Technique of the photoplay (1916)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

212 DISSOLVES AND STOP-CAMERA for the door. He is almost there when he is stopped and once more Bess comes into the scene. So it goes. When Ben springs at her, just before the leap there is a stop and Bess comes out of the scene. Ben jumps. It is the same when he raises the bench. As he almost strikes he holds the action until Bess gets out of the way. Each apparition will mean a stop and a patched film, but the result will be as smooth and even as though the action was continuous. 12. Stop-camera work has many other uses. Faust, in his labora- tory, summons !Mephisto. There is a puff of smoke through which the Devil steps. The pact is made. Mephisto sinks through the floor, presumably going some distance down, and leaves behind only a puff of smoke. It is all rather simple. Faust performs the incanta- tion. At the proper moment he holds his position. Mephisto takes his place in the scene and a small smoke bomb is touched off. When it explodes, Mephisto steps through the smoke. In the joining room the film is matched up. When the time comes for the exit Mephisto merely crouches down. Then he stands up again and walks out of the scene. A smoke bomb is placed where he stood. When it ex- plodes, Faust resumes his suspended animation. The film is cut as Mephisto crouches and before he goes very far. Imagination does the rest. The smoke bomb is not essential. It is merely a little touch. It is sufficient that ^Mephisto crouches. 13. Had he desired to vanish in thin air he would merely have stood still, or he could have jumped into the air. The film would have been cut before he came down and therefore imagination would suggest that he melted into nothing. Walking up the drop would sug- gest a passage through the brick wall, or coming from there an en- trance through solid masonry. 14. Objects are worked in the same way. If the dagger with which a murder was done is to be presented before the villain s eyes, the camera is stopped while the director enters the scene and places the knife on the table. Later he may take it away again. In the same way an object can be dissolved in and out. This dissolving is generally done when the object of the introduction is to remind rather than startle. 15. With this explanation of the various factors of the photoplay and the methods of accomplishing effects it should be possible for the stu- dent to write in action the elements of form that he has mastered. (l.XL:21 XLI:3) (2.XL:19) (3.XLI :6) (6.XLI :6) (9.XL: 25).