Motography (1912)

June, 1912. MOTOGRAPHY 267 those to whom "interpretation'" is a meaningless word. Go to Maxine Elliott's and hear the fern-riltered offerings of the far-away orchestra, and while you marvel. think ! And don't you remember the Tel-harmonium that. during its brief and brilliant turn along Fifth Avenue and Broadway, made us hear harmonies orchestral and otherwise, that came not from musical instruments, but from a machine miles away, where with one man's direction it started the essential vibrations which issued, as music such as you never heard before, from a cluster of palms at Delmonico's and the ceiling of milady's l>oudoir? COMPLETE APPARATUS NECESSARY. Xow. if your skepticism is beginning to yield, perhaps you will ask "When is it coming? How is it coming? Is it colored pictures? Is it talking-pictures? Where can I see a regular sure enough sample?'' Have patience ! It is all of these and very much more. But Ortografy is a growth, not an accident or an isolated invention. It is the combined result of many discoveries and inventions, through years of patient research, and the Ortoplay is an evolution rather than a phenomenon. You have seen colored pictures and talking-pictures, and perhaps you have seen some fairly good ones, but a picture isn't a play, neither is the sound from a phonograph, and even if they were, there are plays and plays, and a really good one cannot have too much help in its production, so let us hope that nothing will be lacking in the new method, of which all the elements soon will be perfected and harmonized. PREVIOUS AND PARTIAL ATTEMPTS. There have been many attempts to do partially what Ortografy and the Ortoplay promise to do completely. Heroic efforts have been made to improve the cinematograph and its product, but the utmost efforts of the most skilled producers have been unable to go beyond a certain point, although the motion-picture is now twenty years old in its present form. The progress has been only in the direction of refinement, and it has reached the limit, until wholly new methods are adopted. The same may be said of the phonograph with its a 'inewhat longer period of development and its many improvements, although the artificial sounds are more likely to deceive us than the pictures. WHAT HAS BEEN DONE WITH TWO COLORS. One rather startling attempt to make and show naturally colored motion pictures, by the use of two colors only, has been exploited to some extent during the past four or five years, and at least indicates what we may expect where all of the colors are shown. It is interesting to study those epoch-marking ceremonies of the Coronation of King George V of England and his queen, and the thrice-brilliant "Durbar" in India last December. Never in the history of man has there been such an opportunity for the display of color, and all concerned seem to have availed themselves of it. These events were at once a delight to the eye and the despair of photographers. "Oh ! for an outfit to record those colors ;" and how tame and flat are the pictures compared with the scene. CORONATION AND DURBAR. There are those who will tell you that they took them, and you can see what they took on the screen, but go to look at them with somebody who was there, and ask him if India -kies are green and if the "Royal Bhies" wear black uniforms. The -carlet uniforms and costumes everywhere in evidence appear red enough to suit anybody, and there is enough green to carpet the county of Cork. But where is the purple that everybody over here had been led to believe was the "official color" of the Coronation ? And is it really true, as we are sometimes told, that only the more civilized races can appreciate that part of the rainbow which radiates blue, indigo and violet, while these colors are universally tabooed by those dark-skinned hordes, from the "Maharajah of Afghanistan" to the "Elephant-painter of Mysore?" TWO-COLORS NOT SUFFICIENT. If such be true it must be that the decorating committee, in acknowledgment of such aversions, eliminated all trace of these colors from everything visible. But how about the sky? Is it possible that in that land of mystery and of magic, of dematerializing mahatmas, and divinely appointed jugglers, some occult power was invoked to vanish the hated blue from the vault of heaven ? Did a rigid censorship pick out the amethysts, sapphires and turquoises from the jewels of the visitors, or did the same occult power simply change them to rubies and emeralds for the occasion? The strange part of it seems to be that in the socalled "naturally colored" pictures of the previous Coronation ceremonies in England the same limitation of colors was observed, and there surely must have been enough civilized people there to preserve at least the official purple in their neckties, hats and gowns. MANY COLORS MISSING. The facts are that there is no process at present in commercial use which will record anywhere near all of the colors, and the "Kinemacolor" process which was most extensively used in photographing these ceremonies is wholly lacking in the third primary color, blue-violet, with the result that while scarlet, orange, yellow and green, with some shades of brown are plainly shown, there is nothing whatever of blue, indigo, violet or purple or the shades of crimson, lavender, maroon and a host of others, which have at least some blue-violet in them. But even so, and in spite of frequent dimness and the strain on the eyes, look at that magnificent spectacle ! Did you ever, in all your observation of the stage, and of parades, and spectacles, and pageants and ceremonies and reviews and celebrations, see anything that approached the Durbar for sheer brilliance and magnificence ' PRESENT METHODS LIMITED. Now are you convinced that the stage has seen its best days and that we must look to the Ortoplay to satisfy the new desires which the motion-picture has already stirred up in the hearts of the people? But the motion-picture even in its most highly developed form will not satisfy as long as present methods are employed. \\ hen you have seen the Kinemacolor pictures of the Durbar you have seen the farthest advance that can be made with the kind of apparatus and film at present in use, and you have noted with some wonder that the colors, incomplete as they are, have been secured at the expense of sharpness and steadiness. This is bound to be the case, and until the new Ortografic process is ready you will have to choose between them and the fairly steady black and white pictures of the better class Of producers. THE "LIGHT" ARTILLERY — PRESENT AND FUTURE. 1 he camera-man who goes to film an event like the Durbar, and who has upon his shoulders the