Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

“ It is interesting to imagine the sensations of the sceptic of one hundred years ago, to whom instantaneous photography appeared a chimerical idea, should he be recalled to life to-day and be shown first a procession passing down the street, and a few hours afterward the same procession repeating itself before his eyes upon a screen in a darkened room, with all the semblance of reality in colour and animation. ”

“ It bears its owner into the public highway. The owner is overwhelmed with fright and dismay at the unexpected development, and indulges in frantic gesticulations as the bed canters merrily down the centre of the road, with the passers-by pursuing the unusual spectacle. The mystery of the Travelling Bed is easily explained. It moves for the simple reason that it is pushed from behind by stage hands. These men are concealed from the camera, which merely records the movement of the bed, the alarm of the owner, and the excitement of the crowd. ”

“ The “Marey Institute” is unique, in that it is the only establishment of its class devoted to what might be termed the higher branches of the art in the world. It is fitted with special and complete apparatuses for the prosecution of any especial research in which an experimenter may be interested, so that he can carry out his work under the most favourable conditions. The foremost scientists of the world, who realise in moving pictures more than a means of amusing the public, are members of the Institute, and the results it has achieved are of far-reaching value. ”

“ One factor is all-important to him—time. The stage-manager works on a time-schedule, not of minutes, but of seconds; it must be remembered that every second of time is equivalent to twelve inches of film. A producer will spend five minutes in the effort to condense by five seconds the action necessary for a certain situation.
In what form does the picture play reach the stage-manager’s hands for production? Does the playwright prepare the contribution in detail complete with dialogue and business, as if for the theatrical stage, or does he supply a bare outline? ”

“ Presently a public-house bars the road, but the car, on reaching the obstruction, runs up the wall, to the dismay of a large crowd, and shoots into space. Without a pause it speeds over the clouds, visits the sun, which it circles calmly, and once more swinging into space runs over the clouds until it reaches Saturn. The ring round this planet constitutes an ideal motor track, around which the automobile rushes in mad glee. ”

“ MOTION-PHOTOGRAPHY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FORCE
There remains no doubt whatever that the cinematograph has completely won over the great public—the many millions who are constantly seeking fresh fields of amusement and diversion. Of all the classes that patronise the moving-picture entertainment, the children form the one most open to its influence and most responsive to what it offers them; and it is this well-known impressionableness of the young mind that has set people thinking of the educational responsibility of the moving-picture show. ”

“ When a horse gallops, the sound of its feet striking the road are heard; the departure of a train is accompanied by a whistle and a puff as the engine gets under weigh; the breaking of waves upon a pebbly beach is reproduced by a roaring sound. Opinion appears to be divided as to the value of the practice. Some more cultivated motion photography lovers are opposed to it, on the ground that unless every motion is given its distinctive sound, none at all should be audible; others contend that sound imparts an additional realism to the scene. ”

“ From morning to night the studio-stage echoes the ring of hammers and the shouts of the stage carpenters as they set this scene or strike that. Frowning masonry castles are pulled down, and suburban villas rise up with greater speed than their jerry-built prototypes in bricks and mortar. The numerous dressing rooms are busy hives, where actors and actresses change swiftly from one costume, age, and clime to another, separated from it by centuries. ”

“ Cinematography is dependent mainly upon a bright light; thus the success of a film, at least in Great Britain, is never certain beforehand. When the elements are adverse it is difficult indeed to collect the news. The operator may wait for hours to film a subject, or perhaps he makes his exposures in despair, and with a blind trust in luck. When heavy fogs hang like blankets over the great centres, passing events of importance defy recording, and it is a sheer waste of film to endeavour to secure pictures. ”

“ In Australasia, Canada, India, and the smaller British colonies, the idea of giving the week’s news in animation has met with a remarkably hearty reception, inasmuch as it serves to bring the world’s happenings far more vividly before the public in those remote parts of the world than can be done in a brief newspaper cablegram or a single photograph published in the pages of the illustrated weeklies. ”

