Part 1

[Illustration:

(_Edison_)

INTERIOR OF A TYPICAL MOTION-PICTURE STUDIO]

[Illustration: A-B-C OF MOTION PICTURES

ILLUSTRATED]

BY ROBERT E. WELSH

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK & LONDON

HARPER’S A-B-C SERIES

A-B-C OF COOKING. By CHRISTINE TERHUNE HERRICK A-B-C OF GOLF. By JOHN D. DUNN A-B-C OF VEGETABLE GARDENING. By EBEN E. REXFORD A-B-C OF CORRECT SPEECH. By FLORENCE HOWE HALL A-B-C OF ARCHITECTURE. By FRANK E. WALLIS A-B-C OF HOUSEKEEPING. By CHRISTINE TERHUNE HERRICK A-B-C OF ELECTRICITY. By WILLIAM H. MEADOWCROFT A-B-C OF GARDENING. By EBEN E. REXFORD A-B-C OF GOOD FORM. By ANNE SEYMOUR A-B-C OF AUTOMOBILE DRIVING. By ALPHEUS H. VERRILL A-B-C OF MOTION PICTURES. By ROBERT E. WELSH A-B-C OF HOME SAVING. By LISSIE C. FARMER

16mo, Cloth

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

A-B-C OF MOTION PICTURES

Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published April, 1916

FOREWORD

The marvelous development of the motion picture and the important place it has won in the heart of the entire civilized world have attracted an interest never before attained in so short a time by any form of amusement. The author of this volume has commendably explained the essential facts in the history of this popular art, and the principles allied with it of most general interest to the public at large. It contains answers to questions commonly and constantly asked, and I believe that its perusal will be well worth while.

DAN’L FROHMAN.

INTRODUCTION

Both as a form of entertainment and as an educational force the motion picture now merits consideration in the front rank of the world’s activities. Conservative estimates state that twelve million persons attend the picture theaters of the United States every day. Were figures available for Europe they could not add any to the amazement of those who remember that the motion picture’s strides to its present popularity have been taken in a period of less than twenty years.

Perhaps it is because of the rapidity of its growth that the art is still a mystery to the layman. In this book the author has set himself the task of answering the hundred and one questions that must occur frequently to followers of the motion picture. In a logical manner every stage in the process of making motion pictures is covered, while due attention has been paid to the historical and business phases of the subject. A studied effort has been made to use terms clear to the lay mind. With the task completed, it is the conviction of the author that the reader will find his puzzling doubts replaced by a clear understanding that should add immeasurably to his interest in the motion-picture art.

Additional chapters of instruction in the writing of photoplays have been included in the belief that they will meet a widely-felt need for accurate information and authoritative advice on this aspect of the silent drama. Though the book is explanatory throughout, a chapter of specific advice to the amateur organization desirous of staging a motion picture has been provided. This is an untouched field in works on pictures, and one that we believe is steadily becoming of interest to a wider circle.

R. E. W.

NEW YORK, _December, 1915_.

A-B-C OF MOTION PICTURES

I

HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF MOTION PICTURES

Like practically all other modern mechanical wonders, the motion picture was not the invention of any one man. Rather, the picture as we know it to-day is the cumulative result of the toil and experiments of a score of workers, whose efforts cover over half a century. As far back as 1795 scientists were striving to produce the phenomena of pictures that moved. Succeeding generations all saw experimenters working toward the same object, each contributing his mite of improvement, until, with Thomas A. Edison’s invention of the kinetoscope, in 1893, the day of modern motion pictures dawned.

Though all these seekers for knowledge worked constantly with “pictures of objects in motion” as their goal, it is not possible that any saw in the motion picture the possibility of development to its present important place. Dreamers as they necessarily were, there were no imaginations even among picture-men of the last decade that would dare such wide stretches of fancy. No other artistic or industrial development of history will bear comparison with the motion picture’s leap from humble beginnings to exalted favor.

Let us go back to the lowly antecedents of the present-day giant. In the year 1830, we find a description of the zoetrope, or “Wheel of Life,” which was introduced in the United States in 1845. Though pretending to be nothing more than a toy, the zoetrope embodied the optical principle that is at the basis of all motion-picture work. It consisted of a revolving cylinder, in appearance much like a common hat-box, with the top removed to permit the light to enter. Vertical slots were made equal spaces apart around the upper half of the cylinder, and ten or more drawings showing a particular object in different positions were placed around the lower half of the interior. The cylinder revolved on a vertical spindle, and the spectator, peering through the slots, received the impression of seeing the object on the interior in motion. Simple drawings were used, a favorite being the figure of a dancer.

