MOTION PICTURES
THE preceding chapters have treated of Edison in various aspects as an
inventor, some of which are familiar to the public, others of which are
believed to be in the nature of a novel revelation, simply because no
one had taken the trouble before to put the facts together. To those
who have perhaps grown weary of seeing Edison's name in articles of
a sensational character, it may sound strange to say that, after all,
justice has not been done to his versatile and many-sided nature; and
that the mere prosaic facts of his actual achievement outrun the wildest
flights of irrelevant journalistic imagination. Edison hates nothing
more than to be dubbed a genius or played up as a "wizard"; but this
fate has dogged him until he has come at last to resign himself to it
with a resentful indignation only to be appreciated when watching
him read the latest full-page Sunday "spread" that develops a casual
conversation into oracular verbosity, and gives to his shrewd surmise
the cast of inspired prophecy.
In other words, Edison's real work has seldom been seriously discussed.
Rather has it been taken as a point of departure into a realm of fancy
and romance, where as a relief from drudgery he is sometimes quite
willing to play the pipe if some one will dance to it. Indeed, the
stories woven around his casual suggestions are tame and vapid alongside
his own essays in fiction, probably never to be published, but which
show what a real inventor can do when he cuts loose to create a new
heaven and a new earth, unrestrained by any formal respect for existing
conditions of servitude to three dimensions and the standard elements.
The present chapter, essentially technical in its subject-matter, is
perhaps as significant as any in this biography, because it presents
Edison as the Master Impresario of his age, and maybe of many following
ages also. His phonographs and his motion pictures have more audiences
in a week than all the theatres in America in a year. The "Nickelodeon"
is the central fact in modern amusement, and Edison founded it. All that
millions know of music and drama he furnishes; and the whole study of
the theatrical managers thus reaching the masses is not to ascertain the
limitations of the new art, but to discover its boundless possibilities.
None of the exuberant versions of things Edison has not done could
endure for a moment with the simple narrative of what he has really done
as the world's new Purveyor of Pleasure. And yet it all depends on
the toilful conquest of a subtle and intricate art. The story of the
invention of the phonograph has been told. That of the evolution of
motion pictures follows. It is all one piece of sober, careful analysis,
and stubborn, successful attack on the problem.
The possibility of making a record of animate movement, and subsequently
reproducing it, was predicted long before the actual accomplishment.
This, as we have seen, was also the case with the phonograph, the
telephone, and the electric light. As to the phonograph, the prediction
went only so far as the RESULT; the apparent intricacy of the problem
being so great that the MEANS for accomplishing the desired end
were seemingly beyond the grasp of the imagination or the mastery of
invention.
With the electric light and the telephone the prediction included not
only the result to be accomplished, but, in a rough and general way,
the mechanism itself; that is to say, long before a single sound was
intelligibly transmitted it was recognized that such a thing might be
done by causing a diaphragm, vibrated by original sounds, to communicate
its movements to a distant diaphragm by a suitably controlled electric
current. In the case of the electric light, the heating of a conductor
to incandescence in a highly rarefied atmosphere was suggested as a
scheme of illumination long before its actual accomplishment, and
in fact before the production of a suitable generator for delivering
electric current in a satisfactory and economical manner.
It is a curious fact that while the modern art of motion pictures
depends essentially on the development of instantaneous photography,
the suggestion of the possibility of securing a reproduction of animate
motion, as well as, in a general way, of the mechanism for accomplishing
the result, was made many years before the instantaneous photograph
became possible. While the first motion picture was not actually
produced until the summer of 1889, its real birth was almost a century
earlier, when Plateau, in France, constructed an optical toy, to which
the impressive name of "Phenakistoscope" was applied, for producing an
illusion of motion. This toy in turn was the forerunner of the Zoetrope,
or so-called "Wheel of Life," which was introduced into this country
about the year 1845. These devices were essentially toys, depending for
their successful operation (as is the case with motion pictures) upon
a physiological phenomenon known as persistence of vision. If, for
instance, a bright light is moved rapidly in front of the eye in a dark
room, it appears not as an illuminated spark, but as a line of fire;
a so-called shooting star, or a flash of lightning produces the same
effect. This result is purely physiological, and is due to the fact
that the retina of the eye may be considered as practically a sensitized
plate of relatively slow speed, and an image impressed upon it remains,
before being effaced, for a period of from one-tenth to one-seventh of
a second, varying according to the idiosyncrasies of the individual and
the intensity of the light. When, therefore, it is said that we should
only believe things we actually see, we ought to remember that in almost
every instance we never see things as they are.
