CHAPTER I
ATTRACTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF THE ART
Profit and pleasure combine to win recruits for the art of animated photography. As an entertainment offered to the public, the moving-pictures have had no rival. Their popularity has been remarkable and universal. It increases daily, and, since we are only now beginning to see the magnitude of what the cinematograph can effect, it is not likely to diminish. This development has stirred the ambition of the amateur or independent photographer because the field is so vast, fertile, and promising. Remunerative reward is obtainable practically in every phase of endeavour so long as the elements of novelty or originality are manifest. The result is that it is attracting one and all. Animated photography can convey so fascinating and convincing a record of scenes and events that many persons—sportsmen, explorers, and travellers—make use of it.
From the commercial point of view the issue is one of magnetic importance. In all quarters there is an increasing demand for films of prominent topical interest, either of general or local significance. The proprietors of picture palaces have discovered that no films draw better audiences than these. If they deal with a prominent incident like a visit of royalty to the neighbourhood, an important sporting event, a public ceremony, or even, such is human nature, with some disaster to life or property, they will make a stronger appeal for a few days than the general film fare offered at the theatre, because the episode which is uppermost in the mind of the public is what draws and compels public attention. Even, it would seem, when the reality itself has just been witnessed by the audience, its photographic reproduction proves more attractive than all else.
The picture palace, indeed, is assuming the functions of the illustrated newspaper, and is governed by like laws. The more personal and immediate the news, the more pleased are the beholders. So there is an increasing effort to supply upon the screen in life and motion what the papers are recording in print and illustration. One can almost hear the phrase that will soon become general, "Animated news of the moment." Already the French are showing us the way. In Paris one is able to visit a picture palace for 25 centimes at any time between noon and midnight and see, upon the screen, the events of the hour in photographic action. As fresh items of news, or, rather, fresh sections of film, are received, they are thrown upon the screen in the pictorial equivalent of the paragraphs in the stop press column of the newspapers, earlier items of less interest being condensed or expunged in the true journalistic manner to allow the latest photographic intelligence to be given in a length consistent with its importance.
It is obvious that this branch of the business must fall largely into the hands of the unattached or independent worker, who bears the same relation to the picture palace as the outside correspondent to the newspaper. A firm engaged in supplying topical films cannot hope to succeed without amateur assistance. No matter how carefully and widely it distributes its salaried photographers, numberless events of interest are constantly happening—shipwrecks, accidents, fires, sensational discoveries, movements of prominent persons, and the like, at places beyond the reach of the retained cinematographer. For film intelligence of these incidents the firm must rely upon the independent worker.
Curiously enough, in many cases, the amateur not only executes his work better than his salaried rival, but often outclasses him in the very important respect that he is more enterprising. Acting on his own responsibility, he knows that by smartness alone can he make way against professionals. Only by being the first to seize a chance can he find a market for his wares. Thus when Blériot crossed the English Channel in his aeroplane it was the camera of an amateur that caught the record of his flight for the picture palaces, although a corps of professionals was on the spot for the purpose. True, the successful film showed many defects. But defects matter little compared with the importance of getting the picture first or exclusively. Similar cases exist in plenty. The amateur has an excellent chance against the professional. His remuneration, too, is on a generous scale. The market is so wide and the competition is so keen, especially in London, which is the world's centre of the cinematograph industry, that the possessor of a unique film can dictate his own terms and secure returns often twenty times as great as the prime cost of the film he has used.
By permission of the Motograph Co.
A Moving-picture Expedition into the Indian Jungle.