The similarity between the zoetrope, despite the fact that it did not make use of photography, and the modern motion picture, lies in the scientific principle responsible for the illusion of moving figures. In viewing a particular object there is the briefest delay in conveying the impression from the eye to the brain, so that the latter has the conception of seeing the object after it has actually passed from the field of vision. If, during this fractional part of a second, another picture of the object, in a slightly different position, is presented to the eye, the brain’s sensation will be that of having seen the object move. Were a series of such pictures moved before the eye in rapid succession, the impression registered would seem more like a streak than an object in motion, so that there must be some way of cutting off the vision until the second picture has been moved into the exact position held by the first, and so on. The spaces between the slots in the zoetrope served this purpose, and so rapid was the revolution of the cylinder that the spectator was not aware of having had his vision interrupted, and only received the impression that on a direct line with the eye there was an object which seemed to be moving.

To understand the application of this principle to modern motion pictures let us take a strip of film a foot in length as an example. There are sixteen separate pictures on this piece of film. The screen of the motion-picture theater serves as the fixed point at which the spectator is gazing. One second is required to show this foot of film on the screen, and the spectator is of the opinion that pictures have been shown throughout that entire second. In reality, the shutter of the projection-machine threw each separate picture on the screen for about one thirty-second of a second, and there was an interval of about the same duration while the next picture was being moved into place.

The zoetrope had many successors, as new devices of improvement were discovered. It never became much more than a toy, however, interesting solely because the simple objects shown appeared to move. The next important chapter in motion-picture history concerns the experiments of Edward Muybridge, an Englishman, in 1871-2. Photography had by this time advanced so that it was possible to take pictures with an exposure of less than one-twentieth of a second. Muybridge conceived the plan of using several cameras to photograph an object in motion. Governor Leland Stanford, of California, offered to finance an experiment by which pictures were to be taken of his race-horse, Occident.

Muybridge placed twenty-four cameras along the rail of the California race-track, where the attempt was to be made. Strings were stretched across the track from each of the cameras and adjusted so that when the running horse broke them it would operate the shutter in such a manner that each camera secured a photograph of the animal. Muybridge’s success received world-wide notice and set the scientists of Europe and America to renewed efforts to perfect the motion-picture idea. Some progress was made in the decade immediately following, the French worker, Dr. Marey, being especially successful.

But for many reasons Muybridge’s methods, and those of his followers, were not fitted to practical use. These faults all found their basis in the necessity of using cumbersome glass plates in making the photographs, so the search began for a flexible substance on which pictures could be taken. Gelatine was utilized in many different ways, with little success; preparations of all sorts were tried on paper. Our own Edison was working on the problem in the early eighties, and made many important discoveries regarding pictures, but they were not to see practical application until the invention of celluloid film.

History, in this case found in dusty court records, awards the priority of patent on the process of making motion-picture film to the Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, of Newark, New Jersey. In the years between 1885 and 1887 the clergyman, working independently, and George Eastman, experimenting with his co-worker, Walker, evolved a flexible film of which celluloid was the basis. Eastman’s company began the manufacture of the film on a large scale, and waxed strong, while Goodwin, and later his heirs, were forced to a court battle that did not end until 1914, when a final decision was given in favor of the owners of the Goodwin patents. At present the Eastman Company manufactures practically all of the world’s film supply under an arrangement with the holders of the Newark clergyman’s patents.

When Edison saw that the flexible film was successful in ordinary photography he again turned to serious work on motion pictures, and the Chicago World’s Fair, held in 1893, saw the introduction of his kinetoscope. This was a coin-in-the-slot device and a nickel was the charge at that time to view a picture about thirty seconds in duration. The novelty soon wore off, mainly because the pictures were so short, and Edison placed the kinetoscope on the shelf. Apparently foreign mechanical workers attending the Fair thought more of the apparatus than did its inventor, for in the years immediately following they made many advances on the original model, while Edison had even neglected to patent his invention abroad. Paul in London, Lumière in France, and numerous others were at work, and by 1896 signs of their success were apparent. The result was that Edison again turned to his kinetoscope, and soon he presented an improved machine, the vitascope, which could be used in theaters to show pictures on a screen.

