International photographer (Jan-Dec 1934)

T h INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER April, 1934 PART of the STORY of LIGHTING By EARL THEISEN Honorary Curator Motion Pictures Los Angeles Museum | HE most important of the dramatic devices of the motion picture is light. Light and shade are the most vital of the cinematic tools. Emotions are literally painted with light. George Raft, for example, is depicted in love by a special soft lighting in one scene and in the next, through the use of a harsh light, he is a menace. Pastoral and spring-like effects are the result of soft, shimmery "catch light" and after changing the lights on the same set, it becomes a suitable setting for any villainy. The flashing and uncertain lighting of the mystery picture gives rise to fear. Menace is portrayed by "hard" lighting" the features. Any desired reaction can be gained by the light artist. At first the motion picture depended on sunlight for illumination. All the pictures were taken out of doors. Edison constructed a studio in 1893 on rollers that would pivot to follow the sun's course and three years later Biograph in what was equivalent to their first studio built a revolving device on a steel structure that kept their setting always facing the sun. The use of sunlight did not permit much artistry. The picture makers then were concerned with the difficulty of getting enough light to record their photographic image and not with a beautiful or dramatized photography. The first successful use of lights in the motion picture was the Jim Jeffries-Tom Sharkey prize fight, November 3, 1899. William A. Brady, who promoted the bout, approached the Biograph Company with the proposal that pictures be taken. Hitherto experiments to use light had been unsuccessful. Biograph, ever ready to improve their pictures, decided to try. They tried. Billy Bitzer, the cameraman, along with assistants hung about 400 modified street arcs over the arena. Under this blinding light and heat, the fight went its way for 25 rounds. While the fighters broiled, the Biograph "got" the pictures. Back among the fight fans, unknown to Biograph officials, Albert E. Smith, too, was getting pictures with his Vitagraph camera. He figured it a good business stroke to avail himself of the elaborate Biograph preparations. He was right, though Biograph did not think so when they found out. After running up and down some alleys Smith finally got his pictures to his laboratory. He finished them and hung them up to dry and it is said that another aspiring movie magnate in turn stole them from Smith. The Vitagraph was finally given a print from which they made money. The Biograph's did not, since the Vitagraph had beaten them to the screen. That is part of the motion picture story. Albert E. Smith with twinkling eyes remembers these dark intrigues which were the movie industn then and which weren't really sins. The difficulties and heat in the use of artificial light in picture making seemed unnecessary. People were pri marily concerned with photographs in motion and any refinements, particularly expensive ones, were not to be considered. Soon the genus movie fan tired of this stuff and demanded a narrative content. The films had to say something. To achieve the story film, there were two independent forces at work: Science and Art. While Art was using sun and makeshifts at hand in order to keep pictures in demand, the scientists were improving. In many of these improvements Biograph led. Lighting was one of the cinematic devices in which they pioneered. In the Scientific American of July 1, 1905, is an account of a film made in the New York Subway in which Cooper Hewitt lights were used. The lighting equipment comprising a generator and 72 Cooper Hewitt tubes, were set on a flat car and ori another car was the Biograph equipment. According to the Scientific American, the 54,000 candle power lighting unit being pulled through the station and subway presented a magnificent spectacle. According to George E. Van Guvsling, then the manager of Biograph, the glaring light flashing by presented an unholy spectacle and the persons seeing it acted accordingly. F. A. Dobson was the cameraman. He had a special high speed camera which photographed at the rate of 900 pictures a minute. It was mounted on an iron framework. Very little was done in the way of artificial lighting for the nickolodeon picture. In these theaters the audience paid as a rule only five cents to see several pictures. They were victimized. The lighting of the picture at times was so poor the audience could not tell what it was supposed to represent. It was necessary to have "spielers", or in other words, "explainers" who stood by the side of the screen and made apropos explanatory comments. We hear so much about the lurid themes today; perhaps they were as bad then, but the public couldn't be sure. Again Biograph came to the fore ! They were the first studio to install lighting equipment. When they moved from their first studio on the roof of the Roosevelt Building, at 13th and Broadway, to the famous "Brownstone" at 11 East 14th Street early in 1902, they equipped it with 36 Bogue arcs. These arcs ran on direct current and were originally designed for stereopticon projection. About six months later the arc lights were replaced with two banks — eight tubes to the bank — of Cooper Hewitt lights. Within two years this number of banks was in Showing six units at work under the large glass stage at the old Thanhauser Studio. Note the "Kleiglight" in the foreground. Photo courtesy Lofland Book Store. Please mention The International Photographer when corresponding with advertisers.