A-B-C of motion pictures

by Robert E. Welsh

II

THE STUDIO—THE MECHANICS OF PICTURE MAKING AND SHOWING

Picture studios dot the map of the world. One or more will be found in practically every capital of Europe. In France there are three principal manufacturing companies, each with a chain of studios. Germany and the Scandinavian countries likewise produce a number of pictures, while Italy ranks second to France in the European field. For reasons probably finding their root in the stolid British temperament, England has not kept pace with France, Italy, and the United States as a producer of film. Within recent years, however, there have been signs of an awakening on the part of the English which should give to that country a more fitting place in the new art.

Los Angeles and New York, and the territory around these cities, share the honors as picture-producing centers in the United States. Several other large cities have picture studios, however, and the list is constantly being added to by the search for new settings or the enterprise of local capitalists. New York has been found to be ideal as a location because of the variety of scenery, from seashore to crowded city street or pretty rural settings within easy reach. But southern California, with almost continuous sunshine, has become the picture Mecca and it is estimated that over one-half of the world’s picture-supply is made there.

Around New York the studios are almost all solely for indoor work, the producers using the “highways and byways” for their outdoor scenes. In California, however, several of the companies own estates covering many hundreds of acres, and it is seldom necessary to go off the company’s property to take any scene desired. Dotting the estates you will find village streets that would seem to have been transplanted from the four corners of the globe. Well-stocked zoos, that would be the prize possession of many a municipality, are a unique feature of some of these plants. Philadelphia also boasts of a large picture-producing estate of this type. Indoor studios may be recognized by the glass top and sides, an evidence of the desire for sunlight. Mercury lights and electric arc-lights are the means of illumination used for work at night or on days when the sun’s rays do not prove sufficient.

A knowledge of the workings of the motion-picture camera is essential to a clear understanding of the chapters that follow, so it might be well to include that here. You have seen the large box camera employed in the ordinary photographer’s gallery. The motion-picture camera appears very much like an enlarged box camera, with the addition of a crank on the side and a dial to measure the amount of film used. It is mounted on a tripod which is also movable, either laterally or horizontally, by means of cranks. In all essential points motion-picture photography is really continuous snap-shot photography. Celluloid film is used, that for motion-picture purposes being one and three-eighth inches wide, and supplied in long strips, the average length being two hundred feet. By turning the crank at the side the motion photographer is able to get continuous photographs of a person or object in motion, instead of the single picture that the snap-shot photographer gets. As each of these photographs is only three-quarters of an inch high, it will be seen that the cinematographer can take sixteen separate photographs on each foot of film in his camera. 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. The shutter is opened to allow the brief exposure of the film necessary to take a single picture, and it is then closed while another three-quarter inch of film is moved into position ready for the next picture. The camera-man continues to turn his crank, thus repeating the operation over and over again until the entire scene is photographed.

The shutter in motion-picture cameras is a revolving disk, in which a “V”-shaped opening is cut, or also the aperture may be formed by two disks superimposed, in which case the operator is able to vary the size of the opening. The operator’s crank is connected by gears to the shutter, which is placed between the lens and the film. The action of the shutter has been explained in the paragraph above. It might be stated here that the exposure of the film is a trifle longer than that which would be allowed by the ordinary snap-shot photographer, since the blurring which results on the picture is indistinguishable, owing to the rapidity with which the photographs follow each other on the screen.

Two light-tight boxes are contained in the camera, one at the top to hold the raw film, and the lower one to receive the film after it has been exposed. Perforations have been made along the edges of the film before it is placed in the camera, the holes being oblong in shape, one-eighth of an inch wide and one-sixteenth of an inch in height. The film-feeding device, which is either of the sprocket-wheel type, which drives the film through, or the claw-hammer type, which pulls it, engages in these holes. The perforations serve a similar purpose in the camera, the projection-machine, and in the process of developing the negative and printing the positives. It will be seen that the perforating, which is done by machinery, must be accurate to the one-hundredth of an inch.

The working of the projection-machine, the apparatus which throws the image on the film onto the screen, is in many ways similar to that of the camera. Or, a simpler comparison, the projection-machine is really the familiar stereopticon, or magic lantern, with the addition of mechanism for feeding the film rapidly before the light and the lenses. In the first place, there is a “lamp-house,” a small cabinet which contains the light, supplied by means of an arc-light, and the condensing lens. The light created by the carbons of the arc, while strong, is diffused in the lamp-house, and it is the purpose of the condensing lenses to concentrate the rays before throwing them on the screen. The pictures are outlined on the screen because of the fact that the figures on the film obstruct light in proportion to their density.