Summarized
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(unfortunately there is no source of page nine until now please inform ME of any findings)
[…] spot light photographed through a copper wire screen to give the shimmering rays which are shown in the conventional paintings representing this sacred history. The massive walls of Fort Schuyler furnished the walls of the City of Jerusalem and the Wise Men followed the Star on the backs of camels in the Bronx Zoo. Photographs of the pyramids were double exposed above a location on a sandy beach for the sojourn in Egypt and the pillared portico of a rich patent medicine manufacturers’ home, served as the architecture of the Roman Court.
Great Demand
Nearly seven hundred prints from the original and two dupe negatives which had to be made to supply the demand were sold and some of the prints are still listed by educational exchanges. Orders were still coming in when the negatives were destroyed in a disastrous studio
fire.
What Comedies Brought
Since the days of these crude pictures trick photography has waned and then waxed strong again. For a long time it was the step child of the legitimate producers. The comedy producers, however, have always regarded it as one of their strongest allies. It is, in fact, mainly due to the patient research of serious workers on the slap-stick lots that the credit for the present perfection of trick effects is largely due.
Experts
Far sighted producers have awakened to the money savings that may be affected by the use of trick photography and now all the larger companies retain the services of high salaried experts who are specialists in the business of artistic photographic trickery.
Stringent Requirements
Trick photography is a trick profession. It requires the arts of a trained magician with the added requirement that the spectator shall not even suspect that he is being deluded. Magicians must be familiar with psychology, with intricate mechanics, with higher mathematics, with physics, with art, with myriads of complicated details that must be made to dovetail to the fraction of a second. The craft of the trick cinematographer is just as exacting and calls for an even wider application of special and practical knowledge.
It is not my intention to give in this paper any detailed explanation of trick photography. The subject is far too broad to be covered, even in a large volume. Every piece of trick photography is a separate problem and, just as the combinations of the alphabet are practically infinite, so are the various combinations that may be arranged in doing work of this character.
Trick photography in cinematography is an analysis of motion in two or more directions. Simple cine analysis of motion is the series of frames or pictures the successive units of which represent phases of action at intervals of one sixteenth of a second. Most cine tricks require that two or more of these analyses be synchronized on one film and at the same time matched or blended with one another so that the line of demarcation between thetwo or more combinations be imperceptible to the eye even after the image is enlarged several thousand times on the theater screen.
In cases where the recording or taking interval of the combined components is the customary sixteen per second in each case, then the combination is not such a complicated problem as the written explanation makes it appear to be. It is very intricate, however, when the component members of the combination have to be taken at different rates of speed. In “The Lost World” there were many scenes where the taking of the action of the prehistoric monsters required weeks and months of exposures made at comparatively long and irregular intervals. These stop motion exposures had to be synchronized and combined with the action of human characters whose movements, photographed at regular speed, occurred in a few seconds so that the composite result appeared to be simultaneous action. Not only was it necessary to synchronize the action but it was also necessary to reverse the apparent size of the objects so that the monsters, which were in reality miniature figures, seemed to be gigantic in comparison to the human actors.
Results
Trick photography thus does two tremendously important things for the industry; it renders possible the use of scenes and effects hitherto impossible of presentation and reduces enormously the cost of building elaborate sets. It also seems safe to prophesy that in the near future it will also eliminate the necessity for many exterior locations ; particularly those to distant points where time and transportation are a large factor in production expense.
Let me outline roughly into a sort of general classification the various methods by which the trick photographer builds up his effects:
Basis
First, we have the basic standard of straight cinematography which consists of a series of frames or pictures taken at the approximate speed of sixteen exposures per second.
High Speed, Slow Motion
Second, high speed or slow motion photography in which the taking rate is considerably increased. For the laws governing the taking of miniatures by high speed photography to stimulate action in the tempo of natural sized objects I refer you to the very excellent paper by J. A. Ball, entitled “Theory of Mechanical Miniatures in Cinematography,” presented before the Society of Motion Picture Engineers at Roscoe, New York, May, 1924, and published in the Transactions of the Society.
Varied Taking Speeds
Third, time condensation or decreasing the taking speed to such an extent that movements which take place slowly and over so long a period of time as to be imperceptible to the human eye are made to appear to occur in a few seconds. This method is commonly used for showing the growth of plants, the germination of seeds, the erection or demolition of structures, etc. Slow cranking
at slightly diminished speed is used to increase the speed of actors movements for comedy effects and to speed up action in fights, races, and dramatic climaxes.
