SUCCESS STORY

not only are faraway beautiful places of the real world brought to life but also the world of fairy tales and fantasy Pinocchio The Three Little Pigs Snow White Little Red Riding Hood and a host of others that has brought this new delight in seeing to both young and old well that's a remarkable story of a homegrown product that is now famous around the world invented in Portland and manufactured in Portland this product is known and enjoyed today in faraway India in Moscow Central Library throughout Europe and all of Latin America there are no language barriers for stereo pictures this is just a hint of what you're going to see tonight at one of Portland's most famous industrial plants we have three live television cameras here at the world headquarters for 3d colored pictures and believe me they're going to be kept mighty busy in the next half hour I'm bill Nielsen and this is success story success story and on the spot live telecast got to you each week from somewhere in the Great Northwest as a public service by Richfield makers of the complete line of years ahead petroleum products [Music] tonight our success story cameras have come to sawyers incorporated located just 9 miles southwest of Portland on the main highway between Beaverton and tigers at progress Oregon here on a 14 acre tract surrounded by the rich natural greenery of the Northwest the great Sawyer's plant is housed in ten buildings about 4 acres of floor space close to 200,000 square feet of working area so you can see why Bill Nielsen said our TV cameras will be busy tonight as you would guess from the plant layout Sawyer's operations are tremendously varied best known for view master 3d Sawyer's also manufactures another line of stereo viewers in a separate division and they produce both stereo and two-dimensional viewers and slide projectors to go with these product lines Sawyer's turns out in tremendous quantities three different kinds of color pictures and to get the pictures but let's take things one at a time we are now in the injection molding department where plastic parts for viewers and projectors are made you're watching the very latest in plastic molding equipment injection molding means that the plastic material is melted in a heating cylinder and then in a liquid state injected into the farming dye operator Dorothy shoes is now running easy edit slide trays for Sawyer's 500 projectors many other parts including fewer lenses are made in these ultra-modern machines in this instance we have a plastic such as polystyrene which can be melted another kind of plastic known as phenolic is used in making viewer cases and that takes us to compression molding the phenolic materials come to the plant in a powder form from large hoppers on the floor above the powder comes down by gravity feed to the presses it is then compressed at a temperature of 350 degrees this combination of heat and pressure changes the powder to a solid plastic as it is molded to the form of the die it takes about a minute in the press and if we move on to the next press down the line we should have a part about ready to come out the pieces kicked out by air pressure [Music] the next step is fleshing or knocking off the rough edges obviously with this type of molding a viewer case is made one half at a time either front or back and the finished parts have brought together in assembly but that is another chapter in the story enough to say now that Sawyer's Incorporated is among other things a volume manufacturer in the plastic field and a Northwest pioneer in plastics we'll see what happens in assembly as soon as our travelling camera has time enough to get their real privilege for me to introduce now the president for Sawyer's incorporated mr. Bob Prost Bob what is Sawyer's position in the world of 3d or stereo pictures Sawyer's began manufacturing zoom last year serious scopes and rails over 20 years ago we feel that new master is largely responsible for the present popularity of stereo actually Sawyer's produce about 90% of the world's output and this would not be possible if it were not for our fine staff of wonderful employees how many pictures have been turned off by Sawyer's over the past 15 years yeah we were looking at those figures the other day and astounded well over 15 over 3 billion in the last 15 years now actually Sawyer's produces not only from the Portland plant but others as well is it not yes we have we produced a good deal from our Portland plant but we have a factory in Brussels one in Australia and will soon have one in India but word TrueView is one that I've heard a great deal of around here would you tell us a little about it in 1951 Sawyer's acquired true view which is stereo in another format and true Bua soul through a variety stores and toy outlets whereas viewmaster is sold in thousands of a camera gift drug and department stores in the United States and throughout the world thanks very much Bob we are now in Sawyer's Assembly Department here the parts for the various viewers projectors and related products come together besides the plastic molding shops which we have seen we are surrounded by many other industrial operations for nearly all conversion work is handled at this planet this includes French presses stamping out thousands