“ How can the art of cinematography be brought within the reach of the amateur? This is the absorbing question of the moment. Moving pictures having become so popular, the traveller wishes to secure animated records of the scenes which he has witnessed in foreign climes, to reveal them to his friends, exactly as he saw them, within the home circle. Unfortunately, such an achievement is impossible under existing conditions. The apparatus, both recording and projecting, is expensive; the film is costly; while the problem incidental to the illuminant is not easily solved in the average home. ”

“ They likewise are only a few inches in height, but they increase in size until they assume normal stature. To her astonishment each dancing girl proffers the apprentice a magnificent present. In an instant, as if under the magic spell of a fairy’s wand, she finds herself attired in the rich clothes of a lady of rank, and taking the arm of her admirer—who, by the way, shoulders the bonnet-box—they march off together. The bonnet-box is suddenly dropped and instantaneously becomes a luxurious motor-car. ”

“ Throw upon the screen a series of pictures of an actual journey, and the youngster gleans the facts without the slightest effort. He sees the towering, snow-capped rocks with their precipitous flanks; the melting snow and ice flowing down from the mighty glacier and forming a tempestuous, rushing river; he sees in their natural surroundings the folk of a hundred strange and distant tribes. ”

“ Indeed, commercial cinematography in the true colours of Nature appears to be as far from realisation as a simple process of still-life colour photography. Nature defies the photographic investigator to capture and reproduce the myriad tints and hues in which she is garbed.
We see colour pictures upon the white screen, but with one or two exceptions the tints are the result of the artist’s handiwork. An ordinary black and white film is taken, and then coloured, in the same way that the photographic artist tints his portraits. ”

“ Although the picture palace, with its attractive façade and brilliantly illuminated entrance, is a familiar building in our towns and cities, few people can form any idea of the grip this form of amusement has secured upon the public, of its commercial proportions, or of its rapid expansion. Fifteen years ago there was not a single theatre providing a complete entertainment with a programme of moving pictures purely and simply. ”

“ In order to satisfy one’s self that the semblance of animation is an illusion, one has only to compare the projection of a moving object upon the screen, and its appearance in the camera obscura. In the latter case absolute continuous motion is shown. It may be said that complete animation by photography is quite out of the question with the single camera and projector. How it can be avoided and a more perfect camera obscura effect produced upon the screen is described later. Mechanical ingenuity has not succeeded yet in achieving such a result by means of a single lens. ”

“ To be successful in the production of topical films one must have not only an extensive and well-equipped organisation, but also facilities for working at high pressure. The business, moreover, is speculative to a degree; for the average topical film is little more than a six days’ wonder—many of them are less—and the manufacturer can make a profit only by flooding the market within an hour or two of the occurrence of the incident. Every hour means money, and every day depreciates the value of the film from the showman’s point of view. ”

“ Indeed, there is not the slightest doubt that a thousand pictures will impress themselves upon the schoolboy’s mind, and impart to him more definite knowledge of their subject in one minute than hours of hammering with the aid of text-book and blackboard. Even actual ocular demonstration fails to be so convincing as a projection upon a whitened sheet, where everything immediately concerned is magnified to an extreme degree. ”

“ A thin, narrow ribbon of pictures 40 feet in length is a vastly different thing to handle from a rigid glass plate. Its flexibility presented many perplexing obstacles which had to be overcome. Those who used the old roll film with the snap-shot hand-camera of the early days, can relate pathetic and humorous stories of the trials and tribulations they suffered in passing the awkward length of film through the developing and other baths. When it was unwound from the roller preparatory to immersion in the developing solution, it persisted in buckling and twisting into strange contortions. ”

“ When the scene is flashed back once more, and the bachelor is again seen seated at his table, photographing is resumed of the mirror’s reflected image.
The second stage is cleared again, and we see the man empty the ashes of his pipe upon the table. The débris containing the fairy is again thrown upon the screen in an enlarged form, as if through the magnifying-glass; that is to say, the second stage and its properties are being photographed once more to show the little lady laughing and running among the smoking, half-burnt tobacco. The tobacco is straw and the smoke is steam. ”

