ADVENTURES WITH MOTION PICTURES
PERILOUS AND EXCITING TIMES IN OBTAINING MOTION PICTURES.--HOW
THE MACHINE CAME TO BE INVENTED, AND THE NEWEST DEVELOPMENTS IN
CINEMATOGRAPHY
With a clear understanding of the mechanism of the various
motion-picture machines in mind, we are free to go on with the
scientist and our young friend to the exciting times experienced by
actors and photographers in making the pictures that delight people
all over the world. First, however, let us briefly look back over
the history of the art, for there is nothing more interesting than
to follow up the experiments upon which Thomas A. Edison based his
invention of the original cinematograph or kinetoscope.
Long ago, even before Edison was born, scientists tinkered with
devices that would picture apparent motion, but they were rude
attempts and little progress was made for many years. The first man
to take a decisive step toward practical cinematography was Edward
(or Eadweard) Muybridge, a photographer who lived in Oakland, Cal.;
so he is rightly called the father of motion pictures.
Muybridge had been experimenting with snapshot cameras, as in those
days instantaneous photography with wet plates was comparatively
new, and, being something of an artist as well as a photographer, he
decided that snapshot photographs of animals and men while running,
jumping, and walking would greatly aid artists in transferring to
their canvases the exact positions of the figures they wished to
paint. In 1872 the people of California were considerably excited
over the feat of Governor Leland Stanford's trotting horse Occident,
which was the first racer west of the Rocky Mountains to make a mile
in two minutes and twenty seconds, and the Governor was having him
photographed on every occasion.
Governor Stanford also wagered that at one time during the trotter's
stride all four feet were off the ground. Muybridge suggested his
plan for photographing the animal's every movement, while running,
trotting or walking, as a means of settling the bet, and the
Governor, very much pleased, gave him free access to the stables and
race course.
The photographer built a studio at the course and systematically
went to work. First, he built a high fence along the track and had
it painted white. Then he securely mounted twenty-four cameras side
by side along the opposite side of the course and stretched thin
silk threads from the shutter of each camera across the track
about the height of the horse's knees. Occident was then led out
and ridden along the course so that he would pass between the white
background and twenty-four cameras. As he came to each silk thread
his legs broke it and opened the shutter of the camera to which it
was attached. Thus the animal photographed himself twenty-four times
as he passed over the track and showed that Governor Stanford's
contention regarding his movements was correct.
Laid in consecutive order in which the photographs were taken, each
picture showed a different stage of the horse's movements, and if the
series of photographs was held together and riffled over the thumb,
so that each one would be visible for just the fraction of a second,
the impression received, thanks to the persistence of vision, was
that of a horse in motion. When Muybridge went to Paris the year
after taking the photographs of Governor Stanford's horse he received
a warm welcome from some of the greatest French painters of the day.
He gave several exhibits of his photographs, but carried the work no
farther.
Almost one hundred years before this, several brilliant Frenchmen
were groping in the darkness for some way of showing motion by
means of pictures, and brought forth a device known as the "Wheel
of Life," or the Zoetrope. It was simply an enclosed cylinder, and
upon the inner lower face, which was free to rotate, were placed
a series of pictures showing the stages of some simple animation,
in sequence, such as two children seesawing, or a child swinging.
The upper surface was pierced with long, narrow slits, and when one
looked through the slits, and the lower surface with the pictures on
it was rotated, one actually saw only one picture at a time, but as
they passed before the eyes the appearance was of motion. Various
improvements on this idea were made, and silhouette paintings even
were thrown on a screen so as to give an illusion of motion.
The development of photography was necessary, however, before motion
pictures ever could be a success. About the time Muybridge took his
pictures the old wet plate was superseded by the dry plate we know
to-day, and scientists began the search for some material from which
they could make film base.
Before the invention of films, motion pictures, as they were known
at that time, were used chiefly by scientists in trying to analyze
motion which cannot be traced by the human eye. Among the leaders in
this work was the French scientist Dr. E. J. Marey, who studied the
flight of birds and the movements of animals and men so carefully
that he wrote a book entitled "Movement," which is still used by
authorities in scientific research.
