A-B-C OF MOTION PICTURES
I
HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF MOTION PICTURES
Like practically all other modern mechanical wonders, the motion picture was not the invention of any one man. Rather, the picture as we know it to-day is the cumulative result of the toil and experiments of a score of workers, whose efforts cover over half a century. As far back as 1795 scientists were striving to produce the phenomena of pictures that moved. Succeeding generations all saw experimenters working toward the same object, each contributing his mite of improvement, until, with Thomas A. Edison’s invention of the kinetoscope, in 1893, the day of modern motion pictures dawned.
Though all these seekers for knowledge worked constantly with “pictures of objects in motion” as their goal, it is not possible that any saw in the motion picture the possibility of development to its present important place. Dreamers as they necessarily were, there were no imaginations even among picture-men of the last decade that would dare such wide stretches of fancy. No other artistic or industrial development of history will bear comparison with the motion picture’s leap from humble beginnings to exalted favor.
Let us go back to the lowly antecedents of the present-day giant. In the year 1830, we find a description of the zoetrope, or “Wheel of Life,” which was introduced in the United States in 1845. Though pretending to be nothing more than a toy, the zoetrope embodied the optical principle that is at the basis of all motion-picture work. It consisted of a revolving cylinder, in appearance much like a common hat-box, with the top removed to permit the light to enter. Vertical slots were made equal spaces apart around the upper half of the cylinder, and ten or more drawings showing a particular object in different positions were placed around the lower half of the interior. Thecylinder revolved on a vertical spindle, and the spectator, peering through the slots, received the impression of seeing the object on the interior in motion. Simple drawings were used, a favorite being the figure of a dancer.
The similarity between the zoetrope, despite the fact that it did not make use of photography, and the modern motion picture, lies in the scientific principle responsible for the illusion of moving figures. In viewing a particular object there is the briefest delay in conveying the impression from the eye to the brain, so that the latter has the conception of seeing the object after it has actually passed from the field of vision. If, during this fractional part of a second, another picture of the object, in a slightly different position, is presented to the eye, the brain’s sensation will be that of having seen the object move. Were a series of such pictures moved before the eye in rapid succession, the impression registered would seem more like a streak than an object in motion, so that there must be some way of cutting off the vision until the second picture has been moved into the exact position held by the first, and so on. The spaces between the slots in the zoetrope served this purpose,and so rapid was the revolution of the cylinder that the spectator was not aware of having had his vision interrupted, and only received the impression that on a direct line with the eye there was an object which seemed to be moving.
To understand the application of this principle to modern motion pictures let us take a strip of film a foot in length as an example. There are sixteen separate pictures on this piece of film. The screen of the motion-picture theater serves as the fixed point at which the spectator is gazing. One second is required to show this foot of film on the screen, and the spectator is of the opinion that pictures have been shown throughout that entire second. In reality, the shutter of the projection-machine threw each separate picture on the screen for about one thirty-second of a second, and there was an interval of about the same duration while the next picture was being moved into place.
The zoetrope had many successors, as new devices of improvement were discovered. It never became much more than a toy, however, interesting solely because the simple objects shown appeared to move. The next important chapter in motion-picture historyconcerns the experiments of Edward Muybridge, an Englishman, in 1871-2. Photography had by this time advanced so that it was possible to take pictures with an exposure of less than one-twentieth of a second. Muybridge conceived the plan of using several cameras to photograph an object in motion. Governor Leland Stanford, of California, offered to finance an experiment by which pictures were to be taken of his race-horse, Occident.
Muybridge placed twenty-four cameras along the rail of the California race-track, where the attempt was to be made. Strings were stretched across the track from each of the cameras and adjusted so that when the running horse broke them it would operate the shutter in such a manner that each camera secured a photograph of the animal. Muybridge’s success received world-wide notice and set the scientists of Europe and America to renewed efforts to perfect the motion-picture idea. Some progress was made in the decade immediately following, the French worker, Dr. Marey, being especially successful.
But for many reasons Muybridge’s methods, and those of his followers, were not fitted to practical use. These faults all found theirbasis in the necessity of using cumbersome glass plates in making the photographs, so the search began for a flexible substance on which pictures could be taken. Gelatine was utilized in many different ways, with little success; preparations of all sorts were tried on paper. Our own Edison was working on the problem in the early eighties, and made many important discoveries regarding pictures, but they were not to see practical application until the invention of celluloid film.
