Filming with the Bolex H - Text 7
Drive
Because the H16 motor is spring-driven, a shot can never last longer than 28 seconds, the time it takes the spring to slacken. After that, there is a necessary interval before shooting can resume while the motor is rewound by the crank. These constraints are the flip side of an advantage which could prove important: the complete independence from electrical sources. The crank on the Bolex has a singular form: it is long (12 cm from the rotating spindle to the spindle on the handle), requiring the hand to make sweeping strokes to rewind it. It can be reduced to 7 cm in length, but then it has anything to rest it on for stability when set down. The Bolex’s spring-driven competitors, the Ciné Sept and the Bell & Howell Filmo 70, introduced as early as 1923, opted instead for rewinding with a key, which involved a completely different series of gestures on the part of the operator. The first 16 mm camera, the 1923 Ciné-Kodak, was driven directly by crank, like professional 35 mm cameras of the day. This choice demonstrates the extent to which the camera was conceived within the framework of a historically specific mode of use, being intended for amateurs whose skill levels were expected to be the same as existing camera operators of the day. Indeed this kind of drive required considerable expertise: it is not easy to learn to keep one’s hand motions regular, and every speeding up or slowing down has direct impact – creating a slow- or fast-motion effect – on the depiction of movement on screen, in a manner impossible to correct.
In keeping with this action, the stroke of the Ciné-Kodak crank was shorter than that of the Bolex. The Bolex crank was closer to that of the Ciné-Kodak Special introduced in 1933, which was aimed at the high-end market and the expert amateur, not unlike the Bolex H16. In the United States, these two models were the two most popular amateur cameras. The crank drive made possible greater flexibility in managing the cadence of a shot. But it was practically impossible to shoot while holding the camera in your hand: it had to be placed on a tripod and held firmly in place so that the action of cranking it did not disturb its stability. With the H16 it was possible to disengage the motor and drive the camera directly with the crank, either forwards or backwards, which could prove very useful for trick shots. This, however, involved attaching another much smaller crank to a secondary spindle on the front right side. This small crank was designed not for the shooting itself, but for rewinding or advancing the film with the shutter closed, in case one wanted to create special effects in-camera (cross-fades, superimpositions, etc.). It was coupled with an optional frame counter, which made it possible to calculate these effects precisely.
