Film reel

“ A film is best inspected by rewinding it slowly from one reel onto another, gripping it with a gentle pressure, and allowing it to run between the fingers. This method will catch all splices and also all split films. ”

“ When the reel of film has all been exposed, it is taken to the dark room, and there developed, just as a small roll from your camera would be. This film is called the negative. From it any number of positives can be made, all depending on the popularity of the subject.
To make positives, the negative film is laid on another strip of sensitive celluloid of the same size. The two films are placed in a suitable machine, and then set in front of a bright light. ”

“ Their comprehension will help to a better understanding of how both the ordinary photographic film, and the film from animated drawings, are made, prepared, and shown on the screen.
As the ordinary phrase goes, any single subject in film form is spoken of as a reel; but in strict trade usage the word means a length of one thousand feet. As it is generally reckoned, sixty feet of film pass through the projecting machine every minute. ”

“ In the exhibition of a five-reel subject about seventy-five minutes are occupied in running the five thousand feet of film through the projecting machine, and the time for the showing of one, two, six or seven reel subjects may be calculated accordingly—an average of about fifteen minutes to each reel. ”

“ KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY, a photoplay in 10 reels by Loew’s. © 12Feb45; L13140. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. (PWH) ; 14Feb72; R523349.
THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM, a photoplay in 14 reels by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. © 14Dec44; L13126. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. (PWH) ; 17Jan72; R521461.
KICKAPOO JUICE, a photoplay in 1 reel by Screen Gems. © 23Feb45; L13312. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (PWH) ; 19May72; R529218.
KILLER AT LARGE. See
BRENDA STARR, REPORTER. Chap. no. 8.
KINGS OF THE FAIRWAY, a motion picture in 1 reel by Columbia Pictures Corp. © 2Feb45; M16078. ”

“ In the first place there has to be a play to be "filmed," or taken. It may be a parlor drama an outdoor scene—anything from a burning building to a flood. With the play decided on, the actors and actresses for the different parts are selected and carefully rehearsed. This is necessary as the camera is instantaneous and one false move or gestures may spoil the film.
Next comes the selection of the location for the various scenes. Indoor ones are comparatively easy, for the scenic artist can build almost anything. ”

“ Proceeding upon the assumption that a photoplay is a screen drama which must be unrolled before an audience within a specified time limit, it is clearly necessary to give concentrated attention to the important matter of beginning the story. We are dealing with a situation—a dramatic crisis or a correlated series of situations or dramatic crises. The start must not be too far in advance of the climax, for in that case there will not be sufficient time or film footage to logically and consecutively arrive at such climax. ”

“ The cinema began with cowboy drama, with silly pursuits on horseback, by motor-car and by train, but that was only because, for the first time, movement could be reproduced. The reproduction of movement was a new pleasure, and so the mob clamoured for it. Carry yourself back to your first film and, be you as highbrowed as you like, you will not deny that you enjoyed those febrile races, those people falling out of windows, crashing through ceilings, the violent opening and shutting of doors, the rush of flying crockery. ”

“ Some day they will realize that the public really loves simple drama more than they do sensational spectacle.
3. THE MANUSCRIPT (a) Technique—In fiction the deeds need only be probable; in photodrama they must be actually performable, because the audience must see them. For the photoplay must show whatever is vital. Keep your captions down to 15 words at the most, and your inserts to 20, as every word means a foot of film. Tell how your characters shall act, leave to the director where and how they enter and exit. ”

“ Development.
The modern cinematograph was rendered possible by the invention in 1890 of the celluloid roll film, on which serial pictures are [23] impressed by instantaneous photography; a long sensitised film being moved across the focal plane of a camera and exposed intermittently. For an hour’s exhibition 50,000 to 165,000 pictures are needed. To regulate the feed in the lantern a hole is punched in the film for each picture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And even those who select this volume as their first venture in becoming acquainted with our heroines must well know how the film pictures look from the front of the screen.
To the uninitiated I might say that in making picture plays a company, somewhat like a regular theatrical organization, is gotten together. The play is decided upon, but instead of the acts taking place before an audience they are enacted before a camera and a man who acts as director, or manager. ”

“ A complete script is composed of three parts: Synopsis, Cast of Characters, and Scenario, or Continuity—and sometimes a fourth part, called the Scene-Plot.
Serial: A photoplay serial, as the name implies, is a film totaling, say, 30,000 feet in length, and divided into fifteen "episodes," each episode being made up of two reels, or parts—2,000 feet of film. The production covers one long, continued story, each episode planned to end with a thrilling climax, with a "To be continued in our next," so to speak, tail-piece. ”

“ Once the camera starts to “grind” you are using film, and if everything is not perfect you are either wasting money on scenes that will have to be retaken, or [Pg 118] else you are weakening the picture should the faults be overlooked. In rehearsing, the director must not only assure himself that the players are capably interpreting the emotions called for by the story, but he must also see that there is no danger of their stepping outside the lines of the camera’s vision in the excitement of the action after photography has started. ”

