CHAPTER II
TRICK STUFF
Motionpictures are not only important; they are fascinating. There’s a glamor that surrounds the whole industry. Think of starting out at daybreak—three big autos full of people, and a whole cavalcade on horseback as well—to stage a “real sham battle” between cowboys and Indians!—Think of all the interesting results that can be secured, with the use of a little ingenuity and knowledge of the amazing things that a camera will do!
Haven’t you ever wondered, when watching moving pictures, why this or that was so, how that or this was done? Whether or not a real person had to make that dive off the cliff—or perhaps why, in some color pictures, there are sudden unaccountable blotches of color, yellow or red, perhaps green?
For instance, you have noticed, probably, in news reels and so on, how fast marching men always walk? A regiment comes past at the quickstep—almost at a run. Yet obviously, when the picture was taken, the men were marching along steadily enough, at a swinging stride that would set your pulse throbbing.
There are two reasons for that: one is a fairly normal convention that has become firmly established in motion-picture theaters, and that has nothing whatever—or at least practically nothing—to do with the taking of the picture. The other concerns the camera man or director in charge, and is a plain matter of judgment, good or bad.
You have probably seen strips of the celluloid ribbon, with little holes along the sides, that they call motion-picture “film.” It’s about an inch wide, and the little pictures run crosswise, sixteen of them to the foot of film. When the camera man turns the little crank of his motion-picture camera twice around, it carries a foot of film past the lens of the camera. Sixteen exposures. Ordinarily, the speed of this cranking is one second for the two turns—one foot offilm, or sixteen exposures, per second; sixty feet a minute.
When the film is developed and a print made for exhibition, it is run through the projecting machine of a theater: if it were run at the rate of a foot a second, sixty feet a minute, the figures on the screen would move just as fast as they did in real life when the picture was taken—no faster and no slower.
But the custom has grown up of running film through the projecting machines faster than the film was run through the camera. Instead of being run sixty feet a minute, it is usually clicked along at the rate of seventy feet or more a minute. Seventy-two feet or more a minute is called “normal speed” for projection. So that on the screen everything happens about one-fifth faster than it did in real life, and frequently even faster than that—much faster, since more and more there is a tendency to “speed up” still further, until the feet of marching men in the news reels almost dance along the street, and their knees snap back and forth like mad.
Of course, you see more in a minute, watchingin a theater where film is run through the projection machine so fast—but what you see is distorted, instead of being quite so much of the real thing, as would be the case if it were run more slowly. Probably on the whole it would be better if the convention of “speeding up” the projection machines were done away with, and all film ordinarily run at only the actual speed of real life—except where there happened to be some special reason for hurrying it along.
Then—the other way of making things happen on the screen faster than they do in real life. For instance, when one automobile is chasing another, and turns a corner so fast it almost makes you jump out of your seat—the hind wheels slewing around so dizzily it seems as though the whole thing would surely go in the ditch.
That’s done by what is called “Slow Cranking.” The director, we will say, wants to show an automobile crossing in front of the Lightning Express, with only half a second to spare. If he were really to send the auto with its driver and passengers across the track just intime to escape the flying cowcatcher, it would be too terrible a risk. So they “slow down” the action. Instead of crashing along at sixty or seventy miles an hour the train is held down to a mere crawl—say ten miles an hour, so that it could be stopped short, if necessity arose, in time to avoid an accident. The auto would cross the tracks at a correspondingly slow gait. And the camera man, instead of cranking his film at normal speed, two turns to a second, would slow down to a single turn in three seconds, or thereabouts. That would mean it would take six seconds for one foot of film to pass the lens of the camera, instead of the usual second. So that when the picture appears on the screen, projected at normal speed, we should see in one second what actually occurred in six seconds; the train traveling at ten miles an hour would hurry past, on the screen, at sixty; the automobile bumping cautiously over the tracks in low speed or intermediate, at six or seven miles an hour, would flash past the approaching cowcatcher at somewhere around forty.
In comedies, this trick of “slow cranking”has been used until it has grown rather tiresome, unless done with some new effect or with real cleverness. Autos have zigzagged around corners, or skidded in impossible circles, men have climbed like lightning to the tops of telegraph poles, and nursemaids have run baby-carriages along sidewalks at racetrack speed until we are a little inclined to yawn when we see one of the old stunts coming off again.
