My dear friend Peter Anderson raised an interesting question about the drop-in sidefinder mattes, so I went back and looked at them more carefully. This camera has 2 sets, one marked TV and one unmarked, but probably for feature films. These are transparent acetate slides that have precision cutouts to match the field of view for each of the lenses that are matched to the camera. Each set, which is marked to match the specific camera, includes mattes for 25mm, 30mm, 35mm, 40mm, 50mm, 75mm, and 100mm lenses. The mattes would be installed in a slot in the top of the sidefinder, giving the camera operator the exact field of view that the taking lens would see. Interestingly, many of the old time operators I have worked with preferred drop-in mattes over Mitchell’s adjustable sidefinder. It allowed them to use the image that could be seen through the acetate as a safe zone so they could anticipate when the subject would actually be in frame. The few articles we have found while researching the development of the Fox camera emphasize that the camera was designed with the input of the studio’s cinematographers and camera operators to make this camera as user friendly as possible. Another of the interesting features to be found on the Twentieth Century-Fox Cine Simplex Camera.
