Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

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32 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. V, No. 4. Tricks and Magic m Pictures By Harrison Dent Photos by Courtesy of Popular Mechanics. FOR pure entertainment, no class of motion picture has quite the appeal of the trick picture. By "trick" picture is meant the illusion, or mystery, subject partictilarly. P. T. Barnum declared that the people like to be humbugged ; and while he may not have chosen the most appropriate word to express his meaning, it is a fact that love of the mysterious is one of the primal characteristics of human nature. Motion pictures are peculiarly adaptable to illusions. Almost any effect desired of a mysterious or illusory nature may be produced by a clever photographer who is adept in the handling of a motion picture camera. This fact, indeed, was discovered early in the history of modern motography, and when the novelty had worn off the first views of railway trains, fire engines, men running, etc., motographs of visits to the moon, airship flights and "topsy-turvy lands" became common. A favorable subject for the imaginations of the producers was the apparent materialization of dreams. Here was wide scope for action, illusion and mystery. Almost any possible nightmare, however crazy and grotesque it might be to the awakened senses, could be reproduced on the motographic screen by combining the clever, sometimes extraordinarily ingenious artifices of the photographer and the stage technician. Our subject deals particularly with those motion pictures which depend upon illusion for their main interest. Of course releases of every week contain minor tricks of substitution and the stopped camera. The "magical" type of picture is the only one whose tricks excite more than momentary interest. In this category could be placed "Alice in Wonderland" as a recent example; "Princess Nicotine," a little older, and the "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend," one of the earlier products. Tricks popular a few years ago are being abandoned. Sophisticated audiences demand that the ideas be worked out in a logical way. This forced the manufacturers to drop the obvious or merely ingenious and have recourse to news topics. When the scientists were talking of Mars, for instance, the manufacturers made the •picture of Mars, and when Bleriot crossed the English channel for the first time they Preparing to Show an Automobile Falling Over a Precipice. "Faking" a Battle Between Aerial Craft and Battleships. Fan Is Used to Cause "Waves" and Camera Is Pointed Downward. contrived the bird's-eye view of it. They delved into books on history and adopted the plots of novels, or they obtained pictures of thrilling events by accident and built stories around them. Later the manufacturers invited the submission of scenarios, telling stories in pantomime. One of the leading companies in New York is receiving an average of 150 such "picture plots" a week. The result has been that the tricks of the moving picture man have progressed to a point of mechanical complexity that is amazing to the layman, and have developed ideas worthy of a skilled dramatist or novelist. The tricks had their beginnings in a mechanical peculiarity of the moving-picture camera. The makers found that the apparatus could be stopped at any point so that each picture might be taken separately, or a group together, or that substitutions and changes in the scene might be made between the exposures. There are sixteen photographs on each foot of film, and from 14,000 to 16,000 to a subject, and they are shown to the spectators at the rate of seventy-five pictures a second. The photographers therefore realized, too, how slight were the variations between the adjoining photographs finally merged to mimic the movements of life. When the manufacturers realized these possibilities, the earlier styles of trick picture began to appear thick and fast. A French magician (Melies) orig