http
I have been wanting to get that book for years.Look what it costs

http://www.amazon.com/Masters-America-Communications-Pioneering-Progress/dp/0939766167

Roger

 



________________________________
 From: Michael Biel <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Saturday, August 4, 2012 9:11 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] archiving slide-tape shows (was voca-film technology)
 
I only was involved once in producing a multi-slide projector
presentation, back in the 1980s.  The device which controlled the three
Kodak Carousel projectors also provided the tones for recording the
control-track.  It could cut or dissolve from projector to projector,
have any number of them on at the same time, and get the slides changed
with the lamps either on or off.  It was far more complex than a DuKane
filmstrip frame-advance, but once you recorded your track (and you could
make changes afterwards, by the way) it would run flawlessly by itself
unless a slide jammed.

Of interest to THIS list would be the slide shows created by Ed Hutto. 
He did some on the life of Bing Crosby, and also a fantastic history of
the Victor Talking Machine Co.  At our 1974 Conference in Phila he
showed us the thousand-or-so slides he was preparing, using just one
projector, and quickly changing bing-bing-bing for nearly and hour which
had our eyes bugging out and occasionally shouting WAIT!!!  But next
year came the finished product with music, narration, and a leasurly
feast for the eyes.  Ed had worked at RCA Camden for decades, and had
taken pictures inside and outside, and also had access to their archive
when it was in Camden, and then in NYC. 

Ed retired to Florida and I had heard that he continued showing his
Crosby presentations.  He sent his slides to Fred Barnum who used many
of the images in a 1989 display and in his book "His Master's Voice In
America".  I wonder if the multi-projector slide show could be restored.
Steve Ramm -- are you in touch with Fred?  Does anyone know if Ed is
still alive?


Mike Biel  [log in to unmask]  

-------- Original Message --------
From: "Randy A. Riddle" <[log in to unmask]>

Archiving these wouldn't be at all technically difficult - just
remarkably tedious.

If one had the original multitrack tape and the slides and film, along
with a script, you could set up multiple video tracks in Final Cut or
a similar video editing package and key the video track to an audio
control track for each projector, placing the slides with cuts or fade
in or fade out as a guide.

It could be output in 4K or 6K format for projection at a festival or
museum showing or down-coverted to hi-def for reference viewing by
researchers.

Of course, if the original slides and tapes were available, the
original equipment could be reassembled for a showing, but that would
probably be impractical and expensive.

rand

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Richard L. Hess
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi, Randy,
>
> I was involved in making shows a step down from this for St. John's
> University (my alma mater) which we did for several years for Freshman
> Orientation--and even developed a small business out of this named "LM
> Productions". It stood for "Last-Minute Productions" as one of the team
> members experienced in personally developing Ektachrome slide film in his
> own darkroom and the Freshmen could actually see themselves in the slide
> show (which was given on the final day of orientation). We also did some of
> these for parents as well, as the business expanded and did a few for other
> schools.
>
> We either arranged four projectors in a quad or three in a row and had only
> a single cue tone that changed all projectors at once, but we could continue
> some images by putting multiple copies in. We couldn't afford the AVL
> sequencers. We used mono sound with cue tones on the other channel.
>
> I also made five of these shows personally between 1975 and 1989. The 1975
> show was for an art project on St. George and the Dragon for a friend. The
> 1976 and 1978 ones commemorated trips to England and the 1978 "Cathedrals
> and Abbeys of England" received about 25 showings around the NY City area
> and several in the Aurora, Ontario area in the early 1980s, plus a few
> showings in the Glendale, California area. Mary Beth and I did a slide-tape
> show from our Expo 86 and 1989 Alaska trips. I don't think I've shown any of
> these more than once or twice since the kids were born in the early 1990s.
>
> I have been struggling with how to preserve and show them today. All the
> elements are preserved--all the slides have been scanned at 12 MP and the
> sound tracks are all on hard drive in our storage servers. The reassembly is
> not an easy task. Finding a format and application to do it has not been a
> major priority, but I tried it once and kept crashing Adobe Premier about
> ten years ago. One of the joys of this show is that many of the exterior
> images were shot on Kodachrome 25 and I want to maintain some semblance of
> that level of resolution. Also, the images are a mix of vertical and
> horizontal which makes life a joy.
>
> My five shows were only two projectors/one image with dissolve.
>
> So, extrapolating from what I know and have done to preserve my meagre
> creativity in this area, I would hate to see the budget for properly
> preserving some of the more massive shows. In a sense, its a bit like the
> massive painting of The Crucifixion at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in
> Glendale, California.
> http://www.forestlawn.com/Special-Events-And-Facilities/Hall-Of-The-Crucifixion-Resurrection.asp?id=2
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Lawn_Memorial_Park,_Glendale
> It is a 195 x 45 foot painting, displayed with a programmed narration that
> drives lighting spotlighting areas of the painting as they are discussed.
>
> This, too, was from another era, as was Todd-AO and especially Cinerama
> which is difficult to reproduce properly. Showscan and IMAX are two other
> difficult-to-archive formats that are still current.
>
> The difficulties and costs of archiving "Grandeur" formats (using the 20s
> Fox Studio short-lived format's name) and large multi-media presentations
> are huge. Anything other than playing back at "full scale" diminishes the
> experience--in the same way as looking at a lock-down camera video recording
> of an opera would.
>
> Is there any archive focusing on these, I wonder???
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> On 2012-08-03 9:22 AM, Randy A. Riddle wrote:
>>
>> When I was in college at App State in North Carolina, Kodak brought a
>> show to campus that I still remember today.
>>
>> It consisted of hundreds of 35mm slides and 8mm or 16mm movie footage
>> shot by two guys that went on an adventure trip somewhere in the
>> western US.
>>
>> The whole thing was automated with a recorded sound track and racks of
>> projectors.
>>
>> It's a shame that shows like this aren't archived in ways they can be
>> periodically brought out and redone.
>>