Doctor Marey set up another camera at the Physiological Station
in Paris with which he and his associates made pictures of great
scientific value. Those were the days of the early experiment with
flying machines, as will be remembered from Chapter II, and the
French inventors made careful studies of Marey's pictures of bird
flight.
Doctor Marey's stationary camera was a simple bellows type which
took an exceptionally wide plate. The shutter, which was operated
by a crank, was a disk with slits in it, so that as it turned
it intermittently admitted and shut off the light. Thus, as a
white-clothed figure passed a dead-black background, in front of the
camera, the various stages of its movements in the course of its trip
from one side of the camera's focus to the other were faithfully
recorded on the plate, each slit making an exposure of the image on
a different section of the plate, showing the figure in a different
position.
Many machines that were merely developments of the old zoetrope
were brought out both in the United States and Europe, but the
greatest obstacle to their success was that they were peep-hole
machines of the kind that flourished in penny arcades a few years
ago, rather than devices for throwing pictures on a screen so that
a large number of persons could see at the same time. In general,
these old-fashioned "moving-picture" machines were simply cabinets
in which were mounted a series of transparencies made from pictures
representing the stages of some simple animation. An electric light
illuminated the transparencies and they were rotated so that one
picture at a time was seen. In some of the more improved "wheels of
life," such as were shown in this country, the transparencies in
consecutive order were mounted on a hub like the spokes of a wheel
and were rotated so that one was seen at a time, very much like the
way Muybridge riffled his horse pictures over his thumb.
All this time two American inventors had been at work on the two
most perplexing problems in animated photography at that time,
and it was through their achievements that the first practical
motion-picture machine was given to the world, just as it was through
the achievements of the Wright brothers that the first practical
aeroplane was given to the world.
These two men were Thomas A. Edison and George Eastman.
Mr. Edison had been working for several years on a motion-picture
machine, but was handicapped by the lack of a practical film.
Mr. Eastman, after years of experiment, produced the film that made
cinematography possible, in 1889.
With a strong transparent film, flexible, and compressible, to take
the place of the clumsy glass plate, Edison was ready to go ahead
with his work, started years before, and in 1893 the crowds at the
World's Fair in Chicago saw the first motion-picture machine. It was
called a Kinetoscope.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
THE CORSICAN BROTHERS--A FAMOUS TRICK FILM
The parts of the twin brothers in this film were acted by the
same man, the illusion being accomplished by the double exposure
trick.]
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Vitagraph Company of America
THE GUILLOTINE
Famous scene from the photoplay based on Dickens's great novel,
"A Tale of Two Cities."]
Simple as it was, thousands and thousands dropped nickels into a slot
and peeped into the hole at the "moving pictures." Some of the boys
who read this may remember machines like it. The mechanism was in a
cabinet in which the pictures were shown on a positive film. This was
about forty feet long and was strung backward and forward inside the
cabinet on a series of spools in a continuous chain. The film passed
before the peep-hole and the pictures were magnified by a lens. They
were illuminated by an electric lamp behind them. A rotating shutter
cut off the light intermittently, so that each picture was seen for
the fraction of a second, and then a period of darkness ensued.
The shutter was the only attempt at intermittent revealing of the
pictures, for the film travelled continuously.
The camera that Edison invented for taking the pictures shown in his
kinetoscope was in principle about the same as the one described
earlier in this chapter, except that it has been wonderfully improved
in mechanical accuracy and photographic clearness. The hardest
problem facing him was the machine which would show the pictures to
a large number of spectators at the same time and do away with the
old peep-hole machine. The idea of the magic lantern immediately
presented itself, but the inventor quickly saw the necessity of an
intermittent motion, for if the ribbon of pictures was drawn before
the beam of light fast enough to give the illusion of motion, each
picture was thrown on the screen for such a short time that it was
too faint to be seen easily. From this it was to Edison but a step
to a practicable projector, and nothing remained but to improve its
mechanical working.
