Shot 31 / 4:28–4:52Select a shot, or shift-click to select multipleSelect a shot, or double-tap to select multiple

Spot News

19379 min 15 sec52 shots

A dramatized newsroom receives word that a stunt pilot will try to launch an airplane from the top of a moving automobile, but the event is 40 miles away and the deadline is near. Editors dispatch a reporter, a photographer, and a mobile wire-photo unit to cover the attempt. After the airplane takes off from the car, the crew prepares its photographs for transmission to the newspaper over a telephone circuit.

Models and close views of the equipment explain how a revolving drum scans a photograph line by line, converting reflected light and dark areas into changing electrical currents. At the receiving machine, those currents control a neon light that exposes corresponding lines on a photographic negative. Workers then develop and print the negative, make a printing plate, and send the page to the presses; the film says this process reduced long-distance picture delivery from hours or days to minutes.

Provenance and rights

Original producer: Handy (Jam) Organization
Collection: Prelinger Archives
Original title: Spot News
Date: 1937
Original link: Open on Internet Archive
Rights: public_domain