Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1969 - 19

Bellman on Projection

Fig. 4: Hand painted cylindrical slide for a
lensless xenon projector designed to cover
entire cyclorama. This slide is from a production of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin designed during the period in which Wieland
Wagner was in charge at Bayreuth. The slide
was about 15" high.

Fig. 5: Slide made by photographing a piece
of art work in color, for Tristan und Isolde.
Created as part of the stage design done for
that opera by Josef Svoboda for the Wiesbaden, Germany Staatsoper during its 196768 season.

Several very new projectors have come on
the market in Europe. All of these make
obsolete the Reiche und Vogel units which
they are indeed intended to replace. Two
good ones are the Pani, made in Vienna
and a projector made by Strand of England.
Almost all of the new units are incandescent-powered. Quartz-halogen lamps are
coming into use rapidly. I saw a 5,000 watt
halogen lamp under test at Reiche und
Vogel. Incidentally, European manufacturers
are using hard glass, not quartz, in many
of their halogen lamps, seemingly with
success. As I have already noted, xenon as
a Iight source for projection is favored at
Bayreuth. However, most of the other theatres I visited proudly displayed their xenon
lamps when I asked about them-from the
storeroom! The dimming problems plus the
high color temperature tend to make the
designers and technicians dislike them. In
spite of this, I saw theatres with permanently installed D.C. busses for xenon. The
Bayreuth people were using theirs constantly. The Frankfurt Opera seemed seldom to use its xenon. Bayreuth was using
2,800 and 4,800 watt xenon lamps, mostly
in lensless projectors. The most common
configuration was an adaptation of the old
Rundhorizont projector which uses a half
cylinder of plastic as a slide and covers the
entire cyclorama surface at once. These
slides are masked with metal cutouts to control the area covered and produce remarkable
results.
Summing Up: Artistically, then, it is obvious that scenic projection in Europe is
well ahead of the USA in spite of some
fine developments here. Technically, things
are mixed. For exampl e, we have no easily
available instrument like the cyclorama xenon
unit mentioned above. We have no readily
convertible projectors which can double as
spotlights and vice-versa. This feature incidentally, makes a large number of units
easier to justify on a limited budget.
We have also allowed the art of designing
"effects"-e.g. fire, rippling waves and the
like-to stagnate. Readily available in the
Reiche und Vogel catalogue are a number
of which put our hackneyed sterioptican to
shame on both mechanical and artistic
grounds. An adaptation of the motor driven
zoom lens (perfected in the USA for television camera use) produces an appearance
in Der Fliegende Hollander or brings in the
swan in Lohengrin with remarkable ease and
artistry.
However, the old and still accepted dictum
about German lenses is largely a fantasy
as far as projection is concerned. It is true
that German camera lenses are still among
the greatest, but the projection lenses are
only good, not excellent. 'vVhai is remarkable is the huge stock of types and focal
lengths available in nearly every theatre. A
cabinet full to the gunwales is not an uncommon sight. This vast array coupled with
the use of multiple projectors makes it possible for the Germans and their theatrical
compatriots to achi eve wonders and for them
to say in all honesty that they have no lens
problems worthy of discussion. There are
almost no lenses in common use that can

equal or better our highly efficient short focal length units-but the Europeans do not
suffer trom thiS, they simply use more equipment.
In the matter of preparation of image material, I feel that we have the edge. The European Theatre has stayed with the hand
painted slide for years and has perfected it
to its very limits. Americans have little
hope of catchi ng up. However, it is a dying
art even in Europe, largely because methods
native to American theatre are catching on.
Color photography has made it possible to
prepare art work in any convenient size eliminating the need for microscopic accuracy
while painting at slide dimensions. Breakage
is no longer a disaster, only an inconvenience. However, the Europeans that I talked
to have never seen or heard of a color photograph floated onto glass. This process, developed by William Tillisch of Background
Engineering in Los Angeles, results inaslide
that remains in focus and does not warp. It
is moderately expensive but results in
clearer, more easily focused images with
long life.
Neither have the Europeans seen or experimented with diazo color processes. These
can result in colored images of long life,
great clarity and, best of all, little cost.
Once a master is made, a 4" x 6" slide
costs about a dime. While this is not a
natural color process, it is easily made into
a multi-color process by developing up
parts of the total image in separate colors,
registering them as needed and binding
them together to make a "sandwich."
Although it is a mixed blessing because of
our fixation on the use of a "screen," it is
certainly true that the development of screen
materials for both front and rear projection
has proceeded more rapidly in the USA than
in Europe. A thin polyvinyl material, usually
seamed about every three feet is the common
projection sheet for rear projection. Front
projection is almost never done on a screen
surface. Incidentally, the mixture of front
and rear projection is much commoner in
Europe than it is here, mainly because the
huge backstage dimensions of European theatres make it more possible.
The name of the game is art, not technology, although tools must equal artistic
objectives if results are to be worthwhile.
The art of scenic projection has blended
into the greater art of total scenic design
in Europe to the great advantage of the
entire theatre. When we in the USA achieve
the same degree of maturity, our theatrical
art should be second to none. The more
unified and powerful the artistic statement,
the greater the chances for success in dealing with the ultimate material of the theatre.
the visions of human beings about their
problems, their absurdities and even perhaps
their future.

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