UP8 History: the Emel Pansocope

[carllooper]

When discussing UP8 with Roberto Pirodda (Italy), who does 3 chip 2.5K transfers of Super8 and 8mm, he told me of a French camera, made in 1955, called the Emel Panoscope which is effectively UP8. Here is a forum reference to such from 6 years ago:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13335

[cameratech]

In 1960 they released a second Panascope version that was switchable between normal and widescreen. They must have also produced a projector to view the widescreen footage, otherwise the Panascopes would have been fairly useless.

Emels are beautiful little cameras, very much like miniature early Bell & Howell 16mm Filmos, complete with a drive sprocket that keeps a constant loop. Having pulled several completely apart for overhaul I'd be curious to see inside a Panascope model. They're so tiny the shutter would barely cover the full Double 8 width. With the switchable model I can only assume the lens remains centred for widescreen and in normal mode the lens is therefore offset.

They are pretty rare, and highly collectable (even normal Emels are pricey), so I guess a Panascope Emel will remain on my wish-list, an unrequited affair.

[bolextech]

UP8 is Panoscope with one difference.
Apparently, the Panoscope gate was masked to give a 2.2:1 aspect ratio. UP8 is the full 2.8:1.

Here is an except from Guy Edmonds fine essay:
Amateur widescreen; or, some forgotten skirmishes in the battle of the gauges.

"The most elegant of the 1955 systems was
Emel’s Panascope which used the full width of unslit
8mm film (16mm) on which to record a picture with
the standard height of the 8mm frame. The hand-
some camera and projector were produced in small
numbers. The width of the frame was reduced slightly reduced
from its full potential because Emel thought it would
produce a format that was too wide. The gate mask
employed had a ratio of 2.2:1 and like other such
systems could be switched to normal 8mm format.
Trade interest in Panascope failed to match the enthusiastic
public reception of its 1955 display."

Cheers,
Jean-Louis

[Nicholas Kovats]

Carl, I had sent you previously the Guy Edmonds PDF paper that was just referenced by Jean-Louis. It details Emel's Panascope efforts in the early and mid 1950s.

In fact Emel could have widened the gate more so but it was ultimately rejected as "too wide"..hence the more modest 2.2:1. The Emel Panascope camera/projector was meant to cash in on the recent Cinemscope developments emanating out of Hollywood.

In fact later on both Emel and other manufacturers courted the dedicated and industrious UK based engineers of the Widescreen Association including Stuart Warriner's incredible Pan16 camera and projector (w/ Variable Pitch Control).

I am presently pursuing a lead regarding Stuart's PAN 16 cam and projector which utilizes standard single perf (1R-2994)16mm film and produces a 2.87:1 aspect ratio. Thats correct. Two 8mm pulldown exposures (2.87:1) PER single perf 16mm frame.

[cameratech]

I found Guy Edmonds' essay online here:
http://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/ ... onds07.pdf

Interesting that Warriner also modified a Siemens camera to Pan-16. I've been playing around with Siemens cameras, which like Bolex have 8mm and 16mm models that share the same housing, making them a more compact UP8 possibility than Bolex. Very well engineered cameras, even the 8mm version employs a form of registration pin (the only 8mm I've come across that does). But for Pan-16 the registration pin would need to be disabled.

Variable pitch control is something you find in high-end sound camera movements to fine tune the noise level, I wonder if it existed in cameras before Warriner? As far as I know it first appeared in the Panaflex mid 70's.

[carllooper]

Carl, I had sent you previously the Guy Edmonds PDF paper that was just referenced by Jean-Louis. It details Emel's Panascope efforts in the early and mid 1950s.