Getting motion pictures is the adventurous part of the business, for
this work requires operators and actors who are athletes and who do
not know the meaning of fear. As pictures of scenery and events are
taken in every corner of the world--in the jungles, in the arctic
ice, on mountains and in deserts, the photographers all can tell
absorbing stories of the strange places and things they have filmed.
In the rough the films are divided into four great general classes,
with several special classes besides. They are scenic, industrial
(showing the working of some great industry like steel making),
topical, and dramatic. Scenic and industrial films are simply taken
at an opportune time, as it is usually not necessary to make any
advance arrangements, though the photographing may incur great risks.
Topical films, such as the pictures of the recent Durbar in India
or some other great current event, are very valuable when quickly
sent broadcast. Of course the photographer must have the same news
instinct that the reporter has to get good topical films, for he
must get there first and deliver his picture "story" to his studio
"editors" as quickly as possible. The photographers often have
hair-raising adventures in taking such films, as the single instance
of the man who went up Mount Vesuvius during an eruption and took a
cinematograph film of it will show.
The greatest variety of experiences, however, is to be found in the
making of dramatic films--that is, motion-picture plays. As every
boy knows, these stories have just as wide a range as the books in a
library. There are plays based on biblical stories, and plays dealing
with Wild West adventures; there are farces, comedies, and tragedies;
in fact, there is no limit to the variety. These plays, however, can
be divided roughly into two classes--that is, those that are produced
on the motion-picture studio stage and those produced out of doors
with the natural surroundings as the stage. The interesting things
about either kind would fill a book the size of this.
In the early days of cinematography only simple shows were attempted,
but now nothing is too big or too complicated or too expensive for
the big concerns making pictures in the United States and Europe.
The first motion-picture studio here was simply a portable, glass
roofed, black walled shed set on a pivot in Edison's yard in Orange,
N. J. It was called the Black Maria and makes an interesting contrast
to the great glass studio at Bronx Park, N. Y., costing $100,000,
in which many of the Edison films are now made. All well-equipped
motion-picture studios these days are fitted out with space for
several stages; a great tank for water scenes, carpenter shops,
scene-painting studios, furniture and other stage properties to
furnish scenes, costumes, stage fittings, and a great corps of
photographers, mechanics, electricians, etc., besides the company of
well-paid actors who take part in the shows.
If a play is to be reproduced in the studio, the architect draws the
plans for the scenery, which are sent to the stage carpenters, who
make the framework and stretch the canvas. The blank scenery is then
sent to the racks, where the scene painters get to work on it.
In the meantime the property man at the studio, just like the
property man at a theatre, has received a list of the things he will
need to furnish the scene and give the actors the paraphernalia
necessary for the carrying out of the play. He ransacks his storeroom
and brings out tables, chairs, pictures, etc. The studio costumer
also checks off her list and sees that she has in her great wardrobe
costumes to dress the characters for their parts.
Meantime the stock company of actors is called together, the
scenario, or plan of the play, is read, and rehearsals begin. All
this part of it and the rehearsing are very much like the work
preliminary to the staging of a regular play, except that the scenes
are arranged, not according to the size of the stage, but according
to the focus of the camera. Each scene is timed to the second so that
the pantomime will tell the story but not tire the spectators with
useless repetition. In rehearsing, the actors sometimes speak their
lines--that is, the words the character would say--just as if they
were to be heard, because it often helps them to give the proper
effect.
Finally, when the stage director has one scene of a play down fine,
after perhaps days or weeks of rehearsing, the photographer is
called. He consults with the stage manager, measures off the distance
for his focus, so that he will get all that is necessary into the
picture, and nothing that is not wanted; and after seeing that every
detail is attended to, the great battery of arc lights overhead is
turned on, and the stage manager says, "GO!"