“ In a travelling expedition the operator records pictures of what he deems to be sufficiently interesting from various points of view—scenic, ethnographic, historical, or merely anecdotal and humorous. When the films are developed and a trial positive is struck for projection before the powers that be, to receive official approbation and sanction to enter the market, the critics in the private projecting room sometimes fail to see eye to eye with the cinematographer, and deem this and that to be lacking in the essentials which render a film attractive to the public. ”

“ When two or more rivals in a single town are making a common bid for popular favour, the public naturally patronises the establishment which offers the most refined pictures combined with comfort in the seating arrangements. The inferior film is being driven from the better class of cinematograph theatre, where a programme is offered which is varied in character, and of the highest excellence from the photographic, dramatic, and educational point of view, as well as from that of sheer amusement. ”

“ Audiences demand nature and realism, and the producer responds. Instead of improvising a railway station in canvas and battens upon the stage the producer transports his company, lock, stock, and barrel, together with all the properties in motor cars or cabs to an actual station to secure the required results in a natural setting. If a scene is laid in a given thoroughfare, the company is sent thither to act the story.
In the United States the demand for realism has developed almost into mania. ”

“ A visit to a studio-theatre to follow a production from the beginning to the end undeceives him very promptly and thoroughly.
The stage management of a play before the celluloid film is far more exacting than the staging of a play behind the footlights. Situations have to be handled which never develop on the legitimate stage. The picture play is essentially pantomime and the camera is a searching, unequivocal critic. ”

“ Transformations from one scene to another are carried out in a manner that completely eclipse the handiwork of the stage-manager behind the footlights. Success depends to a great degree upon the skilfulness of the operator, because it is imperative that the stop of the lens should be closed and opened equally, in order that the combined exposures upon each successive image should be equal to a single exposure with a full aperture, so as to provide a uniform intensity and brilliancy throughout all the images. ”

“ Scarcely an item of absorbing public interest escapes being recorded. Probably no topical film has created such enthusiasm as that which Paul secured of the “Prince’s Derby” when the late King Edward VII., as Prince of Wales, carried off the blue riband of the British turf. The Alhambra Theatre was converted into a reproduction of the famous course, for the entire audience cheered the moving pictures with as much gusto as if they were following the actual struggle on Epsom Downs, and would not desist until the film had been passed across the screen three times. ”

“ The greatest is the perishable character of the celluloid film, and also of the photographic image upon the emulsion. Both would deteriorate, even if preserved in hermetically sealed cases, with the flight of time, and the chances are if a film were held for one hundred years that it would be found useless when opened at the end of that period.
The question often arises: What becomes of the films? Bearing in mind the thousands of feet of new subjects which are introduced to the market every week, it is but natural to think that there must be an immense accumulation of old subjects. ”

“ Again, he is enabled to witness upon the screen the birth of the common house-fly, and its entire span of existence. He can see how ants work and live, and how the bee manufactures its honey. As a corollary to the matter-of-fact and uninteresting text-book the cinematograph film cannot be excelled. It presents in actual movement what mere words, which have to be committed to memory, seek to convey without any durable result. ”

“ The Reign of Terror and the Life and Times of Napoleon are the melodramatic episodes which offer such peculiar scope to the film play. They make an appeal to popular sentiment, especially to the French audience; the incidents in the career of the Little Corporal never failing to strike a strong emotional chord.
Such productions impose great responsibilities upon the producer, and demand a mastery of stage-craft, both in mounting the scenes and in handling the necessarily large companies of actors and actresses. There can be no consideration of expense; money must be poured out like water. ”

“ The hues stop short at the boundary where green meets blue.
The public has sometimes drawn attention to another defect in colour cinematography. It appears to photograph the subject in a brilliant sunlight, regardless of the fact that sunlight kills colours. Every amateur photographer knows that if he exposes his plate upon a brilliantly lighted subject the tones are hard, everything being practically resolved into an intense white and black, while the leaves of trees appear to be covered with snow. ”