“ The camera through which one looked was simply a stereoscopic glass directed on a double film screen, and the pads were the telephone receivers through which one heard the voices of the actors, which seemed to come from their mouths. The plays themselves were most dramatic in character, since their object was to endue the spectator with a highly disturbing emotion in a minimum of time. They were therefore very allusive, and I should have found it hard to understand many of them if the gestures and tones of the actors had not been profoundly striking. ”

“ But the ‘make-up’ of the motion-picture theater screen differs in that only one thing may be presented at a time. If an advertising film is unfolded, you have no other alternative in the darkened hall than to give it your attention. ”

“ With fiction construction and expression, the photoplay has much in common. The short photoplay, as we have pointed out, is expanded to practically the same degree as the short story, while the multiple-reel, or long photoplay, has within its scope the complete and satisfactory dramatization of the novel or many-volumed literary work, thus enriching the dramatic field with new forms of surpassing material which must forever have been denied millions of people who abhor reading even the glorious treasures of fiction literature. ”

“ When a piece of fiction—no matter whether it be a short story, a serial or a novel—appears, an endeavor should be made to arrange with a film concern that the photoplay should appear simultaneously with it in fiction form. ”

“ If the topical film brings a glimpse of the great world into remote and unsettled corners of the earth, the scenic film, on the other hand, does a like service for the dweller in cities; it brings sweeping panoramas of nature, magnificent and unfamiliar landscapes before his eyes. He has the joys of travel without stirring from his comfortable chair in the cinematograph theatre! In fact, the best scenic film is that taken from the front of a railway locomotive, with the camera and operator mounted upon the cow-catcher or its equivalent. ”

“ After a rehearsal or two the camera-man will time the scene for the director so that he can tell how much film it will use, and if it is not in agreement with the estimate allowed in the scenario, make the necessary changes. The camera-man will lay out the boundary-lines of the stage for you and advise you on the distance from the camera to station the players. ”

“ By means of the condensed method and rapid action of photoplay drama, we may often get a three-act play into a single reel of photoplay action, while a solid evening’s entertainment may include several short plays, and one long one, equivalent in itself to a meaty drama. ”

“ To reiterate what was also pointed out in the definition in Chapter III, you must bear in mind that while the end of each separate reel in an ordinary feature need not end with a forward-looking climax, the end of each episode in a photoplay serial must be a climax of a most thrilling nature, or, at any rate, must be such a climax as will greatly excite the interest of the spectator and insure his coming to the theatre when the next episode is shown. The serial photoplay is exactly like the well-written and carefully edited serial story of fiction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Masterpieces are coming not through spending millions on supes, and “real” temples, and forts; but rather by writing a scenario particularly adapted to film-production, hiring and training actors that know how to act for the camera, preferably those without bad stage habits to unlearn, cutting out all unreal scenery, costume and make-up and keeping everything as simple and as close to the actual as possible. The best movie play I ever saw was in a ten-cent theatre in St. ”

“ And most stories can be told easily enough within the average five reels. There is one critic who claims that no story is big enough to consume more than five reels of film. He is pretty nearly right, at that. ”

“ The novice may attach little or no importance to this initial move in the creation of a photoplay, but study and the experience that comes with practical analysis and the actual work of plot-building will lend emphasis to the statement that no single consideration demands more careful and thoughtful attention. Let us assume that when the drop-curtain rises in a motion picture theatre and the shadow action commences, the audience is looking, not at figures projected upon a screen, but through a window into the private lives of fictitious characters around whom the plot is woven. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Following the photographing of this scene, the actor playing the twin brothers steps to the other side of the stage and, with the action already photographed now “masked,” the same strip of [Pg 22] film is run through the camera. When the picture is developed it will appear as though two actors appeared in the scene. In making such scenes the director of the production makes use of a split-second watch in order that the action may be timed perfectly and that on both sides of the film chime correctly. ”

“ And many an accident has been turned to good account in making a film. But these are secrets known only to the initiated, and the public that sees the finished picture in some theatre little realizes how much chance had to do with its making.
Scene after scene was "filmed," Russ and his camera associates grinding away at the machines. It was not easy work, for the wind and spray often interfered with the clearness of the picture. But of course that only added to the reality of it when the finished picture was shown.
"Now for that scene on the far rocks," called Mr. ”

“ Yet [Pg 190] it is progressive and becomes fragmentary unless considered as an intergral part of the whole production. Each part (or reel) of the Long Play accumulates and takes care of its own situations and complications, which may tend to pile up revelations of dramatic interest to heighten the suspense of the reel to follow, or which may be a direct progressive result of the reel preceding. In the Long Play each reel ends with the introduction of a new complication that necessitates an entirely new line of treatment. ”

“ All the scenes that are to take place in one setting or location are made before the camera is moved an inch, and, in one way or another, according to the particular studio, the film is marked after each scene so as to show the number of the scene coming next. ”