of metal parts an engineering and product development shop a painting and finishing department all the facilities of a modern light metals plant in mechanical production alone and that's only part of a story Sawyer's is a converter of both plastics and metals and the maker of high quality high precision optical devices viewers and projectors for regular 35 millimetres slides and 4 giant super slide viewers and projectors for 2 dimensional viewing as well as viewing and magical 3d let's begin with the granddaddy of the lines so to speak the viewmaster stereoscope ever since sawyers introduced the startling realism and dramatic impact of three-dimensional pictures in color new masters have been coming off the assembly tables at a steady pace although Sawyer's was already 24 years old when William Gruber applied for patents on a stereoscope in 1938 that year marked a momentous turning point in company history by 1939 a few people in Portland were able to buy viewmaster from Sawyer's send up the first trial balloon on their new product for the public in general you master was introduced in 1940 at the World's Fairs in both San Francisco and New York one year later over a thousand dealers were selling all the viewmaster products Sawyer's could produce before that year 1941 was over the bombs had landed on Pearl Harbor and soon production for dealers was strictly limited but the skyrocketing product did not escape the notice of the Army and the Navy here was a visual instruction tool of unusual value what could be better for teaching range estimation and naval ship identifications than 3d in color so from late 1942 till the end of the war most of Sawyer's production went to the Armed Forces let's talk for just a moment here to bill Horne bill how long have you been with Sawyer almost eight years bill hazard a guess as to how many of you met should you've turned out in that time what about several million that's an awful lot of them thanks a million bill let's move over now and talk to a young lady by the name of Barbara today Barbara what are you working on here specific oh these are for two by two slides big fan of you supers as well as ordinary two by twos right Thank You Barbara over here now is the projector assembly Foreman Bob Smith Bob will you tell us just how many projectors you turn off here how many different types well we have three models projectors bill we have the new master projector the stereo Matic and I'll just show me some of them here specifically yes you bet bill here I have the super slide projector of the remote control model this here is manufactory right down here on the assembly line over here that's their scene now oh these are on the assembly line at present correct well maybe you can outline some of the assembly steps that are going through there well bill we have two main sections of the projector which is a casting and the base plate they're assembled at each end of the table at other end of the table and meet in the center and become a finished projector what goes on on the other line on the other side that is our quality control and our checking booths over there what are some of the checks that the viewers go through at that point their check for visible defects and also mechanical and ultimately at the other end of the line our package and go out to satisfied so our customers all over the world Bob that is correct thanks very much as we have said Sawyer's is engaged not only in mechanical production for nearly 50 years Sawyer supportin has been in the picture business and in that business in a big way today Sawyer's photographic staff practically covers the earth there are thousands upon thousands of original color pictures in this constant temperature cold vault and for every original here there are three more just like it in outside balls just in case six duplicating cameras work on nothing but you master stereo slides note that there are two originals of each scene one for the right eye and one for the left both right and left eye views are duplicated on special 16 millimeter Kodachrome stock this film has sprocket holes on one side only and what would be the soundtrack outa game a sound movie is used to make a much larger than normal 16 millimeter picture in fact the total area is 80 percent larger in the camera room view-master 3d pictures are reproduced at the rate of 960 a minute as you can well imagine Sawyer's is one of the world's largest users of Kodachrome film but that isn't the only colour film they use you'll remember Sawyer's entirely separate line of 3d pictures and viewers for the toy shop trade called TrueView the card mounted transparencies in this line are each just a half of 35 millimeter frame in other words one thirty five millimeter frame gives you both right eye and left eye views in the production of these pictures Sawyer's uses another type of duplicating the original here is negative colour what you may know as coda color if you've ever used this film you know that grass is red and fire engines are green in the original negative of course everything comes up fine after printing at this station we see the duplicating process for true view stereo slide or actually the printing from negative colour using 35 millimeter stock on the printing reel at the next station in