The motion picture was here. It was not long before pictures were being shown in theaters in Paris and London, and in July, 1896, Lumière’s cinematograph was exhibited at the Union Square Theater in New York. Others entered the field, some of the pioneers being Siegmund Lubin, William N. Selig, Henry Marvin, George Kleine, Francis Marion, William T. Rock, Albert E. Smith, and J. Stuart Blackton. These early picture-men were also, by necessity, somewhat capable as inventors, and numerous patents were secured on different portions of the apparatus for making and exhibiting pictures. The next few years of the industry’s history is the tale of numerous patent suits that wound in and out of the courts. The legal battles accentuated the naturally bitter competition to be expected in exploiting the new wonder. But the public had given a hearty welcome to the latest form of entertainment, and the picture-makers waxed prosperous, despite the handicap of internal strife. Theaters in all the big cities were showing the pictures as novelties, and traveling exhibitors were frequent. The “store show,” a picture theater made by remodeling a common store, came into being, and to supply them with pictures exchanges were opened all over the country. These exchanges were the “middle-men” of the picture field, buying the films from the manufacturers, and in turn renting them to the theater-owners.

The patent litigation came to an end in 1908 when a group of the most important companies united to protect their patents, and to distribute their output through a common channel. For a time it seemed that the motion picture was to become a monopoly. But the independents, by co-operation with foreign manufacturers, succeeded in maintaining their position, so that the field is to-day as open to individual activity as any other line of commercial effort.

In the years immediately preceding the organization of this group of the biggest concerns, the picture itself was not progressing. There was no longer any novelty in seeing people in motion on the screen, and the inane subjects shown offered little more than that. While the pessimists, who, as a matter of fact, had never taken a deep interest in the motion picture, were predicting its early demise, the manufacturers set about to find means of renewing the interest. Short dramas and comedies were written, and players drafted from the stage. The public responded readily, and once more Fortune smiled upon the picture-men, never again to desert them.

Until about 1911 the average motion picture was approximately one thousand feet long, and occasionally two or more distinct subjects were included on a piece of film this length. The reels on which the film is wound for easy handling will hold one thousand feet, so that in the United States a picture of this length came to be known as a “single-reel” picture. In England and on the Continent this term has not come into general use, the practice being to state the approximate length of the film in feet or meters. Though Richard G. Holloman’s three-thousand-foot or three-reel production of “The Passion Play,” in 1905, had proved most profitable, the American manufacturers did not heed the indication that audiences would welcome stories longer than one thousand feet. Foreign producers were quicker to see the possibilities of the longer picture, but as recently as 1912 their productions of greater length than two thousand feet were offered without response on the American market. Then came the success of “Quo Vadis?” an Italian multiple-reel picture, exploited in this country by George Kleine, of Chicago, to whom credit must be given for the rise of the long production, with its results in placing the picture in the best theaters in the country. “Quo Vadis?” earned a fortune, and was followed by a scramble on the part of buyers to get the long-neglected foreign productions, while the American manufacturers turned their attention to the staging of multiple-reel pictures.

To-day the short picture, though still forming the bulk of the output, is somewhat neglected, for the quickest way to the public’s fancy seems to lie in the big production that rivals the stage-play. In Europe the long picture is declining in favor, and the picture of one and two thousand feet returning to popularity. In the United States, however, it would seem that the future of the motion picture lies in the production that gives an entire evening’s entertainment, offering, as it does, opportunities for the exercise of artistic effort that are denied by the fifteen or thirty minute picture.

II

THE STUDIO--THE MECHANICS OF PICTURE MAKING AND SHOWING

Picture studios dot the map of the world. One or more will be found in practically every capital of Europe. In France there are three principal manufacturing companies, each with a chain of studios. Germany and the Scandinavian countries likewise produce a number of pictures, while Italy ranks second to France in the European field. For reasons probably finding their root in the stolid British temperament, England has not kept pace with France, Italy, and the United States as a producer of film. Within recent years, however, there have been signs of an awakening on the part of the English which should give to that country a more fitting place in the new art.

Los Angeles and New York, and the territory around these cities, share the honors as picture-producing centers in the United States. Several other large cities have picture studios, however, and the list is constantly being added to by the search for new settings or the enterprise of local capitalists. New York has been found to be ideal as a location because of the variety of scenery, from seashore to crowded city street or pretty rural settings within easy reach. But southern California, with almost continuous sunshine, has become the picture Mecca and it is estimated that over one-half of the world’s picture-supply is made there.

