Originally posted by Shaky & Blue:
I think he meant Cine 60, which was a company that made battery belts. You would often see 30v Cine 60 battery belts powering Colortran top lights. You would also see them used to power film cameras, including the Arri S and the CP-16.
Ahhh I
knew that Shakey would get it. Yeah...I mispelled Cine....sorry. But Shakey got it. Even down to the 30v bulbs we used. A good hot Cine 60 with a Colortran really put out some light compaired to today's "mini-fills". We didn't call them "Sun Guns" for nothing.
As far as the term "b-roll" Shakey got an A again. However, in a purely
news environment, we
did use the clear tape splices directly on the film when putting together news stories. Most days the rundown was out far enough in advance to allow the chief editor to string the entire show on a single film reel (in order) with a short leader and "stopdowns" between each story. Producers (what were producers? ) couldn't just "drop" a story. They were all strung together, in order, and could only play in 'real time.' If your package busted, all you could do was go to a reader, go to break, or roll a net package on the 2 inch VTR. A
really good master control engineer could re-rack a film piece and rethread the film chain during a break, but to do so was
really risky.
A "stopdown" was a small peice of metal tape that went on the edge of the leader that "told" the film chain to "stop rolling." It in effect was a "cue" for the next story on the reel. This main reel was known as the "A-roll." The "B-Roll" was a seperate reel loaded on a second film chain (projector) that was made up of primarily cut aways that covered the jump cuts during interviews. Since the audio was a magnetic stripe on the film itself, there was no way to separate it, so to cover the jump cut when editing a sound bite, you had to cover it with a seperate piece of film.
By the way, reporter tracks were on "carts" much like the old 8 tracks, but in a continuous loop. They were rolled
live by the audio engineer and mixed live with the natural sound on the film (NATSOF). Subaudible tones provided the "stopdown" on the carts. Since the audio and "b-roll" (by today's definition) were seperate, the audio track had to be timed precisely to the physical legnth of the film. Quite a dance by comparison to today's standards.
And TD...you know your film ...but to complete it....Ektachrome 7239 is VND, 7240 is VNF, and 7250 is VNX. We used VND, VNF and VNX for simplicity's sake. VND for "daylight", VNF for tungsten or "florescent", and VNX for "night stock." VNF was used most frequently since you could go inside to outside by just adding the 85B filter to the front of the lens instead of having to change mags. Having a ready loaded mag of VNX was a big deal for night time "spot" news....(we didn't call it 'breaking' back then) so much so, if you were the last to used the VNX mag and didn't reload for the next guy....there would be hell to pay!
And one last piece of trivia: A 400' reel (can) of film....
one time use....only 11 minutes of shooting at around $90.00 per can as of the late '80s. You
had to shoot sparingly. Now you know why TV went to video tape! Today's price? A 400' can of VNX....around $195.00! PLUS processing! Ouch!
Here's why, if you want to shoot film, you
have to be good.