The photographer begins to turn his crank, keeping one eye on the
stage and the other on his stop watch, and the stage director counts
off the seconds, meanwhile shouting instruction to the actors on
the stage. To an outsider the noises sound like a riot or a street
fair rather than a theatrical performance timed to the fraction
of a second in which the movement of an eye counts in the final
effect. While the camera clicks off sixteen instantaneous snapshots
to the second the stage director calls out the seconds, "One, two,
three. One, two, three. Look out there, don't get out of focus! Keep
toward the centre of the stage. Now, Jim, run in and grab the book
agent--hurry, look angry! One, two, three. That's fine! Hey, there!
shake your fist." And so it goes, until the director rings a bell
or shouts, "That's all!" and the scene is ended. Just as the last
pictures are being run off, a stage hand rushes into the scene and
holds up a large placard with a big number on it. This number is
the number of the scene in the play, and is watched by the men and
women in the assembling room when they gather the various scenes of
a picture play together and join them up in the proper order for one
continuous roll. Of course in the joining the number is cut out of
the picture for projection.
It very often happens that a stage director in his effort to get a
graphic story reproduced on the film takes a great many more pictures
than can be crowded within the limits set for the play. Then with
the scenario in front of him, and a good magnifying glass to bring
out the detail of the pictures, he takes his scissors, just as the
editor takes his blue pencil, and begins cutting from the story the
unnecessary pictures, just as the newspaper or magazine editor cuts
useless paragraphs from the story or article. He must not cut out any
picture that helps to tell the story, and yet he must sometimes cut
out as much as 400 feet of film. He "kills" an unnecessary picture
here, and an unnecessary picture there, and adds up their length
until the story has been reduced to the proper size.
Although spectacles such as the one in the picture representing a
battle on a bridge, and others even larger, are staged in the various
big motion-picture studios, the most exciting work in the filming of
motion-picture plays is out of doors where the natural surroundings
make the stage. A great many of the shows seen to-day are taken this
way, with real trees, real water, real mountains, or real streets
affording the settings. Hence with studios in which battle scenes,
riot scenes, water scenes, and practically any indoor scene can
be reproduced; and also the great outdoors at the disposal of the
cinematographer, there is practically no limit to the subjects that
can be turned into dramatic films for the education and amusement of
the public.
A few instances of the plays made out of doors will serve to show the
limits to which the producers are willing to go to get new shows. The
Edison company, with its big studio in New York and its manufacturing
plant at West Orange, N. J., in the heart of the country where the
Revolutionary War was fought, is reproducing a whole series of
films of American history. These, so far as possible, are made on
the exact spots where the dramatic events occurred. The first of
the series entitled, "The Minute Men," was taken near Boston, where
those historic defenders of liberty fought for their country. In this
film is the famous scene representing the Battle of Concord, which
was taken on practically the identical ground where the battle was
fought. The producers spent a great deal of time in planning this
series of pictures and so far as possible had every historical fact
correct, so that the value of the series from the educational point
of view is apparent. The other titles in the series will show how the
scenes of the Revolutionary War were brought home to the American
people. They included "The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga," "The Battle
of Bunker Hill," "The Declaration of Independence," "The Death of
Nathan Hale," "How Washington Crossed the Delaware," "Church and
Country; an Episode of the Winter at Valley Forge," and so on. The
film dealing with Washington's trip across the Delaware in the ice
was made under conditions as nearly like those of the actual events
as possible to get them. The pictures were taken during the coldest
part of last winter (1912), and the photograph opposite page 193 was
taken while the big scene was being acted out. This was taken in an
arm of Pelham Bay, near New York, and the "scene shifters" had to
work for hours in the bitter cold breaking up the ice and shifting
around the great cakes in order to get the desired effect. Their
success is attested by the picture reproduced here.
The Selig Company, with studios in Chicago and Los Angeles, and big
stock companies of actors in both places also take some wonderful
outdoor films. One of these was a play representing life in the
African jungle, for which a special trainload of actors, and a whole
menagerie of elephants, camels, lions, rhinos, leopards, pumas,
zebras, and other animals, were shipped to Florida, where scenes much
like those in Africa were found. This same company also sent a stock
company and a corps of photographers to the Far North, where a film
play was made amid the Arctic ice.
The Chicago studio of this concern is one of the wonders of
cinematography, for not only has it a great building in which indoor
plays are filmed, but a great land reserve for outdoor productions.