But there are always legitimate uses of slow cranking—as in the case of the train and the automobile.
At one time a company was filming an episode that occurs in the story of a cross-country automobile tour. In the story, the girl, who is driving to the Pacific Coast with her father, stops the machine and gives a lift to a tramp. This tramp proves to be a bad man, and decides to hold up the defenseless girl and her invalid father. He is standing on the running-board, beside the wheel, and threatens to turn the car over the steep embankment at the side of road if the girl doesn’t do just as he says. This keeps her from slowing down, or giving any signal for help to machines that pass in theopposite direction. The tramp evidently means what he says, and would be able to jump safely off as he sent the car smashing to destruction. It would look like a mere accident, and with the girl and her father killed nothing could very well be proved.
Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.Roping an Auto Bandit.According to moving-picture custom, this “action” was posed for the “still,” or publicity photograph. The photoplay shows the scene described onpage 28.
Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.
Roping an Auto Bandit.
According to moving-picture custom, this “action” was posed for the “still,” or publicity photograph. The photoplay shows the scene described onpage 28.
Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.Taking “Close-ups” on a Moving Auto.In order to have the background in motion, it is necessary to have both actor and camera travelling forward at the same speed, as shown above. Note the mountains in the background. The company travelled more than two thousand miles to secure this “location.” (Seepage 29).
Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.
Taking “Close-ups” on a Moving Auto.
In order to have the background in motion, it is necessary to have both actor and camera travelling forward at the same speed, as shown above. Note the mountains in the background. The company travelled more than two thousand miles to secure this “location.” (Seepage 29).
But at the last moment, along comes The Boy, who is following the girl in a smart little roadster, and sees what is happening. He takes a chance and drives alongside the larger car, makes a lasso of his tow-rope and yanks the bad man off the running-board, spilling him in the road.
Fair enough. But how are you going to make a picture of that, with close-ups and everything?
By slow cranking.
The camera is put on a platform projecting in front of a third automobile. This car follows after the other two, “shooting” the action from the rear, as the hero yanks the tramp from the running board of the girl’s car. For close-up shots of the faces, to bring out the emotions and drama of the action, the camera is put on one machine or the other as needed,taking pictures that show only the tramp, or the girl and her father, or all three—or, on the little roadster, the boy hero.
You can see how important the slow cranking is, when you take the point of view of the tramp—who of course is really no tramp at all, but a very daring and probably well-paid actor. Imagine yourself acting the part; standing on the running-board of a moving machine, you are yanked backwards by some one on another machine traveling alongside. You have to fall into the road between the two machines, using whatever strength and resourcefulness you may possess to keep out from under the rear wheels of either car. Then, to make things better still, along comes the camera car immediately behind, so that you have to roll out of the way to avoid being run over by that.
If the whole action were taken at the speed supposed in the story, with both machines traveling at twenty or thirty miles an hour, it would be too dangerous. Couldn’t be done, without the risk of death. But by slowing the cars down, and having all the actors makeevery movement as slowly as possible, and slow-cranking the camera, the incident can be pictured with little danger of more than a scratched face or wrenched shoulder, and will provide a great thrill for audiences who see it on the screen.
Another bit of action in the same story, where a man who has stolen an automobile is racing to escape his pursuers, and drives by accident over the edge of a cliff, to die beneath the wreckage of the stolen car:
On turns, along the dangerous road, the stolen car is “shot” from behind, as described above. These scenes are varied with “long shots,” taken from the distance, that show the road along the precipice, with both pursued and pursuers racing along. Then we have a fairly close “shot” of the wheels of the stolen car, as they come close enough to the edge of the cliff to make you shudder; this “close-up” is taken from behind, with slow cranking. Then, perhaps, we have a view of the road ahead, the camera being placed (supposedly) on the stolen car. We see the road apparentlyrunning towards us, the edge of the cliff at one side so close that it seems as though we’d surely go over.
Next, say, a close-up of the thief, showing his expression of terror as he loses control of the car and realizes that it is about to plunge over the cliff into space.
Then, the real “trick action” of the incident.
