Analogue days, before the arrival of industrial video screens

[Allan Black]

Boyd said: Back in the mid 1980's, we had a slide projector with a built-in cassette deck. The audio was recorded on one track and the other track had some kind of clicks or tones that automatically changed the slides. So, you could create presentations where the slides changed on musical cues. Actually, I think it was something that was originally from the 1970's which we picked up at state surplus. :-)’

Hi Boyd, about 1975 the U.K. Electrosonic company improved on your cassette deck and came out with their first ES2001 controller. It could sync 2 Kodak 35mm slide projectors together with a pulse code from a track on an audio tape that also had the soundtrack. The ES2001 provided 3 methods to change slides - instant, fast dissolve and slow dissolve, and on this controller you could adjust the fast and slow dissolve times.

I learned how to run the ES2001, if the dissolve time was too slow from A to B projector, you couldn’t use the projector A again until it had changed to the next slide, 2.8 secs.

And depending on the clients budget, he could have any number of screens in an audio visual show of any length. 5 screens with quad sound for 30 minutes was the biggest show I ever did, for Sydney’s TCN channel 9.

And sound effects made it. I had the use of 9s helicopter and we flew to an airfield where I recorded it flying low over me on the field, while I recorded the sound of it. This sound passing over the audience in quad from the back to the front speakers, made the a/v a great success. And I played it very loud, in rehearsal I could rattle the cutlery on the audience tables.

John Crane a director at Natec Sound Studios where I worked, was a visionary and he was first, selling Ford Australia with the idea of presenting Fords next year new model car to Ford dealers around the country, and over 4 years we did. We made 3 screen a/v shows and flew next years model Ford and our a/v gear around Australia in a Bristol Freighter, (below.) We landed at country airports that had never seen a Bristol before and when the front ramp was lowered we would watch for the surprised look on the ground crews faces as the new car was driven out.

At the annual dealer show, John’s idea was to have next years model Ford car on stage completely covered with a number of thick coloured parachutes so you couldn’t see the new cars shape. Spaced out during the 30 minute show when a spotlight came on, very slowly one parachute after the other was slowly raised off the car, till the last one, with the sound effect of a trumpet fanfare, next years new shape Ford was finally revealed to the Ford dealer audience. I attended a big show in Sydney and the 1500 dealers who’d flown in from around the country went nuts cheering and stamping. Ford loved it and based on previous experience had a doctor standing by in case of heart attacks.

When many professional 35mm still photographers saw our a/v shows with 35mm slides ‘moving’ in a multi-screen presentation - they really took notice. This was their entry into the world of moving pictures, but they needed good soundtracks and based on our Ford shows, some came to Natec. I had to get Natec directors permission to accept outside a/v work while I was still working on Ford. And because there was a lot of it, as long as I hid all Fords work at the time, I could. Crazy days.

Then the big industrial digital video screens arrived and basically killed the multiscreen A/Vs overnight. But here’s Electrosonics single screen ES3601. Over 40 years they sold many of these and because buyers could make their own presentation with their own 35mm slides and their own narration sound track, some are still in use today …

[Boyd Ostroff]

Cool stuff, thanks for posting. I didn't want to get into it before, but I had extensive experience working with 35mm slide projections in theatrical productions. The first I recall would have been about 1968, working on a college production where the technical director loved to experiment with technology. I think the play was "Beckett", but could be wrong there. Anyway, the set had three big gothic arches at the back that were projecton screens. Each screen had two carousel projectors, controlled by a home-made device that was programmed with a paper punch tape reader, like the ones used by teletype machines. IIRC, the music had some kind of click track on a second channel that triggered the tape readers. This was painstakingly "programmed" to cross-fade hundreds of slides on the screens.