In one place are artificial hills built in the natural forest, and
upon them artificial feudal castles. In another are log cabins for
frontier scenes, and in yet another a barren stretch for other kinds
of scenes. The Los Angeles company is close to the mountains, the
ocean, and the Great American Desert, so that it can furnish material
for an endless amount of exciting Wild West shows.
One of the big films made in Europe was "The Fall of Troy," produced
by the Itala Film Company, which reproduced the great wooden horse,
the walls of Troy, and all other historical details. The great
French, German, and English companies also have made big films.
In the production of plays built on well-known novels the
motion-picture industry has found one of its most successful fields.
Dickens's great novel, "A Tale of Two Cities," afforded the
Vitagraph Company of America, one of its best films, while James
Fennimore Cooper, Alexander Dumas, and even Shakespeare, and grand
opera have been transferred to the cinematograph. From the great
Biblical stories also have been taken films that have been shown by
missionaries, and others interested in religious work, all over the
world. The "Passion Play" was one of the first long films ever shown
and it made a tremendous success.
Big spectacles are always popular and to fulfill the demand two
locomotives have been run together at high speed, the motion-picture
concern buying the machines outright for the purpose and leasing the
railroad for a day; an automobile has been driven over the Palisades
of the Hudson River, ships have been towed out into the ocean and
blown up and whole towns of flimsy stage construction have been built
only to be burned, while the motion-picture photographer recorded
the whole thing on a film. One concern even got permission from the
Los Angeles Fire department during a big fire, and dressing an actor
as a fireman cinematographed him as he heroically rushed up a ladder
amidst the flames and rescued a screaming woman from an upper window.
The woman was an actress who had risked her life to go into the
burning building and be rescued.
Of course the great motion-picture industry has not been without its
fatal accidents. Several times actors playing the parts of men in
difficulty in the water have actually been seized with cramps and
have drowned before the eyes of the spectators. One time a picture
was being taken of a band of train wreckers who were supposed to tie
the switchman to the track. The train was supposed to stop just short
of the man, but it actually ran over and killed him. The pictures
were used at the inquest. During the filming of war pictures there
have been explosions of gunpowder that were not intended, and in the
taking of pictures of wild animals in their native haunts and in
menageries, several photographers have been badly injured.
There is another big and important department in the filming of
motion picture plays in trick photography. Every one who reads
this has seen at the picture-theatre films of things that he knows
perfectly well never could have happened--men walking on the ceiling,
fairies the size of a match acting on a table beside a man, a saw
going through a board, a piece of furniture assembling itself, a man
run over by an automobile, his legs cut off, and then stuck on again
all within a few minutes, marvellous railroad wrecks, and a thousand
other things which could not happen or which the motion-picture
photographer probably never could catch in his lens. All of these
things are done through trick photography.
Double exposure, double printing, and the stop motion are the most
common methods of obtaining these marvellous results. Opposite page
200 is a picture obtained during the reproduction by the Edison
Company of Alexander Dumas's novel, "The Corsican Brothers." This
film was obtained completely by the double exposure. In the story,
the two brothers are twins so much alike that they cannot be told
apart. They act exactly alike, and one even feels what, the other
feels. In making the film the producers decided that it would be
impossible to get two actors that looked enough alike to take the
parts of the two brothers, so the same man acted both parts. In the
picture referred to the brothers sitting at table with their mother
are one and the same actor.
The picture was made by blocking off the whole left half side of the
film with black paper and running it through the camera while the
actor played the part of the brother on the right side of the table.
He was timed to the fraction of a second, and when the exposed half
of the film was blocked off with paper and the unexposed half run
through, he acted out his part on the left side of the table, to
this time schedule. So exact was his work that when the brother on
one side of the table spilled a drop of hot coffee on his hand and
started in pain, the brother on the other side, feeling the same pain
as his counterpart, jumped at exactly the same second.
Another popular trick with the double exposure is a scene showing
mermaids or divers swimming or walking at the bottom of the sea.
