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AMERA! YEAR BOOK "The Digest of the Motion Picture Indintry" Page 7 n>rnty-nine r\ croups on their way to their several V tomes. And each group was insistent Oljhat that little projecting machine and Ihat little ribbon pictures could have had nothing to do with it. itD "It is some trick, doubtless," the o llity editor of Che local paper asserted, and the machine and its pictures are iii ust a blind." l.v.l And that is how the first motion ir bicturew as .shown and that was the effect it created—mystification coupled [vith incredulity that C. Francis Jen- mns' story was true. lie I BtWhy, if that were true," said the newspaper man, "it would be easy to take a picture of the street in London ind then come back here and show it alto us sitting at home in Richmond! K I Can you imagine such a thing as :hat?" i,l "Ho. ho, ho!" said the lawyer who i\vas walking with him. "Can you ima- gine that?: A street in London brought to Richmond?" But believing, though they were not entirely convinced, assured that he was the greatest wonder of the age, the mother and father of C. Francis .Jenkins lingered around him and with his cousin helped him to pack up his apparatus and carry it home. All the intricate and involved means by which scores of motion pic- ture enterprises sprang up, combines were formed and reformed, and pic- tures slowly began to be exhibited in the cities through the country, it is hardly necessary to relate. What Jenkins had done was never seriously departed from until a day some dozen years later. Dancers gave way to acrobats and performing dogs, then to street scenes, then to swim- ming parties and other simple inci- dents from daily life. Gradually these were expanded to include episodes which at the time were seriously thought to be stories and which many persons later have claimed were such, but they were in reality merely inci- dents such as two men plotting to hold up a bank, followed by the rob- bery of the bank and concluding with the chase in which the robbers were captured. Or a man running after a train, falling over baggage trucks, baby carriages and things of that sort. The germ. of the story idea was being developed and during the latter part of the dozen year period between Jenkins' exhibition of the first motion picture.and the creation of the first true story picture, some of the motion picture stories began to tell quite a little more than the mere episode but were still not of a type such as we comprehend motion picture stories to be today. They were episodes more than anything else. No attempt was made at characterization and no thought was given to making the figures animating the episodes appear like living human beings. It remained for one man to make a real production with characters which throbbed with life and human charac- teristics and a story which developed just as a good short story does, lead- ing up to a climax, pointing its moral or turning its point, and then taper- ing off with the delineation of the characters as regards their future sphere. That man was D W. Griffith, and the place where the first true mo tion picture story, in a modern sense was produced, was the Hiograph Studio on East Fourteenth Street in New York City. A broad general treatment of the Continued on Page Ninety-nine THE PASSING OF THE WIZARD By JOSEPH CALDER As the late Walter Burridge, the un- questionable premier scenic artist of America, often expressed: "O, the t vaguaries of this business, 'tis indeed pathetic." As he used it then it was meant more in jest, but had he lived j to paint for the moving pictures, he (would no doubt have spoken with seri- flous meaning. This is not to be a wail from one or |J many scenic artists who have either I grown disgruntled or indigent, but H rather recited as an historical remini- I scence of the various changes or "ad- II vancements" in the much abused term I "Scenic Art" as we apply it to the I motion picture industry. Today it is not an uncommon ex- I pression of the house-painter, the I paper-hanger or the stage-hand to re- I fer to himself as "the scenic artist at | So & So's picture plant." aThose comparative few remaining "dyed-in-the-wool" Chrome Siingers sit aside in slippers and pipe mood, solilo- quising on the early days of picture making—the days when we "doubled in brass,'' the days when "Props" were often cut out of card board and painted, when gas ranges, mantle pieces and chandeliers were difficult to obtain, sometimes for lacK of funds —a piece of card board, a knife, a lirush full of paint, and—"Seelah, what magic." Taking up the "game," for such it was then, in the earliest hours of this infant prodigy, when the most serious moments were excrutiatingly funny and everyone was as green as alfalfa, —making the bluff of their lives, the scenic artist was a much an essential adjunct as the camera. He worked under what appeared im- possible conditions, often painting per- spective "backings" on a cloth stretched on the floor or ground, and frequently had to stop in the middle of his work to hurry into a make-up and costume to play his part in "Es- caped from Sing-Sing" or some other l equally famous "Meller" of the time; I in the meanwhile perhaps the noigh- ■borhood cat had meandered across I the sky over "St. Paul's Cathedral." On the top floor of a tall building ' on Nassau St., New York, an embryo- I nic picture company had its offices, laboratories,—in fact everything. Col- loquial terms were not in vogue in those days, but they "shot" on the roof. To get to this roof it was neces- sary to stoop very low in passing through a narrow hatch-way over the elevator machinery. It was therefore imposible to carry up large "props" or anything else of a size. On this roof they built a platform about sixteen by twenty feet, this was the stage, on this was erected a three sided flat structure permanently built, with an arch, a door and a window. This "set" served every occasion, whether palace or prison. It was up to the scenic artist with his magic wand to make a bou- doir for Lillian out of the slum home of Pete. "The Dip." Standing on the top rung of a rickety step ladder with stencil in one hand and a brush in the other, a tin cup of paint attached to his belt and his cap pulled down tight over his ears, the artist—"Ye Gods save the mark"— would thusly work. The