The international photographer (Jan-Dec 1932)

Twenty-four The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER November, 1932 nitro-cellulose and fusel oil upon a polished support for drying. This gave a perfect sheet of very fine texture which was quite suitable to motion picture work. A patent was applied for on April 9, 1889, and granted on December 10 of the same year, and since Reichenbach was working with George Eastman the patent was assigned to the Eastman Dry Plate Company. First Positive Raw Stock The first order of this new stock for motion picture use on record in the Eastman files was shipped to Dickson at the Edison Laboratories September 2, 1889. It was with this roll that the first successful Edison motion picture equipment was perfected. This strip of film, about fifty feet long, was something of an opening line in a romantic record of the human race written in celluloid and silver. It was comparable to the early morn awakening and yawn of a Celtic Bard who later in the day went down the country singing and carrying tales. The first celluloid was all coated with a negative emulsion and was first intended for the Eastman hand cameras that were loaded in the factory and had to be returned to the factory to be unloaded, at which time the pictures were finished and a new roll of negative sufficient for a hundred pictures loaded in the "Kodak." The use of this first stock for the experimental stages of the motion picture was just incidental. There was not sufficient demand for a specially designed positive stock, hence Edison and the other experimenters used in the negative coated stock for both negative and positive making until 1895. In August of that year Eastman made the first positive stock in the longest length of 100 feet. A hundred-foot roll of this stock was sufficient for two or three feature length pictures of 1895. It was the practice of the pioneers to cement the short ends of the stock together, some of the forty or fifty foot pictures of this period being composed of several short pieces. Examples of these early pictures in the Los Angeles Museum show that the raw stock emulsions were not of consistent quality, but greatly varied with the different rolls. They were all one scene and the single scene would flash indiscriminately at patches to night or daylight density. This did not keep away the throngs who regarded the "pictures that move" only as curiosities and were concerned with the movement shown in the picture. A visitor saw plenty of movement not intended in the action of the scene. Drawing Power of Novelty Even running these pictures on today's perfected apparatus they jiggle in "four dimensions," remaining as a mute testimonial to the patience of the people of the nineties and the drawing power of a new novelty. The unsteadiness was due to the imperfections of the camera sprockets and film perforations, many of them being done by hand. The highest aim of these pictures was to show motion, the subjects being mainly dancers, prizefights, weightlifting or just a man sneezing as in the case of Fred Ott, who was photographed by Edison for his Kinetoscope Peep-Show. Ott's sneeze was faithfully recorded for his public and in so doing established him as one of the very first stars of the industry. ff£3C3V T M 19 t0iswf,.f\ TA«Un Sandow, the strong man, made by Edison in 1890 for the Kinetoscope peep shoiv. From actual specimens in the Los Angeles Museum. Center, Carmencita, the dancer. Made for the Kinetoscope in 1890 by Dickson. Right, first motion picture made by the Edison Laboratories, under the present 35m. standard, in 1889. Edison's famous helper Dickson is standing with his hand on the back of the horse. Courtesy W. K. L. Dickson. Actual specimens in the Los Angeles Museum. Returning to the evolution of celluloid and silver, the next step was the introduction of a non-inflammable celluloid. The first patent on this was issued to W. C. Parkin in France in 1904. He made it non-inflammable by the addition of a soluble metallic salt. Subsequently his formulae were varied in many ways, chiefly by experimenters in France. First Panchromatic Emulsion The Eastman Company introduced the first panchromatic emulsion on Sept. 9, 1913. This great advance in the photographic emulsion that could record colored objects in correct monochrome was not appreciated or taken advantage of until fourteen or fifteen years later, when the forerunner of the "Pan Type 1" gradually came into use. This stock was very contrasty and grainy originally, but was greatly improved after a series of experiments during the winter of 1926 at Rochester by Emery Huse and Ned Van Buren for the Eastman Company. The next great improvement in negative stock was the supersensitive pan emulsion on non-halation gray base announced on May 2, 1931. According to the present records the first films of any great length to use an emulsion to give a corrected color rendition were some westerns photographed by Glenn Gano in 1920. The first dyed celluloid base was introduced on March 1, 1921, in nine colors and clear base b" Eastman. This remained in general use until the advent of sound, at which time it was discontinued in favor of a type of dyed base having little effect upon the light transmission to the photoelectric cell. This new base was introduced as Sonochrome in sixteen colors in April, 1929. The reversal film so popular with the 16mm. fans was first sold in April, 1923, which made it possible for the first time successfully to reverse the camera negative to a positive, thus cutting the cost of making motion pictures by the amateur about in half. It gave the amateur film a bid for popularity. Stenciled Edges Another great advance was due to the foresight of Joseph Aller, who perfected a system of stenciling the negative edge with footage numbers. Aller patented this in 1917. The patents were acquired by Eastman, and the first stock to be issued using this was on May 2, 1918. This evolutionary step was at first thought impractical, but today it would be impossible to do without these footage numbers in synchronizing and cutting. They measure out mile after mile of film going to all parts of the world from the film capital. Louis B. Mayer said "The screen shall some day be the diary of the human race." How true that is, except it need not be in the future tense. Today upon celluloid and silver is inscribed a record of everything human, and in some future time a people looking back on us may go to this saga for a most authentic record of our every custom and mode of living.