First a large brilliantly lighted glass tank is set up in the studio,
stocked with fish and sea life, and photographed. In this kind of a
film the images of the real water are a little under exposed. Next a
space the size of the tank is measured off on the floor with a gray
scene laid flat. On the scene are painted faint lines to indicate
water, and faint outlines of fish, seaweed, etc. Then the actress
dressed for the part of a mermaid lies flat on the setting and goes
through the graceful motions of swimming while the film upon which
the real water pictures were taken, is run through the camera, which
is placed above her with the lens pointing directly downward.
Another example of double exposure is seen in most films where
Lilliputians or small fairies enter into the picture. The parts
of both full-grown human beings and diminutive fairies are played
alike by adult actors, but the difference in their size is obtained
by taking each on the same film at different times. For instance,
suppose a tiny fairy is supposed to appear to a grown man in the
picture play. First the man goes through his act with the camera
photographing him from a distance of about fifteen feet. Next the
fairy goes through her act, bowing, etc., to the place where the man
stood and is photographed on the film from a distance of say one
hundred and fifty feet. The two impressions when printed give a
lifelike effect of a full-grown man and a tiny sprite.
There are numberless films made by the stop-motion system, which
simply means that the stage hands rush in and arrange things while
the shutter is closed. All pictures in which you see a man or a woman
falling off a roof or out of a window and subsequently getting up
and running away are made by this system. The Edison film showing an
automobile going over the Palisades and the driver being hurled to
the rocks below was done with the stop motion. It is very simple. The
cinematographer photographed the approach of the automobile and the
human driver in the seat approaching the cliff at terrific speed. He
stopped his camera, the automobile came to a stop, the automobilist
got out and a dummy was placed in his seat. Then by starting the
automobile a little back of where it was slowed down and stopped, and
photographing, it the public could not tell that it had been stopped,
and that the man in the seat who was hurled to the rocks below with
the machine was a dummy.
A development of this is the picture-a-turn motion, which simply
means that with each turn of the crank of the camera one exposure
is made. By this trick many of the strangest films seen are made
possible. The magic carpenter shop where saws and hammers move
without human aid is an example. It is simply done by stage hands who
rush on to the stage between each turn of the camera and advance
the tools to one more stage of progress. The saw is at the top of
the board, and the hammer is suspended in air (by invisible wires),
etc. In the next picture, the saw is in different position, and the
hammer has descended to the head of a nail. In this way all the
magical effects of inanimate objects taking on life in the film are
accomplished. One of the interesting details is the appearance of
such objects as boards rising from the floor and placing themselves
upon the bench ready for the saw. To do this the operator, keeping
his shutter closed, advances his film a couple of feet and takes a
picture of the board falling to the floor from the bench (pulled off
by an invisible wire). As the film is moving backward, the picture
when exhibited in sequence shows the board not falling but rising
from the floor, and placing itself on the bench in a most mysterious
manner.
Moving the film backward will give many strange results. For
instance, in the plays where a little child is snatched from death
under the wheels of an onrushing train just as the cow-catcher is
upon her, it is no longer necessary to risk human lives before
trains. First, the onrushing train is photographed with the film
moving forward right up to the point where the child is to be
standing when rescued. Then the train is allowed to run on past the
point. It is then backed up at high speed, and the film run backward.
When the locomotive rushes past the spot where the child is to be
rescued her heroic rescuer simply dashes on to the tracks amid the
dust of the receding train and places the child between the rails.
When this section of film, which is taken backward, is fitted into
the rest of the ribbon, and is run through the projector forward, it
looks as if the rescuer rushed on to the track and grabbed the child
out of the way as the train passed by.
Another popular trick by which fairies or ghosts are made to appear
gradually in motion-picture scenes is the one by which the lens
is narrowed down or opened up gradually. If a ghost is to appear,
the hole through which the light strikes the lens is narrowed down
so that only the brightest objects are photographed. The hole is
gradually enlarged so that the light increases and brings out the
figures plainer and plainer, until the ghost is in full view.
