The technique of the photoplay ([c1913])

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US TECHNIQUE OF THE PHOTOPLAY- though the action in a five hundred foot picture may have re- quired months of care. Stop camera, but with the regular attachment, is also used to produce sudden apparitions, or to exchange dummies for real players. We will suppose that a character has been thrown from a cliff or an upper window. The upper window in the scene, is set on the stage floor and the drop is less than three feet, but going outside the building selected for the other half of the fall, a dummy is dropped into the scene, dressed to represent the actor playing the part. The camera is stopped, the position of the dummy noted accurately and while the dummy is removed the actor takes its place as nearly as possible. The camera is started again and the action is continued. If the substitution has been deftly made, the effect is startlingly real. If players are on the scene, the director cries "Hold!" and at the warning they remain in the exact position they have as- sumed and maintain that until the command is given to resume when the incompleted action is finished. This also permits the substitution or removal of furniture or other articles or players where an instantaneous appearance or disappearance is required. When Faust summons the Devil by incantation he turns to the point at which the Devil should appear. Holding this position rigidly, the camera is stopped and the Devil steps into the scene. The fuse of a smoke bomb is lighted and the camera started. When the bomb explodes in a puff of smoke, the Devil steps through the smoke, Faust cowers in fear and the action proceeds. In the cutting room the portion of the film between Faust's sum- mons and the explosion of the bomb is cut out, with the result that as Faust points, there is a puff of smoke through which the Devil seems to appear. Back turning is used for reversing action. In all cameras the unexposed film is passed down from the top magazine to the bot- tom box, halting behind the lense for the instant required for exposure. This gives the straightforward action. But by chang- ing the gearing, the film can be run from the bottom box into the top, giving action completely reversed. Suppose that Jim, the brave young fireman, loves Nell, the daughter of his engineer. So does Bill, the evil switchman. Nell refuses to marry Bill and he swears that Jim shall not marry her either. He trusses her up and lays her on the track to be run over by the very engine of which her father and Jim are the crew. Jim sees a woman on the track and rushes along the run- ning board to the cowcatcher, picking up the girl as the train sweeps past.