription on the projector, produced by Willard Beach Cook,
base painted was the American Pathescope Premier
Fig 4. 28mm film.
Note perforations conspicuously in Projector.
red lettering on a
yellow background which reads:
"UNDERWRITERS LABORATORIES
INSPECTED. Miniature Motion Picture
Machine for use only with Slow Burning Film.
Enclosing Booth Not Required".

The only difference between the Pathescope
28mm standard and the one proposed by Victor
was that initially his Victor format for
projection prints had three sprocket holes per
frame each side of the film and his projector
had matching sprockets which prevented the
projection of Pathescope films on the Victor
machine. However, this problem was quickly
resolved when Pathescope type sprockets were
fitted to the Victor Safety Cinema (as is mine)
and both types of projection print could be Fig 5. 28mm Pathé Premier
jt
shown although, of course, automatic framing Motor driven with a three-bladed shutter in
did not occur with the Victor film format. front of the lens it probably produced a picture
Alexander Victor tried to persuade film roughly comparable with the Safety cinema.
producers to supply 28mm prints from their Fig. 5 shows one, complete but not working, as
35mm negatives but they would not cooperate seen at the national Film Archive at Aston
in any way. However George K Spoor of Clinton in 1983. (It is shown incorrectly in Ref
Essaney and George Kleine, both pioneers of 13 as a Pathe KOK of 1912).
the exhibition industry agreed to release a small