Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

190 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. VI, No. 4. Moving Pictures Snow Prune Industry The romantic side of Santa Clara county's fruit industry, and something of its wealth and magnitude, will be graphically displayed before thousands of people in the East and even in Europe within the next few months. The Southern Pacific Railroad's Lecture Bureau will do the work, and the fame of San Jose will be widespread. Camera men from the lecture bureau recently spent an entire day in the orchard district. Every phase of the prune industry, from the tree to the train, was caught by the cameras. Moving pictures were made of mile after mile of prune orchards. Prunes were caught dropping from the trees, and girls and boys were photographed as they picked them from the ground and transferred them from their pails into the boxes. The hauling of the prunes to the dryer, the dipping, washing, rinsing, spreading on trays, carrying the trays to the dryingground on cars, spreading trays, drying, gathering from trays, grading and sacking, were shown in the orchards and at the dryers. The weighing-in at the packinghouses was then taken by the camera, the second grading, the processing, the facing and packing and the shipping of the packed boxes. The prune reel contained just 700 feet of film, which will be developed, copied several times and handled exclusively by the Southern Pacific Lecture Bureau in an extensive campaign of publicity. Other photographs from which stereopticon views will be made were taken. All of the industries of California will be exploited in this way by the railroad lecturers, and the state will receive its share of well-merited advertising. Church to Use Films Rev. L. Potter Hitchcock, pastor of the Neighborhood Congregational Church of Pasadena, Cal., believes that the motion picture is destined soon to become an important factor in the church and Sunday school. So much courage has he in his convictions that his church is planning the erection of a building to adjoin the church edifice, in which there will be a large auditorium equipped with stage and stereopticon and moving picture apparatus. It is in this hall, when the building is complete, that the Sunday school children will be taught their lessons. These lessons will be illustrated throughout. Not only for the sake of the children will the pictures be projected upon the screen, but also for members of the church and such others as choose to go and see them. "I believe the motion picture has come into the world for educational uses," said Rev. Hitchcock recently. "I believe it is destined to be the means of a moral and spiritual uplift, as well as of entertainment." "For instance, in teaching a class of boys their Sunday school lessons, and impressing upon them the necessity of making a right beginning in life, I would open the lesson with a reel of pictures and close it with another, thus causing them to take in the teachings through the eye-gate as well as the ear-gate. I believe it is the proper way. "Invaluable moving pictures are now taken in foreign countries that show the work our missionaries are accomplishing. The missionary societies are providing themselves with such and it will probably not be long until some of these reach the Pacific Coast and can be seen in our church. "Then if I find some good story pictures, pieces of fiction of worth and value, I shall not be afraid to use them." The plans of the Neighborhood Church are unique, at least upon the Pacific Coast. Rev. Hitchcock said also that the Congregational and Presbyterian churches of Riverside recently united to hold services in connection with moving picture entertainments. But so far as the permanent incorporation of a picture hall and apparatus in a church and its use for illustration of Sunday school lessons and sermons, in a truly twentieth century manner, is concerned, the minister is broaching a new idea. He also takes into consideration the fact that the pictures will attract many to the church, and says that stereopticon pictures may then also be used without loss of time in arranging for them, and that several series of Sunday school views are now on their way to California from the East. There are other remarkable features about this building that is to be. Beside the moving picture hall it will contain a gymnasium and kitchen. It will be placed at the disposal of pupils of the Garfield school, near which it will be located, for dramatic entertainments and sociables. Residents of the neighborhood will also be invited to make it the place for what meetings and assemblages they may wish to have. Pictures in Good Roads Movement One of the most interesting features of the big convention of the American Association for Highway Improvement and the congress of its allied organizations, including the Touring Club of America, at Richmond, Va., beginning November 20, will be the moving pictures that will illustrate the advantages of good roads over bad. Most interesting will be the films showing how the isolation of the country districts is wiped out by the building of new roads or the improvement of the old ones. Farmers will be shown struggling over bad roads, sick from the strain, the doctor unable to reach them, and finally the undertaker unable to get them to their graves. There will be shown in contrast the farmer who enjoys good roads, hauling big loads comfortably, getting sick in comfort, the doctor reaching him easily, and he will be seen on his porch watching his neighbor go to his grave smoothly and without hitch. The American Association for Highway Improvement will have the advantage of being the first organization to show these pictures. The moving pictures will be a striking feature of the event. The danger of bad roads to automobilists will also be shown in moving picture form and will particularly appeal to hundreds of tourists who will attend the sessions of the Touring Club of America. When the convention is over it is probable that most of the films will be shown in moving picture houses throughout the United States. While sitting in a moving picture theater, a grocer in London, England, saw flashed on the screen before him a message warning him that his premises were on fire, this being an original and effective method adopted by the management for communicating the unpleasant tidings to their patron.