Bearing in mind the fact that when an image is impressed on the human
retina it persists for an appreciable period, varying as stated,
with the individual, and depending also upon the intensity of the
illumination, it will be seen that, if a number of pictures or
photographs are successively presented to the eye, they will appear as
a single, continuous photograph, provided the periods between them are
short enough to prevent one of the photographs from being effaced before
its successor is presented. If, for instance, a series of identical
portraits were rapidly presented to the eye, a single picture would
apparently be viewed, or if we presented to the eye the series
of photographs of a moving object, each one representing a minute
successive phase of the movement, the movements themselves would
apparently again take place.
With the Zoetrope and similar toys rough drawings were used for
depicting a few broadly outlined successive phases of movement, because
in their day instantaneous photography was unknown, and in addition
there were certain crudities of construction that seriously interfered
with the illumination of the pictures, rendering it necessary to make
them practically as silhouettes on a very conspicuous background.
Hence it will be obvious that these toys produced merely an ILLUSION of
THEORETICAL motion.
But with the knowledge of even an illusion of motion, and with the
philosophy of persistence of vision fully understood, it would
seem that, upon the development of instantaneous photography, the
reproduction of ACTUAL motion by means of pictures would have followed,
almost as a necessary consequence. Yet such was not the case, and
success was ultimately accomplished by Edison only after persistent
experimenting along lines that could not have been predicted, including
the construction of apparatus for the purpose, which, if it had not been
made, would undoubtedly be considered impossible. In fact, if it were
not for Edison's peculiar mentality, that refuses to recognize anything
as impossible until indubitably demonstrated to be so, the production of
motion pictures would certainly have been delayed for years, if not for
all time.
One of the earliest suggestions of the possibility of utilizing
photography for exhibiting the illusion of actual movement was made by
Ducos, who, as early as 1864, obtained a patent in France, in which
he said: "My invention consists in substituting rapidly and without
confusion to the eye not only of an individual, but when so desired of a
whole assemblage, the enlarged images of a great number of pictures when
taken instantaneously and successively at very short intervals....
The observer will believe that he sees only one image, which changes
gradually by reason of the successive changes of form and position of
the objects which occur from one picture to the other. Even supposing
that there be a slight interval of time during which the same object was
not shown, the persistence of the luminous impression upon the eye
will fill this gap. There will be as it were a living representation of
nature and . . . the same scene will be reproduced upon the screen with
the same degree of animation.... By means of my apparatus I am enabled
especially to reproduce the passing of a procession, a review of
military manoeuvres, the movements of a battle, a public fete, a
theatrical scene, the evolution or the dances of one or of several
persons, the changing expression of countenance, or, if one desires,
the grimaces of a human face; a marine view, the motion of waves,
the passage of clouds in a stormy sky, particularly in a mountainous
country, the eruption of a volcano," etc.
Other dreamers, contemporaries of Ducos, made similar suggestions; they
recognized the scientific possibility of the problem, but they were
irretrievably handicapped by the shortcomings of photography. Even when
substantially instantaneous photographs were evolved at a somewhat
later date they were limited to the use of wet plates, which have to be
prepared by the photographer and used immediately, and were therefore
quite out of the question for any practical commercial scheme. Besides
this, the use of plates would have been impracticable, because the
limitations of their weight and size would have prevented the taking
of a large number of pictures at a high rate of speed, even if the
sensitized surface had been sufficiently rapid.