Yes, I did read the Edmonds paper you sent me, in which the Emel is quite explicitly referenced. The Emel resurfaced independantly of the paper, in talks with Roberto (about transferring UP8) and he mentioned the Emel. At the time I couldn't recollect whether it was mentioned in the Edmonds paper. Doing a web search on the Emel, the forum reference hit the top of the list. It was the forum reference I found interesting (more than the Emel) - the discussion on how to telecine it. I was going to cross check the Emel with the Edmonds paper and possibly frame the forum reference in terms of such. But didn't.

In terms of telecine, Freya's solution was on target: "you would have to telecine it as 16mm full frame".

cheers
Carl

[MartinBaumgarten]

Hi Guys. To be completely fair.....Ultra Pan 8 (aka UP8) which is also listed on Wikapedia....is just the EXACT SAME format as pioneered in the 1960s and 1970s by Stuart Warriner known to most in the former international Widescreen Associations as Pan8(using a converted BOLEX H-8) and Pan16(using a converted BOLEX H-16 camera). I mean...let's give credit where credit is due. It's nice to see new interest in this format again, but frankly, it has been used by many Widescreen enthusiasts wanting to film in a wide but non-anamorphic format. Stuart Warriner was a prolific filmmaker and inventor in England, and also had a unique wider format in Super 8mm whereby the image was filmed at a 30 degree slant on the film to get a wider image on normal Super 8mm film (with a widened gate). Kind regards, Martin Baumgarten - PPS

[aj]

Stuart Warriner was a prolific filmmaker and inventor in England, and also had a unique wider format in Super 8mm whereby the image was filmed at a 30 degree slant on the film to get a wider image on normal Super 8mm film (with a widened gate). Kind regards, Martin Baumgarten - PPS

That would fun to see. I suppose he added/widened at the corners?

[Andreas Wideroe]

who does 3 chip 2.5K transfers of Super8 and 8mm

www.asimage.fr

[Nicholas Kovats]

Martin,

I am contact with both Tony Shapps (UK Widescreen Association) and Guy Edmonds (Widescreen Academic) regarding UP8. That they are both enthusiastic supporters is an understatement. With Tony's assistance I am attempting to track down working representations of Stuart Warriner's legendary engineering including his VPC mechanism. In fact Tony had suggested I contact you directly regarding UP8 but I guess that is not to be.

There has been no false representation on our part and we have repeatedly made references to the historic antecedents of the UK based Widescreen Association relative to the evolutionary work of the UP8 team. The focus is to inject ultra-widescreen fun back into the intensive and physical world of filmmaking/film shooting. We are recycling and popularizing the largest manufactured user base of 16mm and 8mm cameras globally - Bolex. We have doubled run times, increased native resolution and reused the plethora of 16mm optics.

Anamorphic Super/Regular 8 and UP8 happily coincide in the wonderful commonality also known as film. UP8 camera#6 is about to happen. If anything "One delirious ultra-widescreen filmmaker at a time."

Cheers!

Nicholas

[carllooper]

Hi Guys. To be completely fair.....Ultra Pan 8 (aka UP8) which is also listed on Wikapedia....is just the EXACT SAME format as pioneered in the 1960s and 1970s by Stuart Warriner

Yeah for sure.

However UP8 (even if regarded as exactly the same as the earlier inventions) doesn't mean it's any less of an invention than the earlier ones. The earlier inventors just had the benefit of being born earlier than the later inventors. Lucky them!

But as Nicholas has said, considerable effort is being put into re-documenting these earlier incarnations -so giving the earlier incarnations new exposure and the credit they rightly deserve for their efforts

That said, there are some notable differences in context. The current invention (or reinvention) has some renewed impetus over the earlier invention through the advent of digital delivery systems which obviates the problem of how to mechanically project UP8 (or it's earlier incarnation). The UP8 format gains life through different tractions.

UP8 can be considered as not just a camera mod, but also the systems being renewed (or even innovated) regarding sprocketing of the film, and the systems being engineered as to their transfer into the digital delivery workflows.

There is a back to basics occuring, which, if somewhat belatedly, is nevertheless rediscovering it's history and very much voicing it.

Carl