The cinema as a graphic art : on a theory of representation in the cinema (1959)

CREATIVE PROBLEMS OF THE ART OF THE CAMERA-MAN lowing films with the aid of the Edison ' kinetoscope '. Simultaneously he began is own production of film pictures. While studying shooting technique, in his lexperience he exposed the same piece of negative twice over, and this error d him to the discovery of the possibilities of multiple exposure. After long iperimentation he made the first ' trick ' films, entirely built up of multiple <posures, with black velvet as a background. In his few feet of pictures we rid skilful combinations of shots which had been exposed in sections. Thus, |i the film " Members of the Orchestra " there are shots with eighteen short exosures, a work which, even with present-day technical equipment, calls for a imera-man of great experience and intelligence. Later Melies thought of icking together sections of negative, which at that time never exceded fifty feet 1 length. So that he essentially deserves the honour of the ' discovery ' of resent-day editing technique (Figs. 75-76). The success of Melies' first films and the fame he acquired stimulated an nglishman named Robert Paul to occupy himself with experiments in the sphere w cinematography. At first Paul thought of asking Melies for help, since, not aving even an elementary conception of a cinematograph film, he ascribed the uality of those early pictures entirely to the former conjuror's talent and ability. Towever, after making experimental films, he came to the conclusion that in the reation of cinematographic ' tricks ' of this kind the main part was played not p much by the talent of the camera-man as by the technical resources which 'e had at his disposition. In 1896 Paul set up his own workshop and carried !ut experiments. Not knowing Melies' technical methods, which the Frenchman kept strictly secret, he built up his first trick films not on multiple exposures, ut on the printing of one positive from two and then from several negatives, ^ith the greatest of difficulty he constructed a printing apparatus which enabled im to make multiple' prints on one and the same positive. In the course of is work he began to use masks and shutters in the printer, with which he made le first fades and dissolves. It has to be said that in certain cases his work cached such a high technical level that even in present-day conditions certain f his achievements remain unsurpassed. In Georges Melies and Robert Paul we have the founders of the two main indencies in the modern technique of composite film effects. The first tendency, 'hich has as its basis the principle of partial and multiple exposure, afterwards eveloped into the optical combination of images during snooting which we ave to-day. The second tendency brings us to the greatest achievement of resent-day cinematograph mechanism : the copying automaton of the optical rinter, with which the most complicated combinations of films can be made 1 the laboratory. A little earlier than Melies and Paul an American, William Dickson, one f the closest assistants of Thomas Edison, began experiments with the ' kinewtograph ' apparatus he had constructed. In 1884 the first production of lm spools was begun in America by the chemists Eastman and Walker. Dickson sed this light-sensitive material in his work, and in the same year set up the rst film studio, which afterwards was nicknamed ' Black Maria '. The perfecting of technical resources and the influx of capital investments "ansformed the cinema into an industry. It became a mass spectacle. For early four years the content of the first films remained news subjects, but by the eginning of the new century a differentiation arose in cinematography analogous :> that which had taken place earlier in photography. Thenceforth the scientific nd technical research cinema developed independently, regularly issued news HS