Nothing ever came of Ducos' suggestions and those of the early dreamers
in this essentially practical and commercial art, and their ideas
have made no greater impress upon the final result than Jules Verne's
Nautilus of our boyhood days has developed the modern submarine. From
time to time further suggestions were made, some in patents, and others
in photographic and scientific publications, all dealing with the
fascinating thought of preserving and representing actual scenes and
events. The first serious attempt to secure an illusion of motion by
photography was made in 1878 by Edward Muybridge as a result of a
wager with the late Senator Leland Stanford, the California pioneer
and horse-lover, who had asserted, contrary to the usual belief, that
a trotting-horse at one point in its gait left the ground entirely. At
this time wet plates of very great rapidity were known, and by arranging
a series of cameras along the line of a track and causing the horse
in trotting past them, by striking wires or strings attached to the
shutters, to actuate the cameras at the right instant, a series of very
clear instantaneous photographs was obtained. From these negatives,
when developed, positive prints were made, which were later mounted on a
modified form of Zoetrope and projected upon a screen.
One of these early exhibitions is described in the Scientific American
of June 5, 1880: "While the separate photographs had shown the
successive positions of a trotting or running horse in making a single
stride, the Zoogyroscope threw upon the screen apparently the living
animal. Nothing was wanting but the clatter of hoofs upon the turf, and
an occasional breath of steam from the nostrils, to make the spectator
believe that he had before him genuine flesh-and-blood steeds. In the
views of hurdle-leaping, the simulation was still more admirable, even
to the motion of the tail as the animal gathered for the jump, the
raising of his head, all were there. Views of an ox trotting, a wild
bull on the charge, greyhounds and deer running and birds flying in
mid-air were shown, also athletes in various positions." It must not be
assumed from this statement that even as late as the work of Muybridge
anything like a true illusion of movement had been obtained, because
such was not the case. Muybridge secured only one cycle of movement,
because a separate camera had to be used for each photograph and
consequently each cycle was reproduced over and over again. To have made
photographs of a trotting-horse for one minute at the moderate rate of
twelve per second would have required, under the Muybridge scheme, seven
hundred and twenty separate cameras, whereas with the modern art only a
single camera is used. A further defect with the Muybridge pictures was
that since each photograph was secured when the moving object was in the
centre of the plate, the reproduction showed the object always centrally
on the screen with its arms or legs in violent movement, but not making
any progress, and with the scenery rushing wildly across the field of
view!
In the early 80's the dry plate was first introduced into general
use, and from that time onward its rapidity and quality were gradually
improved; so much so that after 1882 Prof. E. J. Marey, of the French
Academy, who in 1874 had published a well-known treatise on "Animal
Movement," was able by the use of dry plates to carry forward the
experiments of Muybridge on a greatly refined scale. Marey was, however,
handicapped by reason of the fact that glass plates were still used,
although he was able with a single camera to obtain twelve photographs
on successive plates in the space of one second. Marey, like Muybridge,
photographed only one cycle of the movements of a single object, which
was subsequently reproduced over and over again, and the camera was in
the form of a gun, which could follow the object so that the successive
pictures would be always located in the centre of the plates.
The review above given, as briefly as possible, comprises substantially
the sum of the world's knowledge at the time the problem of recording
and reproducing animate movement was first undertaken by Edison. The
most that could be said of the condition of the art when Edison
entered the field was that it had been recognized that if a series of
instantaneous photographs of a moving object could be secured at an
enormously high rate many times per second--they might be passed before
the eye either directly or by projection upon a screen, and thereby
result in a reproduction of the movements. Two very serious difficulties
lay in the way of actual accomplishment, however--first, the production
of a sensitive surface in such form and weight as to be capable of being
successively brought into position and exposed, at the necessarily high
rate; and, second, the production of a camera capable of so taking the
pictures. There were numerous other workers in the field, but they added
nothing to what had already been proposed. Edison himself knew nothing
of Ducos, or that the suggestions had advanced beyond the single
centrally located photographs of Muybridge and Marey. As a matter of
public policy, the law presumes that an inventor must be familiar with
all that has gone before in the field within which he is working, and
if a suggestion is limited to a patent granted in New South Wales, or
is described in a single publication in Brazil, an inventor in America,
engaged in the same field of thought, is by legal fiction presumed to
have knowledge not only of the existence of that patent or publication,
but of its contents. We say this not in the way of an apology for the
extent of Edison's contribution to the motion-picture art, because there
can be no question that he was as much the creator of that art as he
was of the phonographic art; but to show that in a practical sense the
suggestion of the art itself was original with him. He himself says: "In
the year 1887 the idea occurred to me that it was possible to devise an
instrument which should do for the eye what the phonograph does for the
ear, and that by a combination of the two, all motion and sound could
be recorded and reproduced simultaneously. This idea, the germ of which
came from the little toy called the Zoetrope and the work of Muybridge,
Marey, and others, has now been accomplished, so that every change
of facial expression can be recorded and reproduced life-size. The
kinetoscope is only a small model illustrating the present stage of the
progress, but with each succeeding month new possibilities are brought
into view. I believe that in coming years, by my own work and that
of Dickson, Muybridge, Marey, and others who will doubtless enter the
field, grand opera can be given at the Metropolitan Opera House at New
York without any material change from the original, and with artists and
musicians long since dead."
