_Flannery, an Express Agent_ JOHN BUNNY
_Mr. Morehouse_ ETIENNE GIRARDOT
_Clerk in Complaint Dept._ COURTLAND VAN DEUSEN
_Head of Claims Dept._ WILLIAM SHEA
_Mr. Morgan, Head of Tariff Dept._ ALBERT ROCCARDI
_President of Company_ ANDERS RANDOLF
_Prof. Gordon_ GEORGE STEVENS
After a strenuous argument with Flannery, the local Express Agent,
Mr. Morehouse refuses to pay the 30c charges on each of two guinea
pigs shipped him, claiming they are pets and subject to the 25c rate.
Flannery replies, “Pigs is pigs and I’m blame sure them animals is
pigs, not pets, and the rule says, ‘30c each.’” Mr. Morehouse writes
many times to the Express Company, claiming guinea-pigs are not common
pigs, and each time is referred to a different department. Flannery
receives a note from the Tariff Department inquiring as to condition
of consignment, to which he replies, “There are eight now! All good
eaters. Paid out two dollars for cabbage so far.” The matter finally
reaches the President, who writes a friend, a Zoological Professor.
Unfortunately that gentleman is in South Africa, causing a delay of
many months, during which time the pigs increase to 160. At last word
is received from the learned man proving that guinea-pigs are not
common pigs. Flannery is then ordered to collect 25c each for two
guinea-pigs and deliver the entire lot to consignee. There are now 800
and Flannery is horrified to find Morehouse has moved to parts unknown.
He is about to give up in despair when the company orders him to
forward the entire collection to the Main Office, to be disposed of as
unclaimed property, in accordance with the general rule.]
[Illustration: BUNNY FEEDING THE PIGS.]
[Illustration]
Who Made the First Moving Pictures?
~THE FIRST MOVING PICTURE CAMERA~
The first device which produced the motion-picture effect was nothing
but a scientific toy. The idea is almost as old as pictures themselves.
This toy we speak of was called a zoetrope. It consisted of a whirling
cylinder having many slits in the outside through which you could see
by looking into the cylinder a picture opposite each slit. The pictures
were drawn by hand and the artist aimed to place the pictures within
the cylinder in such order that each succeeding one would represent the
next successive motion of any moving object in making a movement as
near as he could draw it; when the cylinder was whirled with the slits
on a level with the eye, the effect produced was of a continuous moving
picture.
A great many devices were produced as a result of this toy for
presenting the effect of pictures so arranged, but until photography
was invented no way was found for making the pictures to be viewed
except such as were drawn by artists. But when photography was
developed it was possible to get actual successive photographs.
The greatest difficulty was found in taking photographs in such
quick succession that all of the motions in the moving object were
taken without any skipping. This difficulty was for the first time
successfully overcome by Muybridge in 1877. He arranged a row of
twenty-four cameras with string trigger shutters, the string of each
shutter being stretched across a race track. A moving horse approaching
down the track broke the strings as he came to them, thus operating
each of the cameras in turn in quick succession and securing a series
of pictures of the moving horse within a very short time. There were
twenty-four pictures to this film when reproduced in the devices then
known for projecting pictures, and this method required one camera for
each section of the picture produced. Of course, the length of the
series was thus limited greatly.
About ten years later Le Prince arranged what he called a multiple
camera. This was as a matter of fact a battery of sixteen automatically
reloading cameras in which strips of film were used. Each of the
sixteen cameras took a picture in turn and then automatically brought
another strip of the film into position, so that camera number one took
the seventeenth picture, the twenty-third, the forty-ninth, etc., and
each of the other cameras took their various pictures in turn. With
this camera a film of any required length could be produced.
