Share
Clip description
A man places a rack of 35mm film on a stand to be sprayed in the developing process. It is then removed and immersed in a tank to be washed. The man removes the film from the rack by winding it onto a reel. The reel is taken to a winding bench where it is cut together by a negative cutter. He ticks off the segment instructions. The edited negative is handed over to another man who threads the roll of film through a step printer.
Curator’s notes
The intertitle ‘reel speed for a real cause’ could be a reference either to the timely processing of newsreel items, or a more general reference to the quality of the laboratory’s services. By the early 1930s, Commonwealth Film Laboratories had installed a continuous processor to print Paramount, Fox and MGM features from imported negatives. A well-placed dissolve and a tightly-edited sequence which shows each step of the process conveys the speed and efficiency with which the Laboratories carry out their work. Commonwealth Film Laboratories, as well as processing feature films, also produced many local documentaries and features throughout the 1930s and 1940s. This footage is the only moving image record held in the National Film and Sound Archive collection which shows the inner workings and technical capacity of the company.