In the earliest experiments attempts were made to secure the
photographs, reduced microscopically, arranged spirally on a cylinder
about the size of a phonograph record, and coated with a highly
sensitized surface, the cylinder being given an intermittent movement,
so as to be at rest during each exposure. Reproductions were obtained in
the same way, positive prints being observed through a magnifying glass.
Various forms of apparatus following this general type were made,
but they were all open to the serious objection that the very rapid
emulsions employed were relatively coarse-grained and prevented the
securing of sharp pictures of microscopic size. On the other hand, the
enlarging of the apparatus to permit larger pictures to be obtained
would present too much weight to be stopped and started with the
requisite rapidity. In these early experiments, however, it was
recognized that, to secure proper results, a single camera should be
used, so that the objects might move across its field just as they
move across the field of the human eye; and the important fact was
also observed that the rate at which persistence of vision took place
represented the minimum speed at which the pictures should be obtained.
If, for instance, five pictures per second were taken (half of the time
being occupied in exposure and the other half in moving the exposed
portion of the film out of the field of the lens and bringing a new
portion into its place), and the same ratio is observed in exhibiting
the pictures, the interval of time between successive pictures would
be one-tenth of a second; and for a normal eye such an exhibition would
present a substantially continuous photograph. If the angular movement
of the object across the field is very slow, as, for instance, a distant
vessel, the successive positions of the object are so nearly coincident
that when reproduced before the eye an impression of smooth, continuous
movement is secured. If, however, the object is moving rapidly across
the field of view, one picture will be separated from its successor to a
marked extent, and the resulting impression will be jerky and unnatural.
Recognizing this fact, Edison always sought for a very high speed, so as
to give smooth and natural reproductions, and even with his experimental
apparatus obtained upward of forty-eight pictures per second, whereas,
in practice, at the present time, the accepted rate varies between
twenty and thirty per second. In the efforts of the present day
to economize space by using a minimum length of film, pictures are
frequently taken at too slow a rate, and the reproductions are therefore
often objectionable, by reason of more or less jerkiness.
During the experimental period and up to the early part of 1889, the
kodak film was being slowly developed by the Eastman Kodak Company.
Edison perceived in this product the solution of the problem on which he
had been working, because the film presented a very light body of tough
material on which relatively large photographs could be taken at rapid
intervals. The surface, however, was not at first sufficiently sensitive
to admit of sharply defined pictures being secured at the necessarily
high rates. It seemed apparent, therefore, that in order to obtain
the desired speed there would have to be sacrificed that fineness
of emulsion necessary for the securing of sharp pictures. But as was
subsequently seen, this sacrifice was in time rendered unnecessary. Much
credit is due the Eastman experts--stimulated and encouraged by Edison,
but independently of him--for the production at last of a highly
sensitized, fine-grained emulsion presenting the highly sensitized
surface that Edison sought.
