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.
chance taking her a dead brother either and while we were arguing the wind was rising. Pair of fools that we were, we went together, and the special providence that looks after fools must have had quite a job.
Perhaps I should jump here past half a dozen or so of inconspicuous films of scenery and 'made-up5 outdoor pictures to one which marked something of an epoch in my film life. The Explosion of a Motor-car (No. 130) was one which attracted a great deal of attention at the time, for it was typical of the public attitude towards 'horseless carriages' in those days, and had, for an alleged 'comic,' quite a germ of genuine humour in it. The car was steered by means of a little arrow-shaped handle in front of the driver. It was driven by a horizontal gas-engine in the back, which you started by putting on an old glove and pulling round the very dirty fly-wheel. It was belt-driven, like a small factory, with fast and loose pulleys which were engaged by means of a lever ready to the driver's hand. The carriage was of dog-cart design, completely without protection, and so balanced that if the occupants of the front seats got out first the whole thing tipped up and pitched out the others. In suitable conditions it would run for five or six miles without requiring filling up with cooling water, but in that time it generally shed a journal-box, which you had to walk back along the road to recover and refit. It 'had no reverse, but that didn't matter for if you wanted to turn round in a narrow road you just got out and lifted up the front wheels and turned it round. The sales of Explosion of a Motor-car were the biggest we had had up till then.
Soon we began to feel the necessity of indoor sets, for the ideas for outdoor comics began to wear thin. So we set up a sort of stage in our little back garden. It measured fifteen feet by eight and had a few upright posts against which scenery flats could be propped. It faced due south so as to give us the longest possible spell of sunlight. This was progress indeed, but it was a long time before we began really to contemplate making many films of much greater length than the almost standard fifty-footers.
To people who are familiar with the general appearance of small theatrical set-ups — and who is not in tjiese days of amateur theatricals? — this short description will probably convey all that is necessary, or if not, my drawing will fill in most of the details.
The little stage was in the open air because we were completely
51