As has been indicated, photoplay terminology is, even yet, only in process of formation. The terms given and defined in [Chapter III] are the terms in common daily use in the majority of studios, but there is no ancient precedent to compel any writer to adhere to any of these terms if he is in the habit of using others. There is too great a disposition on the part of amateur writers to split hairs over the correct technical term. A matter of far more importance is to turn out a good story.
14. Camera Tricks and Special Effects
With the way most trick-effects are produced in the studio the average writer need be little concerned except as a matter of interest.[19] The object of discussing them here is to show how certain plots, or parts of plots, are made possible as a result of knowing how these things may be accomplished, whereas without this knowledge the writer with a good idea might fear to include it in his story in the belief that it was impossible of production. It may be remarked that what is said here has a bearing on [Chapter XV], in which is discussed the matter of expense in picture production. Some of the very companies who a few years ago were warning the beginning writer against introducing action that would necessitate too great an outlay of money are today producing features seemingly regardless of expense. Yet most concerns are really exercising a wise economy and getting some wonderful results with cleverly planned trick-camera work.
For example, in one episode of the Wharton serial, "The Eagle's Eye," the German conspirators in New York, seeking to injure the cause of the Allies and lay the blame on the American 'longshoremen at the same time, arrange to have a train of freight cars, crossing on barges from Manhattan to Jersey, dumped into the North River by removing the means by which they are held in place on the tracks of the barge and "letting 'em slide." The effect on the screen is wonderfully like what a long-range photograph of such an actual event would show. All that was needed to produce the scene was a tank of water with a miniature barge pushed along by a tiny tug-boat, the latter steaming up very realistically. When the toy barge and tug-boat were right in the middle of the "stage," three or four toy freight cars were allowed to slide off into the water. Above the tank, as a background, was hung some white or light colored cloth, making everything from the waterline up a white blank. Against this blank was superimposed, by running the film through the camera twice, a picture of the New York sky-line as seen from the Jersey shore. The unruffled surface of the water in the tank—so unlike the wavy North River—was almost the only thing to show certain of the spectators that the scene was not the real thing. In another episode of the same serial, after the German spies have caused an Allied grain ship to be loaded on one side only, so that she will turn turtle as soon as released from her moorings, another very realistic scene shows the ship actually turning over, as much as the comparative narrowness of the slip will let her, after they have cut the ropes holding her to the dock. Here, again, a model vessel in a built-up miniature slip supplied the means of obtaining a startlingly realistic effect. The scene lasted only a few seconds, so that little opportunity was given the spectator to see how it was worked, but the effect of the brief scene was very convincing.
In scores of feature productions models or miniatures of various kinds have been resorted to to obtain startling or novel effects, and have saved the outlay of thousands of dollars in the production of certain pictures. Double photography, or superimposure, is a ready ally when the director wants to get an effect showing a specially arranged fictitious scene played against a real and frequently well-known background, as in the North River scene just described. In the same picture, "The Eagle's Eye," the Whartons, who produced it, displayed a new feature in photography—a genuine photographic device rather than a trick—in what they described as "the triple iris"—three diaphragms opening at once and disclosing the heads of Boy-Ed, Von Papen and Dr. Albert, and then fading and showing a scene in which these three characters were seen grouped in conversation.
Another effect which might, perhaps, be classed as a trick was used in the Mary Pickford feature, "Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley." It was in reality merely a clever scene intended to take the place of a leader, while being also an improvement on a leader because of the fact that to almost everyone in the audience it instantly "put over" the idea back of the action at that point of the story. At the time that Amarilly's good-hearted but socially impossible mother, with her little brothers and sisters, are being entertained by the rich hostess who desires to shame the little girl from the tenements in the eyes of her son, there is flashed on the screen, against a dark background, an empty glass gold-fish bowl with the fish themselves wriggling and gasping on the table beside it. The idea of "fish out of water" was very apparent to the spectators. Later, when the tenement-bred family had returned to their humble home, another picture showed the gold-fish contentedly swimming about in a well-filled bowl. It is such an effect as this that any clever writer might think of suggesting in his scenario, and it is legitimate in every way—far more so, in fact, than some of the tricks of diaphragming and fading so frequently made use of by certain directors.
A startlingly novel effect was shown some time ago in the Vitagraph Company's production of Arthur Stringer's story, "Mortmain." Just as Mortmain was put under ether the scene proper faded out, giving place to a dull blur in which the faces of the doctor and his attendants were brought right up to the lens of the camera and then withdrawn for several feet, the action being extremely rapid, and being repeated several times, by means of the camera mounted on a truck, as already described. This was accompanied by another dark-background strip of film, across—or rather down—which shot fiery streaks, like the tails of discharging sky-rockets. The whole effect of anæsthesia was vividly reproduced, and the effect on the audience was most marked. The idea of what Mortmain experienced in his last conscious moments "got across" in no uncertain way. Especially startling and realistic—to those who have been there—was the effect of the patient's feeling himself dropping, dropping, dropping through space into—oblivion.
It is extremely unlikely that this work will be made use of by anyone who has not visited the picture theatres often enough to have seen ten times as many camera tricks, special effects, and examples of the use of different technical devices as are herein described. But if you are taking up photoplay writing without having seen many photoplays on the screen, you are but half equipped, notwithstanding all the help you may receive through text-books and trade-journal articles. In other words, we urge upon you the wisdom of keeping in mind that the real finishing school for screen writers is the picture theatre itself.
15. Dual-Character Double Exposures
Undoubtedly, the gradual perfecting of the double exposure (superimposure) device in motion-picture making has made possible the screening of innumerable good stories which would otherwise have been almost impossible of production. When only a few years ago the Vitagraph Company made their very creditable production of Charles Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities," the two leading male characters, Sidney Carton and Charles Darnley, were played by two different actors—the final action of the plot turning on the fact that these two were "doubles," for this fact makes possible Sidney Carton's supreme sacrifice for his friend and the woman he loves. There was a fairly close facial resemblance between the two actors who played these parts—enough, with the aid of the wigs they wore and other make-up, to make the picture convincing. Today, no director would think of putting on such a picture with two different actors in the dual rôles of Carton and Darnley. When, in 1917, the Dickens classic was released as a William Fox feature, William Farnum played both rôles, and some really remarkable results were obtained in scenes where both characters were present at the same time. Almost everyone has seen pictures containing examples of the possibilities offered by double exposure in making pictures of this nature.