Around New York the studios are almost all solely for indoor work, the producers using the “highways and byways” for their outdoor scenes. In California, however, several of the companies own estates covering many hundreds of acres, and it is seldom necessary to go off the company’s property to take any scene desired. Dotting the estates you will find village streets that would seem to have been transplanted from the four corners of the globe. Well-stocked zoos, that would be the prize possession of many a municipality, are a unique feature of some of these plants. Philadelphia also boasts of a large picture-producing estate of this type. Indoor studios may be recognized by the glass top and sides, an evidence of the desire for sunlight. Mercury lights and electric arc-lights are the means of illumination used for work at night or on days when the sun’s rays do not prove sufficient.

A knowledge of the workings of the motion-picture camera is essential to a clear understanding of the chapters that follow, so it might be well to include that here. You have seen the large box camera employed in the ordinary photographer’s gallery. The motion-picture camera appears very much like an enlarged box camera, with the addition of a crank on the side and a dial to measure the amount of film used. It is mounted on a tripod which is also movable, either laterally or horizontally, by means of cranks. In all essential points motion-picture photography is really continuous snap-shot photography. Celluloid film is used, that for motion-picture purposes being one and three-eighth inches wide, and supplied in long strips, the average length being two hundred feet. By turning the crank at the side the motion photographer is able to get continuous photographs of a person or object in motion, instead of the single picture that the snap-shot photographer gets. As each of these photographs is only three-quarters of an inch high, it will be seen that the cinematographer can take sixteen separate photographs on each foot of film in his camera. This “sixteen” is a cabalistic figure in motion pictures. There are sixteen photographs on each foot of film. For average work the camera-man photographs the pictures at the rate of sixteen to the second, and they are shown on the screen in the picture theater at the same speed.

When the camera-man turns the crank at the side of his camera two independent mechanisms are affected by the operation, the shutter and the device for feeding the film. The shutter is opened to allow the brief exposure of the film necessary to take a single picture, and it is then closed while another three-quarter inch of film is moved into position ready for the next picture. The camera-man continues to turn his crank, thus repeating the operation over and over again until the entire scene is photographed.

The shutter in motion-picture cameras is a revolving disk, in which a “V”-shaped opening is cut, or also the aperture may be formed by two disks superimposed, in which case the operator is able to vary the size of the opening. The operator’s crank is connected by gears to the shutter, which is placed between the lens and the film. The action of the shutter has been explained in the paragraph above. It might be stated here that the exposure of the film is a trifle longer than that which would be allowed by the ordinary snap-shot photographer, since the blurring which results on the picture is indistinguishable, owing to the rapidity with which the photographs follow each other on the screen.

Two light-tight boxes are contained in the camera, one at the top to hold the raw film, and the lower one to receive the film after it has been exposed. Perforations have been made along the edges of the film before it is placed in the camera, the holes being oblong in shape, one-eighth of an inch wide and one-sixteenth of an inch in height. The film-feeding device, which is either of the sprocket-wheel type, which drives the film through, or the claw-hammer type, which pulls it, engages in these holes. The perforations serve a similar purpose in the camera, the projection-machine, and in the process of developing the negative and printing the positives. It will be seen that the perforating, which is done by machinery, must be accurate to the one-hundredth of an inch.

The working of the projection-machine, the apparatus which throws the image on the film onto the screen, is in many ways similar to that of the camera. Or, a simpler comparison, the projection-machine is really the familiar stereopticon, or magic lantern, with the addition of mechanism for feeding the film rapidly before the light and the lenses. In the first place, there is a “lamp-house,” a small cabinet which contains the light, supplied by means of an arc-light, and the condensing lens. The light created by the carbons of the arc, while strong, is diffused in the lamp-house, and it is the purpose of the condensing lenses to concentrate the rays before throwing them on the screen. The pictures are outlined on the screen because of the fact that the figures on the film obstruct light in proportion to their density.

From the lamp-house and the condensing lenses we naturally pass to consideration of the film, and the devices by which it is fed before the rays of light with such accuracy that the picture is always in place on the screen, and with such rapidity and uniformity of speed that the spectator is not aware of the fact that he is really looking at sixteen separate pictures each second. The principle of the operation is similar to that used in the camera. The film passes from a fire-proof magazine above, being pulled out by a sprocket-wheel that engages in the perforations. After passing from these sprockets there is a brief respite for the film, a loop being provided to relieve it so that the pull will not be too great when passing through the film-gate which holds the image in place before the rays of the condenser. It is necessary that the gate hold the film perfectly taut and in alignment, for it can be seen that the slightest fractional deviation would appear great when the image is magnified by the objective lenses onto the screen.