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174 CINEMATOGRAPHIC ANNUAL
beauty of line and color. This is true also of household furniture, and practically everything we use. The portable typewriters which you use are no longer just plain black machines, but they are now offered to you in various colors and designs. The manufacturers have suddenly awakened to the commercial value of beauty and are exploiting it. I think that the motion picture, through its representation of beauty in clothes, furniture, automobiles, and other features of our life, has been a vitally important factor in stimulating this new respect and appreciation for beauty that is noticeable. I know for a fact that many designers and illustrators see motion pictures for the inspiration and pictorial ideas they get from them.
The pictorial history of the photoplay is a history of the development of the public taste for beauty on the screen. This taste has been developed by tasting. One artist, in his efforts, has outdone the other, and the public continues, as always, to demand more and more. The artist who succeeds today must be able to give a wee bit more than his predecessors. Through cumulative progress the motion picture, with its tremendous resources, physical and human, will continue to blaze the trail for all other pictorial arts, and will assure our recovery from what has been referred to as "the ugliest age in history" — 1850 to 1900.
In the earliest pictures, little, if any, attention was given to background. These were the novelty days, when the mere seeing of movement on the screen was sufficient to satisfy the public. The background was whatever happened to be behind the object or person photographed. The next step was a sort of travelogue background, using natural settings. As the pictures were done with a limited personnel, and in a short time, the backgrounds were not very carefully selected. In fact, it was quite usual for a company to go into the country in the morning with a camera, a couple of horses and an actor or two, and return in the evening with an epic of the period.
With the coming of stories demanding interiors the first sets had to be devised. These were originally, either a borrowed stage set, or a painted canvas backing. All the wall furniture, such as bookcases, pictures, was painted on a flat surface. Even vases with flowers, and chairs against the wall were painted, the only objects not being painted being those in the center of the room in actual use in the action. The company making the picture usually painted a trademark in a conspicuous place on the wall. For instance, Pathe used its rooster trademark in this way.
The sets were made of light framework and canvas, so that when an actor entered and closed the door the whole room, including the painted furniture, would shake. Usually these sets were set up outside and were lit by sunlight, giving a peculiar outside effect to a supposed interior. In addition the cameraman often had to pan up the camera to avoid showing the grass or dirt floor, and if a wind happened to be blowing, the actor almost had to hold his hat to keep it from blowing out of the scene. These early sets were designed principally by scenic artists or head carpenters, and often