the camera room Sawyer's super-pan a few slides are copied this too is the negative colour process using 55 millimeter stock on the printing reel these wide screen slides increased brilliance and sharpness and give you new panoramic views almost twice the transparency area of the ordinary 35 millimeter slides Sawyer's produces these biggest live scenes for all viewers and projectors that accepts the standard slide and there are thrilling pan abuse scenic slides from every state in the Union the complete Sawyer line is much broader than that not only travelogues from America Africa Asia Europe specific islands South America and the West Indies but also complete stories and adventures for children and a variety of educational subjects that gives you an idea of what we mean when we say Sawyer's is in the picture business in a big way to get a still better idea let's take just one example the coronation of Queen Elizabeth 2 is covered in a three reel packet of 21 full-color pictures since that kind of run was repeated several times Sawyer's has turned out millions of pictures of Queen Elizabeth just one subject in a few weeks the pictures of the royal wedding of the Princess Margaret will be on the market and there are well over a thousand in the complete line our number three camera has now moved from the duplicating Department to the processing plant film exposed in the camera rooms can be processed here the same day and this was the second plant outside Eastman Kodak Company to process Kodachrome color film for its own use the control panels here meter the flow of solutions to the processing tank upstairs and provide electrical controls to maintain temperatures within a tenth of one degree the film moves through processing at the rate of 120 feet a minute still a piece of Kodachrome travels for nearly an hour before all steps in processing are completed moving through numerous different solutions in stainless steel tanks and finally into a drying section solutions are mixed in these replenisher tanks and then pumped upstairs out of processing the film moves on to infection here viewmaster transparencies hundreds of feet of the time are inspected and wound into production run lengths the pictures then move on to the production department for moving in a minute we'll give you the first public view of that amazing machine operation [Music] you are viewing success story a series of on-the-spot telecast originating each week somewhere in the Great Northwest and brought to you live and direct as a public service by Richfield tonight's success story is originating at Sawyer's incorporated Portland's world headquarters for stereo scopes and 3d color pictures we are telecasting direct from the great Sawyer plants at progress Oregon all the production facilities that we have watched an operation this evening grew out of a portal finishing studio that began 46 years ago developing and printing pictures for the owl drugstore brought out in the early years by Edwin E mayor and two associates Sawyer's for the 1920s was nationally known in the picture postcard business and already expanding at their old vocation on Southwest 20th near Multnomah Civic stadium but the spectacular view master success has come to pass in the last twenty years you are watching the stamping of new master real blanks right now every time the press comes down somewhere in the world another view master reel is soar [Music] they sawyers vice president in charge of manufacturing les paulson les we have success story got a big kick of watching the various manufacturing processes I'm sure however the fits the most unusual that we've seen yet well we do have a very unique operation we make about eighty percent of all the parts for our product every new product I would imagine creates new production problems correct that's true we develop specialized production equipment take care of that this machine before us there one that has been designed for a specific job here at sire yes this is built by our own engineers this is a viewmaster real machine it mounted a pair of three dimension pictures at each one of these seven stations on these reels and then it is sealed and printed at the rate of 1500 per hour obviously something as complex as this must have some sort of a central control system am i right yes and this drawer is our control where all of Ares operates all controlled by cams Iraq controlled I can certainly if I hadn't seen this with my own eye as less I wouldn't have believed it possible it's been real interesting and thank you each machine here not only places and heat-sealed pictures in perfect registration it also places they laminated aluminum and glass scene cover arm at the end and then prints title and subtitles on the real a tiny little printing press takes care of that as the reels come off a single machine can turn out dozens of reels in one minute true view cards are mounted in somewhat similar fashion on others specially built machinery then roll up on row of viewmaster wheels or TrueView cards as the case may be are inspected and packing for storing or shipping to all parts of the world as for the packets of three reels like those of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and many others they are assembled in another fascinating machine