The Story World and Photodramatist (Jul-Oct 1923)

TRICKS OF THE CAMERA 33 the script called for Dustin to charge on horseback over a cliff and down a perpendicular slope, horse and man rolling together. There wasn't any perpendicular slope. The best we could find (and time was short) was a gradual descent. So I turned the camera slant-wise. And, man, oh man, what a thrill in projection when the film was righted! One of the biggest thrills in any current picture is that of the horseman dashing along a tottering bridge over a chasm and leaping a wide gap as a portion of the structure tumbles into the gorge, in the $10,000 prize scenario "Broken Chains." I don't know for certain how Fred Jackman shot it, but I believe I know. I did something similar once myself in the filming of "In Old Kentucky." You photograph your horse in the studio against a black velvet background, making his jump. You time him from take-off to landing, and measure the length of his leap. That's the upper half of your frame. Then you picture your tottering bridge and tumbling gap. That's the lower half. Brought together, with the gap matching the horse's jump, and you have your picture. Of course, you must remember that the natural background is going to replace the black velvet against which the horse was photographed, and you must take precautions to prevent it from appearing that the horse passed through trees and rocks as if he were transparent. That is done by building, against the velvet, trees and rocks of similar size and location to the natural set — but all black. The horse passes behind or around them, as he is supposed to pass behind or around the natural objects they represent. When the films are matched, you get your thrill. Just how intense is the illusion of reality created by these tricks can be instanced in relation of a happening of years ago. Some writer for The Saturday Evening Post collaborated with me in preparation of several articles describing hazards of the cameraman. We had a lot of fun pre paring them, and I couldn't resist the temptation to "make it good." So, for illustration I prepared a number of tricked pictures. About the time of publication I was seeking to take out insurance. When the stories and pictures appeared, I was notified I would be considered an "ordinary risk" instead of a "preferred risk," as had been the case with cameramen theretofore. This meant my payments would be doubled. I protested, but the insurance people believed the pictures, and make it stick. Dating from that day, cameramen became "ordinary risks," paying double. You see, the pictures I had tricked were so convincing that the insurance people believed them, for all I could protest to the contrary. Another evidence of how people, and that includes hard-headed business men, believe all they see in the paper, occurred years ago. It was in the infancy of the motion picture game. I was photographing "Just In Time," an old "mellerdramer." The script called for a bridge explosion. I took various scenes of the jackknife drawbridge at Long Beach — open, closed, with actors on it, and one with a bomb exploding in the gap. Then (remember, this was a long time ago before double-exposure, etc.) I jockeyed them all together, one over the other, in various ways, until I evolved a master film which showed the bridge being blown up. Officials of the railroad saw the film and believed we had blown up their bridge, and the order went out to bar all motion picture concerns from making any use of the railroad. Of course, the matter was cleared up, and the order rescinded. But the bits of drawbridge which I had cut out with a penknife, under a magnifying glass, and pasted over the film showing the explosion, had been so convincing that those hard-headed railroad men believed for a time that we had destroyed their property. As I say, some people believe all they read in the papers. And some believe all they see in the pictures. But it isn't always so.