Movie Pictorial (September 19, 1914)

THE MOVIE PICTORIAL 9 ft's Interior Views of the Edison Studio Showing: the Different Sets in Position, The Lower Picture Shows Mare MacDermott and Miriam Nesbit Enacting a Scene in a Society Drama The company organized to produce and promote Edison pictures let production matters go that they might pro- secute the trespassers of their rights. Thousands of dol- lars were spent in the courts, and the expenses were enormous. All the profits reaped from the Edison pro- ductions of the past were spent in litigation. Realizing that they were not sufficiently strong in mat- ters of finance to win out, the directors of the company behind the Edison patents decided to license their com- petitors instead of trying to make them cease operations entirely. Licenses were granted the Lubin, Vitagrapli, Biograph, Pathe Freres, Melies, Kalem, Essanay, Selig, and Kline organizations, and in 1907 the motion picture industry took its first big stride. Under the terms of the license, each one of these com- panies were compelled to pay a tribute for the use of infringing devices. This sudden condition began to pay the backers of the Edison patents more money than they had been able to make as manufacturers, so it was but natural that they devote the major part of their attention to the developing of the industry, leaving the matter of production to persons not so vitally interested. Though other producers were issuing one new thousand-foot sub- ject each week, but two photoplays bearing the Edison trade mark appeared during a month. Further, the early Edison releases were not exactly the type that the store-show exhibitors of the times were clamoring for. Then Frank L. Dyer hired the man from Montclair, calling him the Edison studio’s “Manager of Negative Production,” and he has been just that ever since. over to the Edison studio in the Bronx and began to create order out of chaos, place the Edison photoplays on a par with the offerings of competitive companies, and establish a reputation for the moral cleanliness of all productions bearing the Edison trade mark. But the Edison studio’s birth dates back to 1898, and shortly after the time that Thomas Alva Edison startled the world with the announcement that he could make pictures which would show things and people as they actually appeared. The first office and studio was a movable contraption which was carried on pivots, and very much resembled a “Black Maria,” being twenty- five by twenty feet in size. It had a flat glass top, and had to be moved around as the sun changed its posi- tion. At this stage of the motion picture’s development, or evolution, only forty and fifty foot subjects were produced. No one thought of it as a commercial prop- osition. For a long time the experimenters under Edison used the “Black Maria” van for all pictures requiring interior settings. Later a studio was estab- lished on the roof of a building on Twenty-first Street, New York City, but in 1907 a studio was opened just opposite Bronx Park, New York City. When the motion picture began to demonstrate com- mercial possibilities, people of all classes began to jump on board, and to infringe on the Edison patents. Horace G. Plimpton assumed charge of the Edison studio when only one Edison picture was being released each week. There were few available act- ors for motion pictures, and quite often the property men and electricians, also carpenters were made do double duty. None of the picture companies then in existence employed a company of play- ers as is the practice today. So one of the very first things Mr. Plimpton did was to surround himself with actors and actresses with personality, and who could register emotion. First, Plimpton devoted his time to assisting his directors, but as the busi- ness began to grow and the demand for more Edison pictures became insist- ent, he hunted high and low for the sort of men who could and would carry out orders as pertained to matters of direction. Once he finds liis man, he gives him free reign to employ his own ideas. “The picture director,” says Mr. Plimp- ton, “is supreme in his domain. With the rapidity necessary to the produc- tion of a certain number of pictures