The phonoscope (Nov 1896-Dec 1899)

The Phonoscope (Copyrighted, 1896) A Monthly Journal Devoted to Scientific and Amusement Inventions Appertaining to Sound and Sight . HI. NEW YORK, JUNE, i899 No Vol, XTaktno lt)tews a perilous Hrt Adventures of Men Who Make rioving Picture Views "There ma) be livelier and more exciting occupations than taking photographs for a movingpicture concern, but if there are I haven't heard of them." The remark was made in the office of one of the big biograph companies recently by Mr. F. Armitage, an expert field photographer, who has been employed by the company for two or three years, and has accomplished some of its most difficult photographing achievements. "I have just been out to Niagara Falls," Mr. Armitage continued, "and a little experience I had there made me think over some of the lively times a man is likely to encounter in this sort of work. They have a trolley road out there which runs through the gorge below the falls, alongside the rapids. The road is built as near as possible to the water, because its business comes from persons who want to get a close view of the rapids. In some places the cars seem to be directly over the water, and drops of flying spray are actually dashed aboard the cars. "The officers of our company thought that it would be a good plan to reproduce this charming scene on the screen for the enjoyment of the admiring public, and they assigned me to the task of securing the views. ."The cameras we use for this work, along with the electric apparatus and the motors to operate it, weigh several hundred pounds, so you see they can't be carried about like snapshot boxes. We set our camera up on a car, mounting it on a high platform so that it would take in a view of the whole river. Then we timed the run over the road to see how fast it would be necessary to go to get the whole scene upon our films. We found it required rather more than the ordinary rate of speed to do it, but that did not bother us, as we were to have a car to ourselves and a clear line. "At the appointed time we started off a good clip. When we reached the head of the rapids we set the machine in motion. The road is full of curves, as it follows the course ot the river, and every time we went around one of these curves the car seemed to rear up on one side. We had passed two or three withovrt leaving the track and were beginning to get used to it, when the car struck an unusually sharp curve. She reared up again, but this time, instead of coining back to the track, she balanced in the air for a minute and then went over on her side. Luckily there happened to be a little ground between the track and the water at this particular spot — enough to prevent car and the machine from going into the river. We saved ourselves by jumping at the right time. But if that car had gone off the track at almost any of the other points where she had threatened to do so, the whole outfit would have been plunged into the rapids. "A somewhat similar experience befell, me sometime ago while photographing the Cedar Rapids in the St. Lawrence river. We had been making a record of the passage of a boat through the rapids, and had our machine mounted on a log float, ballasted with rocks. We threw off some of the rocks from time to time, as the work proceeded, until finally, just at the end of our task, the float was lightened sufficiently so that the weight of the camera, being forward of -the center, tipped it up on one side, and off went machine, men and all into twenty feet of water. Fortunately for us, there were men with coils of rope handy by on board the boat, and we were pulled out without suffering any more serious inconvenience than results from an unexpected cold bath. It was some time before the camera was grappled and lifted from the river bed. "One of these big cameras, capable of taking 200 photographs per minute, is worth a good deal of money, and an operator will run considerable personal risk rather than desert it. There are occasions, however, when it is the part of wisdom for him to save his skin, even at the expense of the machine. "A case of this kind occurred at Atlantic City when we were photographing the fire department's response to an alarm. The alarm was one that was sounded for our special benefit. The firemen knew it, and naturally wanted to make as good a showing as possible, so they put on an extra burst of speed. "Our camera was stationed at a corner where the engines were to make a turn. Down they came, pellmell, and we took them in all right until near the end of the line. Then along came a volunteer hose cart, its men dragging it along at a great rate in an attempt to keep from being last in the line. Racing with them was an engine truck. The men with the hose cart made the turn all right, but in doing so they cut off the engine. The driver of the engine had the alternatives of running down the men who were pulling the hose cart, or running into the crowd of onlookers along the street, or of keeping straight on and running over our apparatus. He chose the latter, reasoning, I suppose that as they were only two of us we had better chances of getting out of the way than had the -members of the crowd. "We took all the chance there was when we saw for a certainty that the engine was coming our .way. That was none too soon. Our heels and those of the horses were close together when the heavy engine raced past. "Of course the camera was smashed into flinders. But there was one curious thing about it. The only piece, of the machine left intact was the box into which the film is reeled. There wasn't anything but kindling wood left of the rest of the camera, but this film box hadn't a crack in it. When we came to develop the film we found it had not been injured, and we had secured an exceptionally good set of pictures. "The machine had kept right on working up to the time when the pole of the engine struck it. The last view shows a pair of big gray horses tearing along at full gallop right out of the center of the picture. That set has been popular with 1. 6 audiences because of its realistic character, but the people who wonder at its naturalness would not be so surprised if they knew the circumstances under which it was obtained. "There are other experiences which fall to the lot of the camera man in this particular line of work which are not particularly risky, but are rather nerve-trying. For instance, we were sent some months ago to make a reproduction of the panorama from the Mt. Tom inclined railway. We wanted to get the whole view on to our films, which meant that we must make the trip in a little more than a minute. That was practically the same as dropping through space, but we got aboard a car at the top, yelled to the man in charge to let go and set the machine in motion. The rest of the time we hung on for dear life. "We came out of it without a smash-up, but ours will stand as the record trip on the Mt. Tom railroad, and I don't think that any of us would care to undertake it again. "A year ago we wanted to get a scene showing a big explosion. So the camera was shipped up to Syracuse, where an unusually large blast was to be made. In order to get a record worth anything it was necessary to get near to the explosion. The men in charge of the work assured us that they couldn't guarantee what direction the rocks might take, and made it clear by their inquiries about our life insurance that they didn't envy us our undertaking. "It was too late to back out then, even if we had warned to, so I told the boss of the blasting enterprise to give me a signal when he touched off the fuse. As soon as the signal came I started up the machine and then turned and ran. The explosion came in about two seconds. I fell on my stomach, and I could hear the rocks rattling about me, but none of them happened to land on the spot where I lay. That was a case where it was simply necessary to take chances. In obtaining landscape or panoramic views intended to represent what a passenger sees from a train, the usual method is to mount the camera on a car in front of the engine or on the pilot of the engine itself. To travel sixty miles an hour lashed to the pilot of an engine, sharing your narrow rest with the camera and being compelled to keep that camera in operation, is an experience of which one installment will satisfy the ordinary man. But risks must be run where it is a question of satisfying the public's appetite for entertainment." "When this moving picture business first came into existence," said another operator, "a favorite subject was the view of an express train going sixty miles an hour. The effectiveness of the view was heightened, of course, by showing the train as nearly head on as possible. We tried to find how close to the track we could set our machine — and incidentally ourselves — without being overcome by the suction of the train. We found that there was no agreement among railroad men themselves on this point, but we finally figured it out that we could take up our stand five feet from the track if we had an anchorage. "So we made ready to take a through express on one of the big roads and set up our camera, securely fastened, five feet from the track. There