Having at last obtained apparently the proper material upon which to
secure the photographs, the problem then remained to devise an apparatus
by means of which from twenty to forty pictures per second could be
taken; the film being stationary during the exposure and, upon the
closing of the shutter, being moved to present a fresh surface. In
connection with this problem it is interesting to note that this
question of high speed was apparently regarded by all Edison's
predecessors as the crucial point. Ducos, for example, expended a great
deal of useless ingenuity in devising a camera by means of which a
tape-line film could receive the photographs while being in continuous
movement, necessitating the use of a series of moving lenses. Another
experimenter, Dumont, made use of a single large plate and a great
number of lenses which were successively exposed. Muybridge, as we have
seen, used a series of cameras, one for each plate. Marey was limited to
a very few photographs, because the entire surface had to be stopped and
started in connection with each exposure.
After the accomplishment of the fact, it would seem to be the obvious
thing to use a single lens and move the sensitized film with respect to
it, intermittently bringing the surface to rest, then exposing it, then
cutting off the light and moving the surface to a fresh position; but
who, other than Edison, would assume that such a device could be made
to repeat these movements over and over again at the rate of twenty to
forty per second? Users of kodaks and other forms of film cameras will
appreciate perhaps better than others the difficulties of the problem,
because in their work, after an exposure, they have to advance the
film forward painfully to the extent of the next picture before another
exposure can take place, these operations permitting of speeds of but
a few pictures per minute at best. Edison's solution of the problem
involved the production of a kodak in which from twenty to forty
pictures should be taken IN EACH SECOND, and with such fineness of
adjustment that each should exactly coincide with its predecessors even
when subjected to the test of enlargement by projection. This, however,
was finally accomplished, and in the summer of 1889 the first modern
motion-picture camera was made. More than this, the mechanism for
operating the film was so constructed that the movement of the film took
place in one-tenth of the time required for the exposure, giving the
film an opportunity to come to rest prior to the opening of the shutter.
From that day to this the Edison camera has been the accepted standard
for securing pictures of objects in motion, and such changes as have
been made in it have been purely in the nature of detail mechanical
refinements.
The earliest form of exhibiting apparatus, known as the Kinetoscope, was
a machine in which a positive print from the negative obtained in the
camera was exhibited directly to the eye through a peep-hole; but in
1895 the films were applied to modified forms of magic lanterns, by
which the images are projected upon a screen. Since that date the
industry has developed very rapidly, and at the present time (1910) all
of the principal American manufacturers of motion pictures are paying a
royalty to Edison under his basic patents.
From the early days of pictures representing simple movements, such as
a man sneezing, or a skirt-dance, there has been a gradual evolution,
until now the pictures represent not only actual events in all their
palpitating instantaneity, but highly developed dramas and scenarios
enacted in large, well-equipped glass studios, and the result of
infinite pains and expense of production. These pictures are exhibited
in upward of eight thousand places of amusement in the United States,
and are witnessed by millions of people each year. They constitute a
cheap, clean form of amusement for many persons who cannot spare the
money to go to the ordinary theatres, or they may be exhibited in towns
that are too small to support a theatre. More than this, they offer
to the poor man an effective substitute for the saloon. Probably no
invention ever made has afforded more pleasure and entertainment than
the motion picture.
Aside from the development of the motion picture as a spectacle, there
has gone on an evolution in its use for educational purposes of wide
range, which must not be overlooked. In fact, this form of utilization
has been carried further in Europe than in this country as a means of
demonstration in the arts and sciences. One may study animal life, watch
a surgical operation, follow the movement of machinery, take lessons
in facial expression or in calisthenics. It seems a pity that in motion
pictures should at last have been found the only competition that the
ancient marionettes cannot withstand. But aside from the disappearance
of those entertaining puppets, all else is gain in the creation of this
new art.
The work at the Edison laboratory in the development of the motion
picture was as usual intense and concentrated, and, as might be
expected, many of the early experiments were quite primitive in
their character until command had been secured of relatively perfect
apparatus. The subjects registered jerkily by the films were crude and
amusing, such as of Fred Ott's sneeze, Carmencita dancing, Italians
and their performing bears, fencing, trapeze stunts, horsemanship,
blacksmithing--just simple movements without any attempt to portray the
silent drama. One curious incident of this early study occurred when
"Jim" Corbett was asked to box a few rounds in front of the camera, with
a "dark un" to be selected locally. This was agreed to, and a celebrated
bruiser was brought over from Newark. When this "sparring partner" came
to face Corbett in the imitation ring he was so paralyzed with terror
he could hardly move. It was just after Corbett had won one of his
big battles as a prize-fighter, and the dismay of his opponent was
excusable. The "boys" at the laboratory still laugh consumedly when they
tell about it.
