The Moving Picture World (1907)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

5* THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD. Instead of using shutters, two right-angled mirrors correctly timed with the mechanism are arranged to alter- nately divert the light through prisms and condensers, so as to illuminate each alternate picture in succession, and during the change, while both parts of the film are stationary, the parts of the two pictures that compose a full picture are illuminated. The film to be used with, this machine is half the length but less than twice the width of an ordinary negative film, and has the two alter- nate series of pictures side by side. The "even" series commences a greater distance from the "odd" series than the two lenses are apart, so that a loop is formed which en- ables the two parts of the film to be translated inde- pendently of each other. A hole or perforation is made in the film at the comer of each picture to correspond with the claws of the machines. The printing machine translates the negative film twice the distance of the pos- itive at each operation, so that when the negative is placed on the left side of the positive and the center claws enter the perforation on the right side, one alternate series of pictures is printed on the left side, and when the negative is passed over to the right side of the posi- tive and the center claw enters the perforation on the left side, the other alternate series is printed on the right side. Whatever relative vertical and horizontal positions any stationary objects in one picture occupied to the same stationary objects in the succeeding picture in the next series, that position is maintained throughout the two series and the objects must exactly correspond. Any variation in the pictures due to expansion or con- traction will be uniform and regular throughout the two series and therefore cause no trouble or inconvenience. To trace the history of the positive film through the projector, let us suppose that pictures Nos. i and 2 are placed in position in the lower and upper gates respec- tively. The downward reflecting mirror illuminating the lower gate projects No. 1 picture on the screen. The mirrors then pass across the light source, and upward reflecting surface illuminates No. 2 picture in the same ratio exactly that the downward surface obscures No. 1. When No. 1 is fully obscured, the mechanism draws it away and brings No. 3, which is the next in the series, into position, whereupon the mirrors pass back, obscuring No. 2 and simultaneously illuminating No. 3, and so on through the series, keeping the screen continuously oc- cupied and evenly illuminated. The mirrors, which are set at right angles to each other, are so arranged that the process of illuminating one picture is exactly simultane- ous, and in the same ratio, with the obscuration of the other, so that there is no variation whatever in the quan- tity of light upon the screen, and as there is no break, interval, or interruption of any kind, flickering is entirely done away with. In addition to remedying defects, there are many advantages incidental to this method with which it must be accredited, and which should alone ensure its universal use and application. Since the light is never obscured there is no loss or diminution of it, save and except the small percentage due to reflection, which is considerably less than the amount gained by the absence of the dark intervals, so that cu tne whole there is a considerable increase of light. The strength of the picture also is proportionately increased in consequence. The duplication of operating parts re- duces its movement to half the normal speed of ordinary machines. This slow motion of the mechanism obviates instrumental vibration, and enables larger films to be ased (up to lantern size if necessary), with as great facility as the ordinary films of the present standard gauge. The full negative series of pictures being contained .on a posi- tive of half its length, doubles the storage capacity and a saving of film is effected, as it is only necessary to take and project as many pictures as will satisfy the analysis of motion, and not such a number per second as will, by tapid translation, serve to reduce a dark period of flicker which does not exist. Cinematography, like photography, has. come to stay, and, in view of its importance, it is not unreasonable to predict that the ideal will soon be reached. If it be im- portant to secure the record of stationary objects which could be repeated any number of times, how much more important is it to secure a record of the movements of passing events which might never occur again. That it has largely contributed to pleasure and amusement cannot be denied. For educational purposes its value has al ready become recognized, but for scientific uses it awaits the time, which inevitably must come, when it will arrive at that maturity which alone will enable, it to take up the important positon it is destined to occupy amongst the scientific instruments of the world. After Penny Arcades. The rapid increase in the number of penny arcades ami imitations of the old-time circus "side show" all over Greater New York was the cause of a conference between Dr. Thomas Darlington, the Health Commissioner, and Police Commissioner Bingham, at Police Headquarters In some sections of the East Side there are two and three of these places to a block. They occupy, as a rule, a store, the front of which has been taken out and a stage erected in the rear. • These so-called theatres have, as 1 rule, no exits except the front entrance, and in case of fire a number of lives might be lost. There have been numerous complaints regarding then! by the theatre managers of the city, who say that the managers of the cheap theatres are of the itinerary kind: here to-day and there to-morrow. They obtain a license for perhaps three months, and if they do not make a sue-; cess move to another part of the city. The object of the conference was to arrange that tfc Health and Police Departments co-operate in putting out of the business any of these managers who are violating the law. v ■ It is understood that Commissioner Ijarlington W submit a report of all these places to Conunissioner Bing