The Boy's Book of New Inventions

by Harry E. Maule

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.