especially adapted for the purpose this is known technically as a collating machine which means that it arranges things in the proper order in addition to the three reels it is now adding a stored a folder tied in with the same operation is the machine that makes the packets everything is then cut neatly the envelope and it is ready to give somebody somewhere a three-dimensional view of scenes of the South Pole the San Diego Zoo or perhaps the Rose Festival at Portland Oregon not only the Sawyer's photographic staff covered the world Sawyer's creates yes creates from scratch pictures of their own even though we don't have 3d TV you can see the amazing detail in the three-dimensional characters that have been developed in the creative art department the artists actually are pioneers in a new medium besides sculpturing the figures they build sets paint Sol patiently work out lighting problems and perform magic that is peculiar to this unique art form remembering the stereo photography is based on right eye and left eye views you can understand the studio work offers unusual opportunities instead of working with the 2id camera in the studio they are using one lens only they shoot the left eye view then rackover for the right eye view here's where the opportunity for magic comes in if you move foreground figures to the left when the camera lens is moved to the right you make those foreground figures come closer in the final stereo scene this is a special effect that might be used a bit of 3d magic that is common to most fairytale pictures is the method of making small figures appear life-size if you use a tool and stereo camera the eyes are fixed or normal two and a half inches apart but here by controlling rackover distance they can bring the eyes closer together it makes the figures appear larger but what they're really doing is ringing you the viewer down to scale with the characters the whole business of inter ocular distance is carefully calibrated on the basis of shooting distance let me introduce now our lady who has 14 years experience in 3d work Florence Thomas Lawrence will you explain this set for us please it's another scene from the shoemaker and the elves I make the figures of ceramic clay and the fits and props are made to fit the story one thing that has fascinated me and that is this paper that we see here made of cotton howdy make it look realistic in the actual picture during part of the exposure the cotton has taken out which makes it transparent Howard Heydar through photographs and lights these things prepares those tricks type of material to use on the walls that's it bestest cement it works very nice for brick work or still work or I can certainly see why the youngsters get such a lot of fun out of these 3d stories they look extremely realistic Thank You Florence let's move over now and talk to another one of the outstanding creative artists here at sawyers Joel Liptak Joe if I may interrupt you for a moment here I'll ask you what you're working with the president this is a tiger used in one of our fairy tale productions what type of material do you use in this I use a wire armature foam rubber body covered with the fabrics represent fur as flexible I notice that the heads are removable what's the reason for that yes I designed the head so we they can be interchangeable for different scenes even one head has two expressions so that we can use it separately in different scenes now in the case of other figures that you might create can you remove other limbs and so forth yes for different scenes certainly they do a beautiful job in illustrating the subject at hand thank you Joe it's been a real pleasure talking to you a few minutes ago we said that salyers creative department starts from scratch long before the scenes appear in the form of stereo colors they begin to take shape on a storyboard like this just as in the case of a motion picture a script is written and edited door the boards are check revised and finally accepted before the long and patient work of production gets underway in addition to stories in the public domain like Gulliver's Travels and The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen Sawyer's has done a great deal of contract work in other properties huckleberry hound Bugs Bunny and a number of Walt Disney stories for example like very much not to introduce the man in charge of this magic land of make-believe first Kol the art director of Sawyer's incorporated voice suppose we start right from the beginning how does one of these stories start well bill we start with this verbal script - a written script to get the proper sequence into our pictures once the script is established then we work out these rough pencil storyboard as in these two rows then these shows further firming up of the visual approach in 2d many storyboards will you make for a given story we usually do seven story scenes or twenty-one scene stories depending upon the length of the story that's all right how long does it take from the initial script through artwork sculpturing and so forth to the finished 3d color picture it depends but normally ten to eleven months 12 at the most I can certainly see what you mean when you say that there's far more to this than just sculpturing artwork and photography