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SS BROADWAY ACTRESS Grace Voss' BYU Media Production Studios to which she has . , * inventor of a Threplex machine for donated the machine. With her are. left, Sy Pelt,ffL?fe.cts on television and in motion optical printer at the studio, and Jesse Stay.pictures, helps put the machine together at the director of Media Productions.*One-of-a-KindFilm Machine Donated to 'Y'A complicated special effects machine lor motion pictures and television — the only one of its kind in the world — has been donated to the Brigham Young University Media Production Studio by its inventor, Grace Voss Frederick of Cave Creek, Ariz. *Mrs. Frederick, former Broadway Actress and one of the early experimenters for CBS television, has been at the BYU studio all week helping to assemble her machine and a truckload of related equipment.With a special control panel at one side, the machine's core is a three-layered lens system which allows movement on three wing-like units for projection onto a screen. In front of the screen, a movie camera or any other photographic device records the special effects created by the machine.“The three lenses will work in registration and project one composite picture with moving parts or three individual parts that can dissolve, flash, or change from one to the other. It can also rotate and move horizontally or vertically,” .Mrs. Frederick said.“The machine projects four-by-five or smaller slides and specially designed effects. It is also possible for people and objects to be photographed in front of the screen so they combine* with the projected images,” the inventor explained.After .starring, in three shows on Broadway, performing in a Headline act m vaudeville, and acting as a leading lady in two stock companies, Mrs. Frederick became a prominent New York theatrical photographer, and later, with her husband Claude,pioneered in photographic fields in television.They worked with such leading shows as the “Robert Montgomery Show,” “Hit Parade,” “The Lux Video Theatre,” and many others. They also created the signature for the “Kate Smith Show” as well as several major advertisements for national television with the Threplex machine.How did an actress who performed monologues and pantomines on television weekly for CBS in 1931-32 invent such a complicated machine? ■“That’s not an easy question to answer, but slides for TV projection seemed so static ... they cried for action. It seemed the industry needed a machine that could simulate sunsets and lighting, the moon rising and any number of other effects,” she said.Mrs. Frederick designed the machine in the late 1950’s and supervised the machinists work to create it. It was the first projection machine to animate still slides for television.She spent this week teaching Sy Felt how to use the machine. Mr. Felt is the operator of the optical printer at the BYU studio.“After investigating the BYU studio, I feel that the machine is in the hands of people who understand what can be done with it, and it will also give the students another creative tool to promote their aim of better human relations,” she said.The former actress observed that the BYU studio is probably the best equipped motion picture facility under one roof in the United States.
Newspaper Details
Provo Daily Herald
Provo, Utah, US
Mon, Nov 01, 1976
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 16 May 2022
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