“ The idea of producing apparent animation by means of pictures is by no means new. The origin of the most primitive form of moving picture device is lost in the mists of antiquity; but it is certain that long before photography was conceived animated pictures were in vogue, and constituted a source of infinite amusement among children. The illusion was secured by a simple device known as the Zoetrope or the “Wheel of Life.” It consists of a small cylinder, mounted on a vertical spindle in such a way that it is free to revolve horizontally. ”

“ An American firm required a film of an event which it thought would be of absorbing interest to the American public. It communicated with its agents in London to “get it, and ahead of anyone else.” The outlay was such that the firm could only hope to recoup itself by capturing the entire market for that particular firm. As it happened, only one other firm decided to exploit the same topical subject in the United States. The first firm secured commanding positions for its camera operators, and the films as they arrived were packed and dispatched to New York by special messenger. ”

“ How is Great Britain benefiting from this wonderful expansion? So far as film-play production is concerned, there is every indication that this country will profit now that conservatism is being abandoned. The fiscal position places the English manufacturer somewhat at a disadvantage, but this handicap can be removed entirely by the display of more financial confidence in the film-play producing business, where the law of the “survival of the fittest” is waged to its logical conclusion. ”

“ Every amateur photographer in his earliest days has endeavoured to force the drying of a glass plate after development by placing it before the fire. Invariably the effort ends in disaster. The gelatine melts and causes the emulsion to run all over the plate, producing grotesque results.
In order to produce this bizarre film a primitive apparatus was contrived, consisting of a small tank the back and front of which were cut out to admit pieces of glass. ”

“ This danger in the early days severely menaced the development of the industry, especially since those occupied in projection were careless of the most elementary precautions. The film, after passing through the lantern, fell a dishevelled mass into a basket, where it formed a tangled heap of thin combustible material, as inflammable as petrol-soaked shavings. Celluloid emits a vapour of an explosive nature, and it is always dangerous to use a naked light in its close proximity. Yet custom rendered the operator heedless of the danger. ”

“ As a matter of fact, this double camera and projector actually records and throws on the screen more than the eye sees. The human organ works upon the same principle broadly as the single camera, because the periodical eclipse of the eye by the lid, which is known as “blinking,” interrupts continuous vision, in just the same manner as the shutter of the lens in its eclipsing action. Although the lid falls and rises very quickly so that the interruption of sight is exceedingly brief, a certain phase of movement is lost. This is apparent when a very swiftly moving object passes before the eyes. ”

“ When the camera re-started it revealed the bonnet-box converted, like Cinderella’s pumpkin, into an automobile. Entering the vehicle, the couple drive off to the ball. The process of “stop and substitution,” which has been described already, is carried out from time to time to present sudden transformation effects; the audience sees only the continuity of motion as produced by joining the pieces of film together; and they marvel at the result. The film was produced very cleverly and skilfully, and it certainly ranks as one of the masterpieces of the Gaumont establishment. ”

“ Moving picture palaces are being built and opened on all sides every day. The irresistible force with which the cinematograph is sweeping forward is proved by the enormous quantity of film which is produced. Great Britain is an open market for producers throughout the world, and at the present day something like 150,000 feet of new subjects are offered to the picture palaces every week. ”

“ There is no necessity to acquire perforators, to establish a complete developing room, or to invest in a printing machine. The majority of cinematograph manufacturing establishments undertake to develop negatives, and to supply positive prints ready for projection at a nominal figure. It is far better to entrust the work to a skilled staff, who can be trusted to handle the film successfully, than to attempt to wrestle with unknown difficulties with a serpent-like film 200 feet long, in the murky gloom of the dark room. ”

“ Synchrony between picture and talking machine is dependent upon the operator, and until the latter has become accustomed to the combination, the results are disconcerting. It is no simple matter to keep the hands of the two dials rotating harmoniously. When the film lags behind the talking machine, a pronounced speeding up is requisite to bring the two hands into synchrony. The increased work thrown upon the operator is also far from being a negligible quantity. He has to watch the two dials intently, and cannot centre his mind upon the projector, as he should be free to do. ”