Marvels of Modern Science

by Paul Severing

It was in 1887 that Edison conceived an idea of associating with his phonograph, which had then achieved a marked success, an instrument which would reproduce to the eye the effect of motion by means of a swift and graded succession of pictures, so that the reproduction of articulate sounds as in the phonograph, would be accompanied by the reproduction of the motion naturally associated with them.

The principle of the instrument was suggested to Edison by the zoetrope, and of course, he well knew what Muybridge had accomplished in the line of motion pictures of animals almost ten years previously. Edison, however, did not employ a battery of cameras as Muybridge had done, but devised a special form of camera in which a long strip of sensitized film was moved rapidly behind a lens provided with a shutter, and so arranged as to alternately admit and cut off the light from the moving object. He adjusted the mechanism so that there were 46 exposures a second, the film remaining stationary during the momentary time of exposure, after which it was carried forward far enough to bring a new surface into the proper position. The time of the shifting was about one-tenth of that allowed for exposure, so that the actual time of exposure was about the one-fiftieth of a second. The film moved, reckoning shiftings and stoppages for exposures, at an average speed of a little more than a foot per second, so that a length of film of about fifty feet received between 700 and 800 impressions in a circuit of 40 seconds.

Edison named his first instrument the kinetoscope. It came out in 1893. It was hailed with delight at the time and for a short period was much in demand, but soon new devices came into the field and the kinetoscope was superseded by other machines bearing similar names with a like signification.

A variety of cameras was invented. One consisted of a film-feeding mechanism which moves the film step by step in the focus of a single lens, the duration of exposure being from twenty to twenty-five times as great as that necessary to move an unexposed portion of the film into position. No shutter was employed. As time passed many other improvements were made. An ingenious Frenchman named Lumiere, came forward with his Cinematographe which for a few years gave good satisfaction, producing very creditable results. Success, however, was due more to the picture ribbons than to the mechanism employed to feed them.

Of other moving pictures machines we have had the vitascope, vitagraph, magniscope, mutoscope, panoramagraph, theatograph and scores of others all derived from the two Greek roots grapho I write and scopeo I view.

The vitascope is the principal name now in use for moving picture machines. In all these instruments in order that the film projection may be visible to an audience it is necessary to have a very intense light. A source of such light is found in the electric focusing lamp. At or near the focal point of the projecting lantern condenser the film is made to travel across the field as in the kinetoscope. A water cell in front of the condenser absorbs most of the heat and transmits most of the light from the arc lamp, and the small picture thus highly illuminated is protected from injury. A projecting lens of rather short focus throws a large image of each picture on the screen, and the rapid succession of these completes the illusion of life-like motion.

Hundreds of patents have been made on cameras, projecting lenses and machines from the days of the kinetoscope to the present time when clear-cut moving pictures portray life so closely and so well as almost to deceive the eye. In fact in many cases the counterfeit is taken for the reality and audiences as much aroused as if they were looking upon a scene of actual life. We can well believe the story of the Irishman, who on seeing the stage villain abduct the young lady, made a rush at the canvas yelling out,—"Let me at the blackguard and I'll murder him."

Though but fifteen years old the moving picture industry has sent out its branches into all civilized lands and is giving employment to an army of thousands. It would be hard to tell how many mimic actors and actresses make a living by posing for the camera; their name is legion. Among them are many professionals who receive as good a salary as on the stage.

Some of the large concerns both in Europe and America at times employ from one hundred to two hundred hands and even more to illustrate some of the productions. They send their photographers and actors all over the world for settings. Most of the business, however, is done near home. With trapping and other paraphernalia a stage setting can be effected to simulate almost any scene.

Almost anything under the sun can be enacted in a moving picture studio, from the drowning of a cat to the hanging of a man; a horse race or fire alarm is not outside the possible and the aviator has been depicted "flying" high in the heavens.