you're actually working with an entirely new and unique medium Archer oh that's certainly - bill thanks very much bro - fully appreciate what is meant when stereo pictures are referred to as a new medium you must consider not only the startling realism of hundreds of travelogues the remarkable children's stories the lifelike representation of such world events as a presidential inauguration and studies of wildflowers and insects in vivid 3d you must also consider a few master reels produced by Sawyer's licensed producers for commercial accounts these are used for sales and advertising purposes by many major American companies like Airlines dress manufacturers and machinery companies to show a complete line of products that is impossible for the salesmen our dealer to carry a 3d picture gives the salesman a powerful sales tool to show use of a product all important features of a product in through perspective in many ways view-master 3d does what no other medium can it is an axiom of Sawyer's that the more complex the subject the better 3d illustrates it repeatedly through the years scientist and educators have come to Sawyer's and said why don't you do this with me right now is George Patton foyers man in charge of special products George I'll let you explain what we have here on the debt I'll be very glad to Bill first though I should like to explain that those the qualities of stereo which are so valuable in the picturing of the products or services of Industry are even more valuable in education things seen in stereo bill capture immediate attention and they're more thoroughly understood and more easily remembered here we have a few of our own educational publications on display all of them employing viewmaster reel the first is a stereoscopic atlas of human anatomy for the medical profession the author is dr. Bassett of the Stanford Medical School who performed the dissections the photography was done by William Gruber the inventor of the viewmaster system now in the center section here we have a complete visual presentation of oral surgery and techniques on this right panel is one of the titles of Sawyer's correlated classroom materials for primary grade and in this product bill the lifelike three dimension picture creates a lively interest in the story subjects so that the primary grader gets a very welcome boost in developing reading skills certainly stereo has found a very welcome spot in science and education thank you George while the future holds bright prospects for new and varied uses of the new medium that came to flower here in the northwest Sawyer's Incorporated continues to produce thousands of products and millions of pictures for the markets of the world bulk shipments of finished goods leave this factory for Sawyer's large planting Chicago which serves most of the states east of the Rockies while the company serves about 1/3 of a tufflips directly from Portland in the export trade this factory serves Canada Africa Latin America and some areas in the Oregon soon Southeast Asia will be served by a subsidiary in India other manufacturing subsidiaries supply the market subunit there is also subsidiary in Sydney Australia altogether 91 different markets throughout the world in fact all dollar markets know and buy the products of Sawyer's for a company that started out developing and pending snapshots for the drug store Sawyer's has done rather well here we are once again with mr. Bob broast the president of Sawyer's incorporated with another man that we all want to meet Phil I'd like to have you meet mr. William B Gruber the inventor of the viewmaster system Gruber meet bill bill what was the inspiration for viewmaster I must say that I was infused with the desire to create something that was that the masses could enjoy because they you three-dimensional pictures of old we're very expensive and cumbersome to make and the viewmaster certainly has overcome this did you have any idea the viewmaster would grow to such great proportion never such an idea here Eric bill it's been real nice talking to you and Bob the sincere thanks of myself and the entire Richfield success story crew for all of your hospitality and for a most enjoyable tour here tonight well thanks to you Bill and to Richfield oil corporations all of us the stories are delighted to have been able to play a part in Richfield famous success story certainly been a lot of fun on our part believe me friends we hope that you'll join us next Wednesday night at 7:00 and the subject of success story will be something near and dear to the hearts of all of us bathing suits and sweaters Richfield success story cameras will visit Jensen's incorporated of Portland and we hope that you'll be there with us that's next Wednesday night at 7:00 until then good night success story an on-the-spot report is brought to you by Richfield makers of one hundred plus more on super octane gasoline and a complete line of years ahead petroleum products next week at the same time we will bring you another success story with bill Nielsen when our cameras will take you for a behind-the-scenes visit to Jensen incorporated to see swimsuits and sweaters being manufactured need we say more be sure to join us then until then this is Ivan Jones saying good night from Richfield [Music]