The first motion-picture studio was dubbed by the staff the "Black
Maria." It was an unpretentious oblong wooden structure erected in the
laboratory yard, and had a movable roof in the central part. This roof
could be raised or lowered at will. The building was covered with black
roofing paper, and was also painted black inside. There was no scenery
to render gay this lugubrious environment, but the black interior served
as the common background for the performers, throwing all their actions
into high relief. The whole structure was set on a pivot so that it
could be swung around with the sun; and the movable roof was opened
so that the accentuating sunlight could stream in upon the actor whose
gesticulations were being caught by the camera. These beginnings and
crudities are very remote from the elaborate and expensive paraphernalia
and machinery with which the art is furnished to-day.
At the present time the studios in which motion pictures are taken are
expensive and pretentious affairs. An immense building of glass, with
all the properties and stage-settings of a regular theatre, is required.
The Bronx Park studio of the Edison company cost at least one hundred
thousand dollars, while the well-known house of Pathe Freres in
France--one of Edison's licensees--makes use of no fewer than seven of
these glass theatres. All of the larger producers of pictures in this
country and abroad employ regular stock companies of actors, men and
women selected especially for their skill in pantomime, although, as
most observers have perhaps suspected, in the actual taking of the
pictures the performers are required to carry on an animated and
prepared dialogue with the same spirit and animation as on the regular
stage. Before setting out on the preparation of a picture, the book is
first written--known in the business as a scenario--giving a complete
statement as to the scenery, drops and background, and the sequence of
events, divided into scenes as in an ordinary play. These are placed in
the hands of a "producer," corresponding to a stage-director, generally
an actor or theatrical man of experience, with a highly developed
dramatic instinct. The various actors are selected, parts are assigned,
and the scene-painters are set to work on the production of the
desired scenery. Before the photographing of a scene, a long series of
rehearsals takes place, the incidents being gone over and over again
until the actors are "letter perfect." So persistent are the producers
in the matter of rehearsals and the refining and elaboration of
details, that frequently a picture that may be actually photographed and
reproduced in fifteen minutes, may require two or three weeks for its
production. After the rehearsal of a scene has advanced sufficiently
to suit the critical requirements of the producer, the camera man is
in requisition, and he is consulted as to lighting so as to produce the
required photographic effect. Preferably, of course, sunlight is used
whenever possible, hence the glass studios; but on dark days, and when
night-work is necessary, artificial light of enormous candle-power
is used, either mercury arcs or ordinary arc lights of great size and
number.
Under all conditions the light is properly screened and diffused to suit
the critical eye of the camera man. All being in readiness, the actual
picture is taken, the actors going through their rehearsed parts, the
producer standing out of the range of the camera, and with a megaphone
to his lips yelling out his instructions, imprecations, and approval,
and the camera man grinding at the crank of the camera and securing the
pictures at the rate of twenty or more per second, making a faithful
and permanent record of every movement and every change of facial
expression. At the end of the scene the negative is developed in the
ordinary way, and is then ready for use in the printing of the positives
for sale. When a further scene in the play takes place in the same
setting, and without regard to its position in the plot, it is taken
up, rehearsed, and photographed in the same way, and afterward all
the scenes are cemented together in the proper sequence, and form
the complete negative. Frequently, therefore, in the production of
a motion-picture play, the first and the last scene may be taken
successively, the only thing necessary being, of course, that after all
is done the various scenes should be arranged in their proper order. The
frames, having served their purpose, now go back to the scene-painter
for further use. All pictures are not taken in studios, because when
light and weather permit and proper surroundings can be secured outside,
scenes can best be obtained with natural scenery--city streets, woods,
and fields. The great drawback to the taking of pictures out-of-doors,
however, is the inevitable crowd, attracted by the novelty of the
proceedings, which makes the camera man's life a torment by getting into
the field of his instrument. The crowds are patient, however, and in one
Edison picture involving the blowing up of a bridge by the villain
of the piece and the substitution of a pontoon bridge by a company
of engineers just in time to allow the heroine to pass over in her
automobile, more than a thousand people stood around for almost an
entire day waiting for the tedious rehearsals to end and the actual
performance to begin. Frequently large bodies of men are used in
pictures, such as troops of soldiers, and it is an open secret that for
weeks during the Boer War regularly equipped British and Boer armies
confronted each other on the peaceful hills of Orange, New Jersey, ready
to enact before the camera the stirring events told by the cable from
the seat of hostilities. These conflicts were essentially harmless,
except in one case during the battle of Spion Kopje, when "General
Cronje," in his efforts to fire a wooden cannon, inadvertently dropped
his fuse into a large glass bottle containing gunpowder. The effect was
certainly most dramatic, and created great enthusiasm among the many
audiences which viewed the completed production; but the unfortunate
general, who is still an employee, was taken to the hospital, and even
now, twelve years afterward, he says with a grin that whenever he has a
moment of leisure he takes the time to pick a few pieces of glass from
his person!
