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Topic: Brenograph machine & slides

Lila King
Film Handler

Posts: 2
From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 10-14-1999 04:02 PM

Hi! I work in the Restoration department of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. We have a (still working) Brenkert F-7 Master Brenograph machine and a collection of nearly 150 slides. We'd like to publish a catalog of our collection, and are in need of some information about the use and history of this type of machine and slides. If you know anything about it, please respond!
Thank you!

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-14-1999 04:29 PM

Check out the "Byrd Theatre" in the picture gallery--they also have a Brenograph set up and they're using it to show pre-movie advertising slides.

The Brenograph is one of the most amazing devices which I have ever seen; it's a very simple machine, consisting of not much more than a pair of lamphouses with slide holders, a pair of lenses, and iris and dissolve mechanisms. Amazingly, such a simple hand-operated machine can be used to produce a very wide variety of effects on screen.

I don't know much about these, either, and would be very interested in any books or manuals or other publications about these machines. The only one that I've seen in person is the one at the Byrd; I don't know of any others that are still in use.

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Ken Layton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1452
From: Olympia, Wash. USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 10-14-1999 08:26 PM

Lila:

I have a complete Brenkert Projectors and Effects Lighting Devices catalog dated January 1929 (catalog No. 26). It includes the Operating manual and parts manual for the F-7 Master Brenograph and it's accessories. Mine is a photocopy, but it's an excellent photocopy.

My friend Daryl Lund, owner of the Chehalis Theater in Chehalis, Wash still has the original F-7 Master Brenograph stored at the theater. It was originally a double headed carbon arc, but it looks like sometime in the 50's it was converted to 1000 watt incandescent bulbs. It still works!

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Bruce McGee
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1776
From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular.
Registered: Aug 1999

posted 10-14-1999 10:55 PM

Hi Lila. I would love to get to use the projectors in your theater. They are beauties. Is Joe Patten still in charge of the "Mighty 'Mo?"

Have not been in the Fox in many years. Couldn't get inside for the GWTW premere awhile back!

The place is a treat for the eyes.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-15-1999 03:13 PM

Is this projector one of those big 'iron beast'-looking things? There's one of these projectors in the Warner theatre in my town. It's a Brenkert.

It's about 2'W X 4'H X 6'L. It has two carbon arc lamps and a couple of swiveling mirrors on the front end. It's pretty busted up from the stagehands messing with it but it looks pretty interesting. If I had the time or money, I've always thought about tinkering with it.

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004

posted 07-07-2017 06:18 PM

It has been 6475 days since the last post.

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Thomas J. Mathiesen
Film Handler

Posts: 1
From: Ellettsville, IN, USA
Registered: Jul 2017

posted 07-07-2017 06:18 PM

Readers of this forum topic may be interested in a new full-length history of the Master Brenograph F7 and its manufacturer: "Projects Everything but the Picture": The Brenograph and the Brenkert Light Projection Company, published by the Embassy Theatre Foundation. Fort Wayne, Indiana. The 60-page booklet is available free of charge for online reading or downloading as a PDF from a link on the theatre's "Historic Brenograph" web site page; print copies may be ordered from a separate link on the page. In addition, links on that same page to two catalogues of the theatre's collection of more than 4,000 Brenograph and lantern slides may be of interest as well.
The booklet tells the story of the Brenograph's forerunners, the establishment of the Brenkert Company and its gradual development of the F series of combination projectors culminating in the F7, Maurice Workstel Studios's creation of special slides for the projector, effects created by Harry Rubin (head of projection for Public), and the eventual collapse of the market from the Brenograph with the changes in theatrical exhibition that followed the 1929 stock market crash. The text is complemented by more than 85 illustrations, including the Brenograph's forerunners, early patents, numerous trade journal advertisements, catalogue excerpts, slides, and detailed photographs and diagrams of the machine.

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