Cinema Products Corporation
Their first product was a Silent Pellicle Reflex conversion of the Mitchell BNC 35 mm Motion picture camera.
The CP16 was based on the film advance mechanism used in the older "Bach-Auricon" sound-on-film cameras, but reconfigured in a lighter, more ergonomic self-blimped body configuration.
It became one of the most widely used sound-on-film cameras in the TV news industry until it began to be superseded by the color professional video formats of the late 1970s.
Later, Cinema Products sold their remaining Mitchell inventory to a Japanese company [citation needed] when the XR35 was challenged by competitors but still selling well.
The light and ergonomic Arri 35BL-I gave European film makers (and eventually the American "Brats"), the ability to shoot studio-quality (double system) sync sound movies, but faster, on real locations – and even handheld – and with smaller crews and support equipment.
(Due to the limited resources of the 1940s and 1950s the Italian Neo realists and French New Wave had evolved around the approach of shooting wild synch or "Noisy-synch" and then completely post-replacing all sound and dialog.)
In America, The Panaflex became the industry standard motion picture camera, displacing the Mitchell legacy.
It had quick loading coaxial magazines, an 'in camera' light meter viewable in the eyepiece and an on-camera battery.
The PBS documentary film Post No Bills was also shot by Clay Walker using Jost's GSMO camera.
TV commercial producers and directors wanted video assist, and the GSMO fell behind the competition in that feature.
- During pre-production for the 1975 film "Barry Lyndon", director-producer Stanley Kubrick had a requirement for a large aperture "high speed" cine lens to facilitate shooting scenes by candlelight.
From the switch-mode power supply to the 36-pin computer interface, the FX35 offered features unavailable on cameras at that time.
The FX35 was originally designed for a motion picture and video camera rental company in Great Britain.