Edison's great contribution to the regular stage was the incandescent
electric lamp, which enabled the production of scenic effects
never before even dreamed of, but which we accept now with so much
complacency. Yet with the motion picture, effects are secured that
could not be reproduced to the slightest extent on the real stage. The
villain, overcome by a remorseful conscience, sees on the wall of the
room the very crime which he committed, with HIMSELF as the principal
actor; one of the easy effects of double exposure. The substantial and
ofttimes corpulent ghost or spirit of the real stage has been succeeded
by an intangible wraith, as transparent and unsubstantial as may be
demanded in the best book of fairy tales--more double exposure. A man
emerges from the water with a splash, ascends feet foremost ten yards or
more, makes a graceful curve and lands on a spring-board, runs down it
to the bank, and his clothes fly gently up from the ground and enclose
his person--all unthinkable in real life, but readily possible by
running the motion-picture film backward! The fairy prince commands the
princess to appear, consigns the bad brothers to instant annihilation,
turns the witch into a cat, confers life on inanimate things; and many
more startling and apparently incomprehensible effects are carried out
with actual reality, by stop-work photography. In one case, when the
command for the heroine to come forth is given, the camera is stopped,
the young woman walks to the desired spot, and the camera is again
started; the effect to the eye--not knowing of this little by-play--is
as if she had instantly appeared from space. The other effects are
perhaps obvious, and the field and opportunities are absolutely
unlimited. Other curious effects are secured by taking the pictures at a
different speed from that at which they are exhibited. If, for example,
a scene occupying thirty seconds is reproduced in ten seconds, the
movements will be three times as fast, and vice versa. Many scenes
familiar to the reader, showing automobiles tearing along the road and
rounding corners at an apparently reckless speed, are really pictures of
slow and dignified movements reproduced at a high speed.
Brief reference has been made to motion pictures of educational
subjects, and in this field there are very great opportunities for
development. The study of geography, scenes and incidents in foreign
countries, showing the lives and customs and surroundings of other
peoples, is obviously more entertaining to the child when actively
depicted on the screen than when merely described in words. The lives of
great men, the enacting of important historical events, the reproduction
of great works of literature, if visually presented to the child must
necessarily impress his mind with greater force than if shown by mere
words. We predict that the time is not far distant when, in many of
our public schools, two or three hours a week will be devoted to this
rational and effective form of education.
By applying microphotography to motion pictures an additional field
is opened up, one phase of which may be the study of germ life and
bacteria, so that our future medical students may become as familiar
with the habits and customs of the Anthrax bacillus, for example, as of
the domestic cat.
From whatever point of view the subject is approached, the fact remains
that in the motion picture, perhaps more than with any other invention,
Edison has created an art that must always make a special appeal to the
mind and emotions of men, and although so far it has not advanced much
beyond the field of amusement, it contains enormous possibilities for
serious development in the future. Let us not think too lightly of the
humble five-cent theatre with its gaping crowd following with breathless
interest the vicissitudes of the beautiful heroine. Before us lies an
undeveloped land of opportunity which is destined to play an important
part in the growth and welfare of the human race.