A great many good films, such as railroad wrecks, automobile
journeys through the clouds, etc., are made with models, propelled
by invisible strings over skilfully built scenery. The scene of
figures walking on the ceiling is very simple inasmuch as it is only
necessary to set the floor of the stage to represent a ceiling and
take the pictures with the camera upside down. Men and animals can be
made to run up the sides of buildings, simply by laying the scenery
on the studio floor, and photographing the whole thing from above.
[Illustration: A ROMANCE OF THE ICE FIELDS
This film was taken in the dead of winter, and the man is in a
dangerous position on a real ice cake.]
[Illustration: THE SPANISH CAVALIER
A whole motion-picture outfit was taken to Bermuda to get this
photoplay.]
[Illustration: ALL READY FOR A THERMIT WELD
After the little hole at the bottom of the weld, through which
the redhot shaft inside shows, is plugged up, the thermit is
ignited.]
Of the recent developments in cinematography the ones we hear
most about are colour pictures and talking pictures. So far, these
two points which would give the last touch of realism to the scenes
thrown on the screen are in a very imperfect state of development,
but it is safe to say that it will not be very many years before we
will have them duplicating what we see and hear in actual life just
as faithfully as the black and white pictures now duplicate motion.
Science so far has not given us a method of actually taking a
motion-picture negative in the natural colours, such as now can be
taken in still photography, so at first the pictures were coloured
by hand, and later by stencils. This is a difficult and a tedious
undertaking, however, and newer methods have been introduced.
Although there are several systems being worked out the one best
known is the Kinemacolour, which achieved its greatest fame by
showing the pictures of the coronation of King George in England, and
the Durbar in India in colours. The Kinemacolour system is simply one
of photographing and projecting through screens of red and green.
The shutter of the camera is made up of four parts, as follows: a
transparent red screen, an opaque space, a transparent green screen,
and another opaque space. Thus, by the law of colours laid down by
science, when one picture is photographed through a red screen, all
the different tones but red are arrested by the screen, and only the
objects having shades of red are photographed. Next, when the green
screen exposes the next space of three quarters of an inch, only the
objects having green tints are photographed, as all other tints are
arrested by the green screen.
The film itself shows no colour other than black and white, but when
it is projected through a shutter that works exactly the same as
the camera shutter the pictures show the objects in their natural
colours. That is, the alternating pictures taken through the red
screen and shown through a screen of the same colour show all the
tones of red, while the alternating pictures taken through the green
screen and likewise projected through a green screen show all the
tones in which appear green. Thus, with the aid of the persistence of
vision and a somewhat faster system of photographing and projecting,
the tones blend and we see on the screen at the same instant
red-coated soldiers marching past beautiful green trees, and so on.
In order to make this possible it is necessary to give the films a
treatment in a solution that makes them more sensitive to all light
than they would be for ordinary cinematography.
The drawback to the system, as you will have noticed if you have
seen these pictures, is that red and green do not make up all
the _primary_ colours of light. In the direct rays of light (not
reflected light as from a painted wall) the primary colours, from
which all the other tones are obtained, are red, green, and violet,
but it has been found a little too difficult a mechanical process to
use the three screens instead of only two.
The hardest job of the inventors of talking pictures was to work
out a mechanical device that would make a good phonograph and a
motion-picture projector keep step, so that, for instance, the
actor would not be heard singing after the pictures had shown him
close his mouth and leave the stage. Ever since his invention of
the Kinetoscope, Edison has had this very thing in mind, and has
prophesied that in the near future grand opera with motion pictures
and phonographs will be within the means of every patron of the
motion-picture theatre. Edison's idea for obtaining this is to make
the phonographic and the cinematographic records at the same time in
order to insure perfect accuracy of sound and appearance, and his
experiments are meeting with success.
A fairly successful device for giving the phonograph and the
projector synchronism, or, in other words, keeping them in step, has
been worked out by the Gaumont firm of Paris. The phonograph and the
projector are run by two motors of exactly the same size and power,
from the same wires. The armatures of the motors are divided into an
equal number of sections, and each section of one is connected with
the corresponding section in the armature of the other, so that one
cannot rotate for the fraction of a second unless the other rotates
with it. A little switch working on another motor, which works on
a set of gears, will speed up or slacken down the talking machine
so that if the armatures get "out of step" one can be speeded up or
slowed down so that the figures in the pictures will appear to be
talking, laughing, or singing, just as they do in real life.