The Le Prince camera was therefore the real parent from which
the modern motion-picture camera sprang. The first really modern
motion-picture camera was built in a single case with a battery of
sixteen separate lenses and sixteen shutters. These were operated by
turning a crank. The pictures were taken on four strips of film. When
the crank was turned the exposure was made to each of the sixteen
lenses in succession, and when the series was completed the films
were cut apart and pasted together in a single strip of film, the
pictures themselves being arranged in the proper order. The principal
development of this camera, as found in the present method of making
motion pictures, is the invention of the flexible film negatives; the
transparent support for the print which permits the pictures to be
projected in enlarged form upon a screen; and the system of holes in
the margin of the film by which the film is held in perfect alignment
for projecting the pictures.
But a few years ago, then, the motion picture was a child’s toy. To-day
it forms the basis for not only a very large and profitable business
for many people, but a source of amusement and education to millions
of people at reasonable prices. To-day the motion-picture business is
regarded as one of the world’s greatest industries.
No corner of the world is so far remote but the motion-picture man
finds his way there, either as an exhibitor or as a producer. Nothing
happens in the world to-day but the motion-picture man with his
camera is on the job if it is a happening that can be preserved in
motion pictures and worthy of that. The dethronement of kings and the
inaugurations of presidents are all alike to him. If there is a war, he
is found in all parts of the field, and is the first to see the parade
when there is a peace jubilee. Disasters, horrors, heroes and criminals
pass before his lens and he gives us a moving panorama of everything
that is interesting, in nature, in real life, and in fiction.
Taking Motion Pictures a Simple Operation.
Motion-picture photography is mechanically simple and the projection of
the pictures on the screen was made possible by the improvement in dry
plates which made instantaneous photography successful, together with
the invention of the process of using celluloid films for negatives.
Motion pictures consist of a series of photographs made rapidly and
then projected rapidly on the screen. In this way one picture follows
another so quickly that the change from one picture to another is
not noticed and the movements and actions of the persons or things
photographed are reproduced in a life-like manner.
Is the Hand Quicker Than the Eye?
There is no question that the hand can be moved so quickly that the
eye cannot detect the movement. This is proved by the motion picture
when projected on the screen. In moving pictures the quickness of
the machine deceives the eye and the transition from one picture to
another is done so rapidly that the change is not seen and the apparent
movement is continuous and unbroken.
The film made by the motion picture is a “negative” in which the colors
are reversed, the blacks being white and the whites black, exactly as
in still photography. The film used in the projection machine is a
“positive,” in which the lights and shadows have their proper values.
The principle and process is exactly the same as in making lantern
slides and window transparencies.
Does the Film Move Continuously?
In making the negative for the motion picture the film does not move
forward regularly, but it goes by jumps. It is absolutely still at the
moment of exposure. The same is true in projecting the picture on the
screen. In most projection machines the film is stationary three times
as long as it is in motion, though in some machines the proportion is
one in six. In the taking of the picture, the film is really stationary
one-half of the time. As pictures are usually projected at the rate
of fourteen or sixteen to the second, this means that each separate
picture appears on the screen three-fourths of one-sixteenth of a
second, or three-sixty-fourths of a second, and
How Are Freak Pictures Made?
Freak pictures are usually the result of clever manipulation of the
camera or the film. Articles or individuals can be made to instantly
disappear by stopping the camera while the article is removed or the
person walks off the stage, the other characters holding their pose
until the camera is again put in motion. In some films in which a
person is thrown from a height or is apparently crushed under a steam
roller the effect is gained by the live person walking away after the
camera is stopped and a dummy substituted to undergo the death penalty.
By projecting the picture at a faster rate than it was taken,
excruciatingly comic scenes are sometimes devised. An automobile going
ten miles an hour, by speeding up the projection machine, may be made
to apparently move at a hundred miles an hour, and by increasing in
the same way the apparent speed of persons dodging the demoniac auto
exceedingly ludicrous effects are had.
By mechanical means in combining two or more negatives into one
positive a man can be shown fencing with himself or even cutting his
own head off.
Pictures by courtesy of the Vitagraph Company.
[Illustration: HOW RUBBER TIRES ARE MADE