Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

34 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. V, No. 4. How Chocolate Pot Pours Out Its Contents Without Aid — Section of Picture Which Shows on Screen Is Indicated by Dotted Lines. the studio. The performer crawls along it toward the top, while the camera is adjusted on a board raised high at one side. If the actor puts enough realism into his acting and observes what would be the jutting angles of doors and windows, the scene has every appearance of reality. Another trick accounts for the illusion of being in a balloon a thousand fee.t in air, watching an airship whirl beneath as it crosses the English channel. The moving picture men offered this odd sensation with all the realistic details, even to the wind-ruffled waters of the channel under a cloudless sky, and a warship steaming off Dover Cliffs. The flight did not require more than twenty square feet of studio floor and some ingenious shamming. A tin tank six inches deep was filled with water a few inches deep. In this, two models constructed of gypsum were placed. One showed the coast of France near Calais ; the other, Dover Cliffs and the neighboring section of England. As the cameras do not record color values, it was unnecessary to depart from the invariable black, gray and white of the moving picture equipments. A toy warship suggested the real fighting craft in what was supposed to be the English channel between the models. An electric fan ruffled the waters gently. Then the camera was raised high on one side, and a mechanic mounted a ladder on the other, with a model of the airship suspended on cords. This airship was one of the mechanical toys with fluttering wings to be found in almost any toy shop. That it was larger in proportion than the models beneath it, added to the realism of the picture, for the air craft seemed to pass close to the spectator. By drawing the toy ship across the models, a picture resulted which created much comment. The American makers of moving pictures have developed a device which enters into many of the recent films. This consists of exposing one film twice or even three times, adding at each exposure details that would be impossible by a single process. The method is the same as that of a lithographer while printing several colors. All of the so-called apparitions in moving pictures are obtained in this way. The principal actual scene is recorded on the film during the first exposure. Then by adjusting the shutters for a partial exposure, and placing the picture of the "apparition" on the negative already taken, the added scene may be made to emerge slowly and disappear again. This device, with added patience and mathematical accuracy, accounts for the picture of the sea fight between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis. The sea and sky were actual. That is, a moving-picture camera was taken out on the ocean and a film made of an unobstructed horizon. Then models of the two battleships, each about four feet high, were constructed of pasteboard, muslin and twine. They were placed on rockers like those of a hobby horse. Each of the miniature black guns protruding from their portholes had behind it a cup for holding powder, which was exploded by electricity. Then the sea scene was placed in a camera in the studio and exposed for a second time. The placing of the little battleships so that they should be precisely on the horizon of the sea view already taken was a matter of focusing and of the most painstaking calculation. When all was ready mechanics gently rolled the ships to and fro on the rockers. The powder flashed from the guns, and electric fans made the sails bulge and the smoke curl as the sea view was again exposed to the light. This battle was quickly followed by the scene on the deck of the Bon Homme Richard, built full size in the studio, with 100 men in combat. The trip to Mars required the vise of devices of greater ingenuity. The adventurer from the earth constantly walked head downward. As has been told while describing the tricks of the paper-hanger, such illusions are obtained by having actors walk on the floor and then reversing the pictures. The American moving-picture man added to this the illusion of having the Martian visitor clamber over a mass of rocks Climbing L'p the Face of a Building — How an Obviously Impossible Feat Is Made to Appear Real.