Kind of a nightmare and there were a lot of late nights getting it to work, but it was really cool by opening night. That was one of the things that cemented my desire for a career in theatrical design and technology. When I was a senior in 1971, I designed a production of a new work that used multiple slide projections with black and white photographs of the cast I shot myself. Will always remember one of my professors, who was old and very traditional at the time, discussing the show in class a couple days before it opened. He said something like, "... for example, look at this new production that Boyd has designed. It all just looks like a bunch of junk sitting on the stage right now, but when the lights come on opening night, I have a feeling it will be pretty damn interesting!" :)

I used slide projectors a lot after that, but we had commercial dissolve units (from Kodak?) to control the projectors. Painted backdrops were always a staple of mine as a designer, I always thought it was a cheap way to fill the stage and with careful lighting, they could be really effective. So, why not use projections for backdrops? But 35mm projectors really weren't good enough to fill 40 foot wide screens. So, the for my first show as Director of Design and Technology at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, we applied for grant money and purchased a pair of xenon projectors from Ludwig Pani. These were quite amazing machines - I guess you might consider them "peak analog". They used big photgraphic plates, about 5" x 5". They had automated changers that were big monsters. And they had mechanical "dowsers" to dim them in and out (xenon cannot be dimmed like othe incandescent lamps). The slides were my watercolor paintings, around 24" wide, photographed on the big glass plates.

This show, and a couple following ones were very well received, but the system was a lot of work to deal with. Eventually, it became obvious that video projection was the way to go. That required more fundraising (and some arm-twisting, LOL) but in 2003 I designed "Il Trovatore" which made extensive use of video projection on a screen that was about 50 feet wide. Much of the video was live action sequences, shot on location in a state park on the ocean, with my Sony PDX-10. There was also photorealistic 3d animation that I created with Strata Studio Pro on my Mac. With slow computers of the day, that was a heavy lift! In the end, the show got a very good review but nearly killed me in the process! It was quite expensive though, we rented a pair of Barco theatrical projectors and IIRC just the rental tab for those was $50,000 for about two or three weeks.

There are some old threads here discussing that, but too lazy to find them now. ;) I did write an article on the subject here, but apparently the photos are no longer online

https://www.dvinfo.net/article/produ...the-stage.html

Anyway... using projections on stage is a topic very near and dear to me! Or... "was" a topic, since I have retired from that crazy life in the theatre and now spend my time writing computer code, when not wandering in the woods and just enjoying retirement. :)

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

Over 40 years they sold many of these and because buyers could make their own presentation with their own 35mm slides and their own narration sound track, some are still in use today …

I remember back in the mid-80's having to convince an old AV guy at the U.S. Forest Service that it was time to retire the slide projectors and move to video for their presentations. It was like dragging a horse to water the first couple of videos, but he came around and never looked back.

Anyone remember filmstrips back in school? They often had a recorded soundtrack with "beeps" embedded that told someone at the projector to roll to the next slide. Well, I got pretty good at imitating that beep, and it was easy to get the whole presentation out of sync by a few slides before the teacher realized they were too far ahead.

Those were the days.

[Boyd Ostroff]

I remember in 3rd grade, guess I was 8 or 9 years old, I was the "TV Monitor" - really, that's what they called it! I had to go down to the office, get the TV set, roll it down to the classroom and plug it in for whatever show we watched daily (on KETC TV in St. Louis, IIRC). I remember being really excited about that "job" and telling my parents as soon as I got home from school.

[Andrew Smith]

Originally Posted by Doug Jensen

Anyone remember filmstrips back in school? They often had a recorded soundtrack with "beeps" embedded that told someone at the projector to roll to the next slide. Well, I got pretty good at imitating that beep, and it was easy to get the whole presentation out of sync by a few slides before the teacher realized they were too far ahead.

Doug is best friends with my inner child.

Andrew

[Doug Jensen]

Ha, ha. In that case maybe you want to hear about the time the teacher left the room and I got up and turned the clock on the wall ahead by 30 minutes -- a big jump for a 50 minute class. I was sure she'd catch on when she came back in, but no, we actually got out 30 minutes early.