Moving Picture World (Jul - Aug 1918)

August 31, 1918 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 1255 New Quick Changing Sign on the Market Southern Concern Offers Novel Idea in Electric Signs for Theatre Fronts. ELECTRIC signs for theatre fronts have been lacking in the chief essential of ease in changing, but A. Greenwood, of the Greenwood Advertising Co. of Knoxville, Tenn., has been in town the past few weeks with a sign that can be completely changed in a few minutes Two Views of the Quick Changing Sign. This sign was mistakenly credited to one of the purchasers of a sign by a trade publication recently, but the sign is already in limited use in Tennessee and promises to gain a wider field because of its handy construction. As will be seen from the cut, the sign consists of a two-bank space for lettering and an oval for a portrait or trademark. The insert shows a sign at night, while the body of the cut shows it in daylight use. The letters are set into panels which may be detached for changing, or the letters may be changed without removal. A font of 250 letters come with the sign. These are cut from heavy gauge galvanized metal and are provided with wire pins top and bottom. These pins fit into holes drilled in the panels, being inserted into the upper holes first, when the lower pins can be dropped into their proper spaces and rest against a ledge which preserves the alignment. The ovals are made of similar sheet metal soldered onto wire gauze. The backing is a shallow box painted in white enamel and illuminated by concealed lights in the rim of the sign, 130 ten-watt lights giving an illumination equal to electric letters. A flasher may be cut into the circuit, or two or more systems of colored lights installed. The only glass in the entire sign is the light bulbs, and when dusty the sign may be washed down with a hose without danger of breakage. One of the signs is to be installed by S. L. Rothapfel on the marquee of the Rialto, if a license can be procured, and Mr. Greenwood's visit to New York will probably result in their installation elsewhere. Spends $2,000 for Five-Foot Dissolve Worsley of Paralta Shows Cement Base, the Emplacement of Huge Dummy Gun and Then Its Discharge. WALLACE WORSLEY, who directed "A Law Unto Herself," the latest Louise Glaum Paralta play, is authority for the statement that he has filmed in this picture the costliest dissolve yet made in film history. The making of the five feet of film, which flash by in five seconds on the screen, cost approximately two thousand dollars. It may be the highest-priced, five-foot strip of film on the market. This cost was necessitated by the fact that a huge cannon, an exact reproduction of the 42-centimeter which was so popular with the Hun at the beginning of the war, was called for in this dissolve. It had to be taken from the studio to a location in a vineyard in the town of Sierra Madre. Here a cement foundation had been prepared for it. The dissolve shows one of the characters of the story gazing at the foundation before the gun is upon it. and before him ap pears the vision of the gun which is to be placed there in later years. The camera was set first to take the empty foundation, and then it was left rigidly in place, with the cameraman standing guard over it to see that no one moved it, for two hours and a half while the heavy gun was brought up in trucks and mounted on the emplacement. Then came the other part of the dissolve showing the monster cannon being fired. A Helpful Assistant for the Operator General Electric's New Compensarc for Current Regulation of Mazda Projection Lamps is Compact and Efficient. TO give the close regulation of current essential for Mazda motion picture projection lamps the General Electric Company has developed a new Compensarc which will be known as the Type I, Form B. Protection is afforded against over current and regulation to within onetenth ampere is obtained. It operates on the reactance principle and is furnished for Front and Side View of the New Compensarc. standard A. C. voltages and frequencies in ratings of 20 and 30 amperes, corresponding to the Mazda lamps now on the market for this purpose. Owing to its compactness, it may be installed convenient to the operator, who can watch the ammeter and control the current by the hand wheel shown in the illustration. This Compensarc is made up of a two-coil auto transformer stacked with standard transformer punchings within a raw hide housing, the complete wiring of which forms the line side with the lamp terminals tapped across one coil. The coils are stacked so that room is left between them for an iron leakage plug in each side of the magnetic circuit. Turning a hand wheel on the shaft of the iron plug moves it in and out between the two coils giving a very close adjustment for the lamp. Maximum reactance is obtained when the plug is all the way in. The only noise is a slight humming when the plugs are being withdrawn; this ceases when they come to rest. The net weight of the Compensarc is 32 pounds, and its dimensions are 83/16 inches wide by 117/16 inches high by 10^ inches deep. Further information regarding the compensarc may be obtained by addressing the General Electrical Company. Schenectady, N. Y., and mentioning the fact that you saw the description of the apparatus in the Moving Picture World. "BUSTER" KEATON ON HIS WAY. "Buster" Keaton, one of the brightest lights in the Paramount-Arbuckle comedies, once a member of the vaudeville family of Keatons, is now wearing khaki, and what is moxe is on his way with Company C, 159th Infantry of Uncle Sam's forces. On the eve of Keaton's departure for camp a dinner in his honor was given at Seal Beach, which included a minstrel show, with Arbuckle as interlocutor, Lou Anger, Al St. John. Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline as end men. Before the affair closed a wallet was presented to the department comedian which, on opening, he found contained $100, the gift of the company to defray his camp expenses. Buster Keaton was a great favorite with all who knew him, as well as a most capable performer, and his presence will be missed by his former comrades of the ParamountArbuckle force.