Technique of the photoplay (1916)

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210 DISSOLVES AND STOP-CAMERA 44. Attic —Grandma stops talking—Nettie looks up and smiles—rev- erently folds dress and restores to trunk. This is practically no more than a fade vision without the period of darkness that marks the down and up fade. The screen retains its full illumination, but the scene changes. Instead of a single dissolve vision, an entire story may be told; each scene dissolving into the next, or a lengthy vision may run without a break and with a great improvement to the effect as well as increase in the cost. 7. These effects are gained solely through the use of the diaphragm and the counting of the turns of the crank. The apparition is done with the double exposure, counting and stop-camera. 8. According to the dictionary an apparition is a ghost. It also is an appearance. In general the word is supposed to connote the supernatural or preternatural. In photoplay the apparition may be something merely thought of and having no relation to the other world. 9. Tom's better but quarrelsome half has just stormed out of the room. Tom married for money and did not even get that. He drops the book he has been trying to read and thinks of the girl he might and should have married. She seems almost to be standing beside him, so real are his thoughts to him. He is almost convinced that she is there. He springs up, but clasps only thin air. The script should read: 51. Library —Tom and Betty on—quarreling—in an excess of rage Betty grabs Tom by the hair—pounds his head against the chair back—bursts into tears and rushes from the room—Tom picks up a book—looks at it—wants to read—doesn't want to read— lets it drop into his lap—stares into the fire—slowly the figure of Mary appears before him as he remembers her—the image grows stronger until she seems very real—he springs up to grasp her—she vanishes—Tom clasps only the air—he sinks back into the chair, more miserable than ever. In line with previous warnings, please note that nothing is said here about a dissolve, an apparition, stop-camera or anything else. You merely tell what happens. The director will understand. He will start the scene and when Tom starts to stare into the fire, he will call a fade, Tom becomes rigid and the cameraman will slowly close the diaphragm, counting the turns of the crank. When he is finished he will reverse the movement and turn back into the upper retort just as much film as he has turned down on the fade. Now !Mary will walk into the scene and take her place before Tom. The camera starts and the diaphragm is opened in just as many turns as it took to close it. At the end of. the dissolve ^Nlary is fully in the scene, though at first she was merely a shadowy suggestion of an outline through which the room could be seen. Now Tom springs up, the director cries "Hold," and Tom stops where he is, trying not to move his body in the slight- est while Mary walks off the scene. Nothing is done with the dia- phragm. Now the action is started again and Tom completes the gesture with which he sought to embrace Mary, but now there is no