The car is rolled by hand to the very edge of the precipice, and blocked there with little stones that do not show—the tires of the front wheels actually projecting over the cliff. The actor taking the part of the thief holds his hands above his head, looking as terrified as he can, and brings them very slowly down in front of him, at the same time releasing the clutch of the car, with the gears in reverse and the motor running. The camera, placed quite close at one side, is slow-cranked backward. So that when the print from the film is projected at normal speed, we see the car dash to the very edge of the cliff, while the thief lets go of the wheel and throws his hands above his head just as the machine makes the plunge.
For the next shot, of course, we have a distantview of the scene, a “long shot,” showing the car plunging down to destruction, with the thief still behind the wheel. This is done with a dummy figure. But on the screen, when the picture is completed, we jump from the close scene of the thief throwing up his hands as the car reaches the edge of the cliff to the long shot of the car falling with the dummy, and the illusion is perfect.
Before the car is pushed over the edge for the real fall, the engine is taken out, and everything else of value that can be salvaged is detached. In the final scene of this tragic death these accessories may be scattered around the wreck of the car, adding to the total effect of utter destruction. The body of the thief, half covered by one of the crumpled fenders—the real actor, of course, this time, shamming unconsciousness or death, properly smeared with tomato-catsup-and-glycerine blood, adds the finishing ghastly touch.
Do you believe that any one could see that picture,—well done, the chase along the mountainside, the rush to the edge of the cliff, the drop through space, and the wrecked car on theground—without a thrill? It would be quite convincing, and few indeed could tell which scenes were actual “straight” photographs and which were “tricked.”
In fact, it is really that classification that makes the difference: How well is the thing done? Does it give an impression that is true to life? The fact that a trick is used is nothing against the film; indeed, it may be decidedly in favor of it, providing a novel and realistic effect is secured.
For example, when the scenes described above were first assembled in the finished film, the effect was not as good as had been anticipated. The camera man had not cranked quite slowly enough. Consequently, in some of the scenes the automobiles did not move fast enough on the screen; they rounded dangerous curves with such caution that when one car finally went over the cliff, it looked like a fake. The illusion of the story, that made it true to life, was destroyed, because of giving first an impression of cautious driving, and then of an accident that would only have occurred as a result of terror or recklessness.
So still another trick was resorted to: a purely mechanical one. Every other “frame” or individual exposure in the slow scenes was cut out, and the remaining frames of the film patched together again. Action that had been filmed in one second, with sixteen exposures, was reduced to eight frames, or half a second. It was a careful cutting and “patching” as the re-cementing of the film is called—but the second trick remedied the defects of the first.
By adding an additional “fake” to the first, the picture was made more nearly true to life!
Then a final touch was added to the whole business.
Immediately after the car plunged over the cliff, in the finished film, there comes a scene of the ground, far below, flying up at you. It is as though you were sitting in the car with the doomed thief, and get the effect of falling with him through the air.
To get the shot, it had been planned to lower a camera man over the precipice with ropes, allowing him to crank very slowly as he was lowered. But the natural difficulties were too great. The distance that the camera manwould have to be lowered, to secure the necessary effect, proved to be enormous. There was too much danger. The director was willing to go ahead, but the camera man balked. He said the director could go over the cliff and crank the camera himself if he wanted to—he’d be willing to risk his camera. But the director didn’t want to. All he was willing to risk was his camera man.
Looking at the picture after it was nearly ready for release, the producers decided that the thrill of the accident would be much greater with that ground-jumping-up-at-you shot, that everybody had been afraid to make, included. And the art director came to their assistance. He said he’d make the scene for them in the studio without danger, for fifteen dollars. They opened their mouths, in astonishment, and when they could get their breath, told him to go ahead.
He took a piece of bristol-board and in a few minutes sketched on it a rough, blurred view of open country, such as you might imagine you’d see looking down from a high cliff. Then he photographed it at normal speed, moving itrapidly toward the lens and turning it a little as the camera was cranked. Result, secured in connection with the other scenes already made: the thrill of falling in an automobile through the air, and seeing the ground fly up at you.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.A Movie “Miniature.”Representing Alaska in Southern California, for the Rex Beach picture “The Silver Horde.” A supposed “long shot” or distant view of such a set as this appears full size upon the screen. In reality, the camera is only a few feet away when the picture is taken.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
A Movie “Miniature.”
