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of describing some of the essentials which they have left out of the catalogue, and generally left out of the camera also.
The camera is the keystone in the arch of picturedom. Without the camera the whole structure must fall to the ground. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the first attention of this august body be directed to the vital centre upon which every other section of the industry depends.
The average camera of the industry today is a marvel of compromise. It is expected to take the film of any maker, of any thickness and any degree of pliability, with perforations of any shape and almost any number per foot and produce a rock-steady picture. I say it is a marvel for it generally accepts all these handicaps and turns out pictures which look surprisingly good upon the screen.
It must accept all of the imperfections which a lack of standards subjects it to and turn out a picture degraded with an average of these imperfections.
Its sprocket teeth cannot fit the perforations for they must be made small enough to enter the smallest perforation that it may encounter. It must rely for registrations upon pressure plates with spring tension-pilot pins or guides being of little use unless a standard size of film and perforation be arbitrarily adopted for that particular camera. Thanks to the individual efforts of one or two of the members of this society, much excellent work in this line has been accomplished, but unless standards are universally adopted and used the standards of one clique are sure to clash somewhere with those of another clique and the war goes merrily on to the detriment of the industry as a whole.
It is high time that the essential parts and features of cameras have a universally recognized standard to which they should conform.
The first and most important standard to be determined is the frame line in its relation to the perforations. No two cameras can be used in the same production at the present time without having their frame lines adjusted to one another. The claws or fingers which engage the film for drawing down the succeeding frames are placed, in most cameras, at some distance below the frame opening and although two cameras with claws at different distances between their claw movement be adjusted according to one standard for their frame line, the use of a different standard of perforation, although the new standard be used in both cameras, will cause the frame lines to differ.
The studios of today who are turning out the best grade of work have adopted a standard for their plant and, at great expense, have made all of their cameras, perforators, printers, etc., conform to an arbitrary measure for their own protection. The companies who have recognized this great economic factor in production are unhappily still in the minority. It is not to be wondered at that in the absence of recognized standards that many makers have either never given the subject proper attention or felt equal to backing the various opinions of the others and trying to draw them into line.