winds from the North River and the East River blowing a constant gale, so with trembling knees and frozen hands, he plied in this precarious way, his best efforts. Actors and manager and others sat around and waited while ten feet more of imitation wall paper was stenciled Then a crayon portrait of "Dad" had to be painted on the wall with its cast shadows—and everything. The "Script" called for the showing of a piano in the adjoining room— this was hurriedly done, by means of paint on a piece of cloth hung just outside of the arch opening and was still wet while the camera squeaked. We "cut here, and Iris on the cliffs beyond Santa Monica." A housed-in paint frame with a bridge to walk on and a palette of pans with varied colors! The sets were made of mus- lin-covered frames six feet wide and ten feet high—called wings. On these were painted the grained imitation wood-work—high panelled wainscot, the window and door frames, even the heavy panel on the door;—of course the wall had to be stencilled all over to imitate wall-paper, but. pardon the Ego, that imitation wood-work and re- lief ornament was painted with such care as to detail and lighting, that even the most critical eye was de- ceived as to the genuiness of it. There was one "Bete-noir,'' how- ever, the unmistakable crack between the wings which showed when set up for the camera. This was later over- come by tacking a half-round strip over the joint and matched in with paint—■ a startling innovation. Our log cabin interior, with the bark painted so carefully that even the holes made by the diligent wood- pecker registered. The stable or barn set featured the grain of the rough pine boards, with painted hay hanging over to partly hide an old horse- collar and a group of stable accessories, the fork, rake and other out of place things stood prominently against the wall to give the artist a desired chance to display his trick of casting lights and shadows. How cleverly they were done! Even the camera was non- plussed, sometimes, however. Dame Nature played a trick and cast her own light the opposite way. Then came the Substance Period— when real doors and practical windows were introduced and startled the most sanguine. But the "Old professor" re- mained undaunted, he drew from his bag of tricks the formula for imitating "Circassian Walnut," likewise other hardwoods, marble and onyx. The artist was considered marvelous who could "grain." Often the results were perfect, but sometimes the re- production looked like scrambled brains. We begin to hear the knell of these famous but short lived Movie Murillos and Angelos, for, after the real doors and windows came in rapid succession the base-board, the cornice, the panel- mould, plaster and column; stair-rails with "goose necks" and the honest-to- goodness fire-place, with its real smoke curling forth. Let us rest here a moment. Can you recall those davs when a specially painted set was a feature? When fully fifteen or twenty feet of film would be shown with not a person in the scene? This was done to "regis- ter" the set, to completely show its beauty. Well,—perhaps you will remember the perceptible, undulating movement of that prison wall,—as the w r ind played roughly with young "Rem- brandt's burnt umber symphony in stone." Ah me! those were tolerant days. However, this automatically pro- duced a better condition, for here be- gins the "Rennaisance Period" of "Compo and Beaver"— substantial, firm, but rather susceptible to wet suggestions. Wall paper was the na- tural sequence. What a divergence of opinion was expressed when this was introduced. "It could not last, it would not stick;" nevertheless it came and conquered. Alas! our poor Wizard begins to read the hand-writing on his painted wall. He gave way reluctantly to the house-painter and paper-hanger; his days in the picture business were sure- ly numbered. Those beautifully drawn murals, those cleanly etched ornaments and gracefully high-lighted moulds were literally trampled by the march of picture progress. It was the survival of the real and eternal. Quietly, like the Arab with his wet blanket, the artist withdrew; and the pigments of "many a buried Caesar" —the siennas, and umbers gave place to paste and putty. But in passing, shed not a tear dear brother, for on many a "lot" today you will find a treasured "Backing" painted on cloth transformed into smiling landscape of minute detail re- vealing the painstaking of one whose soul was in his work. He it was who weathered the turbulent tides of Film- dom and received less proportionately than others for his constant creative efforts applied to make a dubious busi- ness an ultimate success. His "Back- ings" are now superseded by the trusty axe in the hands of a property boy,—who comes forth with his arms loaded with scrub-oak and palm. Now comes the gasp. From out of the realms, mid dusty archives, a "new" idea is brought to light. The artist is yet a Kellar or a Herman, for have we not produced through mystic measures a complete stage set on a card not larger than the average bread-board? This, you see gentle- men, we place thusly—then with the kind assistance of the camera, we later show you on the screen, breath- ing fantastic figures "en-pageant, en- semble," before the life-like city of Peoria. Let us revert.—pardon the detrac- tion, but going back to the old days, some fourteen years ago one of our best artists alive, Mr. Joseph A. Woods, painted in miniature but of most perfect perspective, the interior of a famous cathedral which when shown on the screen with live char- acters moving in and out of the ap- parently built openings produced an effect that was startling, proving sev- eral things, but principally that there were vast possibilities and some real talent even in the days of yore, so that the "New Ideas" of today are but the better clothed ones of embryonic days. At one time, a few years ago, an innovation to supplant the scenic artist was introduced by which en- larged photographic hack-grounds of landscape and other subjects were to take the place of the hand-painted ones. The experiment was unsuccess ful however, in that they were not only expensive, but could not be suc- cessfully repaired or repainted into different subjects after the hand of Time or that of the stage-hand had dealt ungently. Various unique designs in wall- Conttnned on Page 105