"Old Cameramen Never Die; They Just Lose Their Loops."

"Shoot First" Author Hank Schoepp welcomes email comments and questions about his memoir!  In fact it's quite fun to read feedback from different age groups and folks associated, or not, with broadcast journalism.  We have another reader who has submitted an interesting question for Hank.  Coles Powell asks, "In the book, you say 'Old cameramen never die; they just lose their loops.'  Can you explain more what you mean by this expression?"

Schoepp:
     At KPIX, the advent of shooting the news on videotape came in 1980.  Prior to that time, the medium was 16 millimeter film.  So, before I can answer your question properly, I must first dispel the myth of what makes motion pictures move.  The common misconception is that these images are exposed onto film while it moves behind a camera lens.  If this were true, there would be no images for the eye to see, only a blur.  Because the film doesn't really move behind the lens.  It stops, or halts ever so briefly, at the rate of twenty-four times a second, recording a serious of still photos, like tiny snapshots, on that narrow strip of film, thereby creating the illusion of pictures that move. 
     In order to insure the precision of a mechanical process which creates the motion picture illusion, also known as "intermittent action", a fluid supply and release of film must occur just before and after it passes behind the camera lens.  This happens with slack, where the film forms a small loop just above the lens and another one just below.  If something unexpected happens, such as film fed from inside one magazine chamber holds back or film taken-up inside the other chamber lags behind, the loops above and below the lens collapses and the camera jams.

Powell:
     But how does this relate to the "old cameramen" you refer to?

Schoepp:
     And for this part of my answer you would either have to be from my generation or a young student of history.  If so, you would recall that President Harry Truman fired General Douglas McArthur as commander of our troops during the Korean War because he publically disagreed with the president over his foreign policy.  The last sentence of the general's farewell speech, delivered to the cadets at West Point, stated that: "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."  Well, some of those old cameramen whom I have known and worked alongside over the years may have died but they will never fade away, not from my own memory.  I can only imagine that the very least misfortune bestowed upon them on Judgment Day would have been for them to lose their loops.
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