History, in this case found in dusty court records, awards the priority of patent on the process of making motion-picture film to the Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, of Newark, New Jersey. In the years between 1885 and 1887 the clergyman, working independently, and George Eastman, experimenting with his co-worker, Walker, evolved a flexible film of which celluloid was the basis. Eastman’s company began the manufacture of the film on a large scale, and waxed strong, while Goodwin, and later his heirs, were forced to a court battle that did not end until 1914, when a final decision was given in favor of the owners of the Goodwin patents. At present the Eastman Company manufactures practically all of the world’s film supply under anarrangement with the holders of the Newark clergyman’s patents.
When Edison saw that the flexible film was successful in ordinary photography he again turned to serious work on motion pictures, and the Chicago World’s Fair, held in 1893, saw the introduction of his kinetoscope. This was a coin-in-the-slot device and a nickel was the charge at that time to view a picture about thirty seconds in duration. The novelty soon wore off, mainly because the pictures were so short, and Edison placed the kinetoscope on the shelf. Apparently foreign mechanical workers attending the Fair thought more of the apparatus than did its inventor, for in the years immediately following they made many advances on the original model, while Edison had even neglected to patent his invention abroad. Paul in London, Lumière in France, and numerous others were at work, and by 1896 signs of their success were apparent. The result was that Edison again turned to his kinetoscope, and soon he presented an improved machine, the vitascope, which could be used in theaters to show pictures on a screen.
The motion picture was here. It was not long before pictures were being shown intheaters in Paris and London, and in July, 1896, Lumière’s cinematograph was exhibited at the Union Square Theater in New York. Others entered the field, some of the pioneers being Siegmund Lubin, William N. Selig, Henry Marvin, George Kleine, Francis Marion, William T. Rock, Albert E. Smith, and J. Stuart Blackton. These early picture-men were also, by necessity, somewhat capable as inventors, and numerous patents were secured on different portions of the apparatus for making and exhibiting pictures. The next few years of the industry’s history is the tale of numerous patent suits that wound in and out of the courts. The legal battles accentuated the naturally bitter competition to be expected in exploiting the new wonder. But the public had given a hearty welcome to the latest form of entertainment, and the picture-makers waxed prosperous, despite the handicap of internal strife. Theaters in all the big cities were showing the pictures as novelties, and traveling exhibitors were frequent. The “store show,” a picture theater made by remodeling a common store, came into being, and to supply them with pictures exchanges were opened all over the country. These exchanges were the “middle-men” of the picture field, buying the films from themanufacturers, and in turn renting them to the theater-owners.
The patent litigation came to an end in 1908 when a group of the most important companies united to protect their patents, and to distribute their output through a common channel. For a time it seemed that the motion picture was to become a monopoly. But the independents, by co-operation with foreign manufacturers, succeeded in maintaining their position, so that the field is to-day as open to individual activity as any other line of commercial effort.
In the years immediately preceding the organization of this group of the biggest concerns, the picture itself was not progressing. There was no longer any novelty in seeing people in motion on the screen, and the inane subjects shown offered little more than that. While the pessimists, who, as a matter of fact, had never taken a deep interest in the motion picture, were predicting its early demise, the manufacturers set about to find means of renewing the interest. Short dramas and comedies were written, and players drafted from the stage. The public responded readily, and once more Fortune smiled upon the picture-men, never again to desert them.
Until about 1911 the average motion picture was approximately one thousand feet long, and occasionally two or more distinct subjects were included on a piece of film this length. The reels on which the film is wound for easy handling will hold one thousand feet, so that in the United States a picture of this length came to be known as a “single-reel” picture. In England and on the Continent this term has not come into general use, the practice being to state the approximate length of the film in feet or meters. Though Richard G. Holloman’s three-thousand-foot or three-reel production of “The Passion Play,” in 1905, had proved most profitable, the American manufacturers did not heed the indication that audiences would welcome stories longer than one thousand feet. Foreign producers were quicker to see the possibilities of the longer picture, but as recently as 1912 their productions of greater length than two thousand feet were offered without response on the American market. Then came the success of “Quo Vadis?” an Italian multiple-reel picture, exploited in this country by George Kleine, of Chicago, to whom credit must be given for the rise of the long production, with its results in placing the picture in the best theaters in the country.“Quo Vadis?” earned a fortune, and was followed by a scramble on the part of buyers to get the long-neglected foreign productions, while the American manufacturers turned their attention to the staging of multiple-reel pictures.
To-day the short picture, though still forming the bulk of the output, is somewhat neglected, for the quickest way to the public’s fancy seems to lie in the big production that rivals the stage-play. In Europe the long picture is declining in favor, and the picture of one and two thousand feet returning to popularity. In the United States, however, it would seem that the future of the motion picture lies in the production that gives an entire evening’s entertainment, offering, as it does, opportunities for the exercise of artistic effort that are denied by the fifteen or thirty minute picture.