Representing Alaska in Southern California, for the Rex Beach picture “The Silver Horde.” A supposed “long shot” or distant view of such a set as this appears full size upon the screen. In reality, the camera is only a few feet away when the picture is taken.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.A Snow Scene Made of Salt.In order to secure “close-ups” that fit in with the realistic miniature snow scenes of the preceding illustration, real actors are photographed in such scenes as this. Tons of salt were used to make a few square rods of Alaska.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
A Snow Scene Made of Salt.
In order to secure “close-ups” that fit in with the realistic miniature snow scenes of the preceding illustration, real actors are photographed in such scenes as this. Tons of salt were used to make a few square rods of Alaska.
In one of D. W. Griffith’s shorter photoplays a number of girls leave a party with a fellow in a Ford; a storm is coming up. We see the car leaving the lighted house and starting down the dark street, we see the gathering storm, see the car jouncing along in the blinding rain as the storm breaks, see it cross a little bridge, with lightning flashes illuminating the scene, and finally we see it arrive safely at the home of the heroine, who gets out and runs to the back door in the dark like a half-drowned kitten.
The street scene was taken with lights illuminating the house windows, and enough of the street to show dimly the outlines of trees and so on in the supposed night. The short scene of the gathering storm (merely a picture of masses of moving clouds, taken of course some bright day when there happened to be a good cloud-effect) gives us the impression ofan impending deluge. The scene of the car in the driving rain was taken in the studio, with a black curtain hung behind the car, a man lying concealed on the farther running board jouncing up and down to give the impression that the machine was bumping rapidly along over a rough road, and a hose squirting rain upon the scene in front of the car, being driven upon it and past it by the blast of air from a huge aeroplane propeller whirling just out of the camera’s sight. The scene of the auto crossing the little bridge was done in miniature; that is, a toy auto, mechanically propelled, equipped with tiny electric searchlights, was wound up and sent across a little eight-inch bridge, over a road that wound between trees made of twigs ten or twelve inches high, stuck in damp sand—with little fences, houses, everything, perfect—and the lightning made by switching a big sputtering arc-light behind the camera on and off. Then, the final scene, of the girl leaving the auto, was taken in fading daylight, with a hose again supplying the drenching “rain,” and the print tinted dark blue to indicate night.
On the screen, the illusion of the whole was perfect. As I said, it is not whether or not a trick is used that counts—but how perfectly the thing is done, how complete the illusion that is carried, and how faithfully and sincerely that illusion or impression conveys a really worth-while idea, or a story that is convincingly true to life.
You mustn’t think, though, that all the big effects on the screen are secured by tricks. For indeed they are not. Sets are constructed that cost thousands and thousands of dollars, locomotives are run head on into each other, whole companies travel into out-of-the-way and dangerous places to film unusual scenes,—shipwreck, tropical adventures, Arctic rescues. A camera man told me of how, in a shelter on top of a rock above a water-hole in Central Africa, he watched for days to photograph wild elephants, and saw a fight between an elephant and a big bull rhinoceros, and in the end almost lost his life.
All over the world the moving-picture camera is now finding its way, blazing new trails, bringing back information of how this goldfield really looks, or how in the next range logging is carried on at ten thousand feet. Sooner or later you and I will see it on the screen, and it is for us to know something about the business—for the film is taking the place of many and many a printed page, and the picture, in part at least, is the speech of to-morrow.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.“Shooting” a Tramp on a Moving Train.Imagine you are looking down at the tramp’s head from the point where the camera is, with the train moving rapidly, and you can get an idea of what is shown on the screen.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
“Shooting” a Tramp on a Moving Train.
Imagine you are looking down at the tramp’s head from the point where the camera is, with the train moving rapidly, and you can get an idea of what is shown on the screen.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.A Closer View of the Preceding “Take.”Note the number board leaning against the leg of the camera tripod. Before each scene is taken, this board is exposed in front of the camera with the scenario-number of the scene on it for identification.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
A Closer View of the Preceding “Take.”
Note the number board leaning against the leg of the camera tripod. Before each scene is taken, this board is exposed in front of the camera with the scenario-number of the scene on it for identification.