Another of the recent developments in cinematography is the di-optic
system which aims to show every stage of the motion of figures,
instead of the stage of motion every sixteenth of a second, as is in
the case with the usual apparatus. The di-optic camera is simply two
machines set side by side in one. It takes two loads of film, has
two film gates, and two lenses, but works by turning one crank. The
single shutter revolves in front of the twin lens, so that when one
side is exposing a length of film the other is closed and the film is
advancing. The two rolls of negative exposed in this way record the
complete motions of the figures before the camera. The projector also
is a di-optic machine working in the same manner as the double-eyed
camera, so that when the pictures are thrown on the screen they are
seen practically constantly, instead of every sixteenth of a second,
for while one is hidden by the shutter, another is thrown on the
screen. Also inventors are working on a scheme for taking motion
pictures on glass plates instead of on films.
As was mentioned previously the use of the motion-picture machine
has been very valuable to science, and by adapting the cinematograph
to a powerful microscope a great many motion pictures of the life
of bacteria have been obtained. Also motion pictures are sometimes
made of surgical operations. Carrying this work even farther still,
animated photography and X-ray photography have been joined so that
science now can make motion pictures of the processes that go on
inside small animals.
Owing to difficulties not yet overcome moving X-ray pictures
cannot be taken of the human body at this time. Röntgen rays
cannot be refracted, or collected in a lens. Hence the film for an
X-ray picture must be equal in size to the picture desired. It is
impossible to increase the size of cinematograph films with much
success because of the danger of breaking or tearing them when under
the strain of the rapid course they must pursue through camera
and projector. These facts made it necessary for the scientists
experimenting with X-ray motion pictures to photograph only animals,
but they were greatly encouraged because they obtained some excellent
views of the digestive processes of mice, guinea-pigs, fowls,
and other small animals. The bones of the human hand also were
photographed while the hand was opened and closed.
M. J. Garvallo, who carried on a great many interesting experiments
in France with this type of motion pictures, used a somewhat larger
and more sensitive film than the standard, combined with an apparatus
too complex for attention here. This phase of cinematography,
however, is still in its infancy and we can look for great
improvements at an early date.
Another Frenchman, Prof. Lucien Bull, who was one of Doctor Marey's
assistants in the early stages of cinematography, has made pictures
of the movement of the wings of various insects such as flies,
bees, wasps, etc. To do this he has had to make the fastest known
cinematograph. It was an especially constructed apparatus entirely
unlike the ones described here, but through the agency of an
electrical spark which illuminated the vicinity in which the insect
flew, 2,000 pictures per second were taken, instead of the usual
sixteen.
The very antithesis of the scientific are the uses of the
motion-picture film as an illustrated magazine or newspaper. There
are only a few successful "animated newspapers" in the world, but
the idea will probably spread. The staff of such a publication is
made up of photographers, who are scattered about in every nation on
the globe. There are regular offices in all the big cities which are
ready at a moment's notice to send photographers to any part of their
territory. These photographers get films of all the important news
occurrences of the day, parades, street demonstrations, wrecks, fires
and whatever else fills the newspapers you read every day. The films
are hurried to the main office where they are developed, cut down to
short "items," or allowed to run as long, "stories" just like in a
regular newspaper, pasted together with suitable headlines, printed
in one continuous roll of about 1,000 feet and rushed out to the
subscribers, who are usually theatres with audiences eager for the
"paper."
Such are a few of the many motion-picture activities which have
sprung up in the last few years, and made it possible for us to
see whatever is interesting in any part of the world, on the
cinematograph screen. Beside the professional cinematographers,
there are of course any number of smart boys and young men who are
having fine times with the amateur projecting outfits sold by the big
makers of apparatus. These machines run from mere toys made up for a
little roll of film, already prepared, to projectors with which very
creditable parlour shows can be given.