Animated
Fourth, trick crank or one picture turn. This is closely related to time condensation. The trick crank shaft is the one usually used for making time condensation exposures. The name “trick crank” comes down from the early days of cinematography because the single exposure shaft was often employed in making many of the trick effects mentioned in the first paragraphs of this paper.
Animated cartoons and diagrams are made by means of the trick crank and are, of course, trick photography. Nevertheless, in cine nomenclature animated diagrams and cartoons are a classification separate from that of trick photography and, while most of the devices used by the animated cartoonist are also used in trick photography, the subject is too large to be treated in this paper.
To those interested in the subject I refer them to the very able volume by E. G. Lutz, entitled “Animated Cartoons,” published by Scribners.
The difference in time condensation and trick crank work is in the interval of the timing. In time condensation the interval is predetermined by the length of time in which it is expedient to show the resulting film. In trick crank work the successive phases of movement are artificially produced between exposure intervals so that inanimate objects may appear to be endowed with automotive
powers. The time of exposure interval is therefore dependent on the time necessary to arrange the subjects into the successive phases of the simulated action.
Every move of every joint and limb of the prehistoric animals in “The Lost World” had to be thought out beforehand and a calculation of the amount of movement which would occur in each succeeding phase of one sixteenth of a second if the model were an actual animal with the bulk of several elephants.
Reverse Order
Fifth, reverse camera, or the showing of the series pictures of a motion analysis in reverse order. The effects produced by this method are too well known to describe them.
Mattes
Sixth, simple devices or attachments used mainly to alter the size and shape of the screen opening. These consist of masks or mattes of opaque or translucent material
which either vignette the edges of the picture or produce silhouetted openings to enhance the illusion of scenes which are supposed to be observed through an archway, a keyhole, a telescope, binoculars or other familiar orifice. Previous papers presented before the Society describe these devices in detail.
Stop Motion
Seventh, stop camera and substitute which is one of the oldest and most familiar of trick devices. It was and is used mainly for magic appearances and disappearances. It consists in stopping the action and camera simultaneously and placing or removing the objects which are to appear or disappear.
Eighth, the fade and dissolve. This is similar to stop camera but is a gradual instead of an abrupt change. It is produced by diminishing the exposure to zero and then running the film back to the commencement of the reduced exposure and fading in or increasing the second exposure at the rate as the previous one was reduced, thus giving full exposure to objects which remained in the scene during the fade in and out, but gradually introducing or extinguishing the image undergoing the magical change.
Multiple Exposure
Ninth, double or multiple exposure. By this device dual roles can be played by a single actor. It consists of masking off a portion of the picture frame and making one exposure, then winding the film back to the beginning and masking the first exposure while the second one is made on the remaining unexposed portion of the frame. The frame may be divided in this manner as many times as is necessary to produce the effects desired. I have made multiple exposures where the film was run through the camera twenty-six times. Dual roles, visions and ghostly apparitions are produced by this method. Masks are not usually used for ghost effects. The first exposure without the ghost is made in the normal manner and the ghost, dressed in light colored clothing, is exposed over the first record by posing the ghost actor against a black drop or shadow box. The details of the first exposure register through the shadows of the ghost outline and give it the shadowy or spiritual quality which ghosts are supposed to possess. The chief difficulties in double exposure work are in the synchronization of action and the matching or blending of the edges of the masked sections so that the line of demarcation is indistinguishable.
Glass
Tenth, glass work, which is a variety of simultaneous double exposure. The term “glass work” originated because the first examples of this work were accomplished by painting portions of scenes on large sheets of plate glass. A piece of plate glass a little larger than the field of view of the lens at 10 or 12 feet from the camera is placed in a rigid frame parallel to the front of the camera. The field of action as viewed by the camera lens is left clear and no pointing is done on this portion of the glass. Any section of the remaining portion of the picture composition, however, can be masked out and replaced by a painting, in accordance with the laws of perspective, of any kind of background or foreground that the production may require. With the use of this device it is necessary to build only such portions of a set as is required to form a background for the action while the remaining portion is supplied by the painting on the glass.
The ordinary two-inch cine objective lens at distances beyond ten feet is almost universal in focus; this brings the entire picture in focus and does not blur the painting even though it is close to the lens and the set it far away.
By use of miniature models built to scale almost any number of different setups may be made, but extreme care must be used in lining up the model with the actual set which it completes. In the “Hunchback of Notre Dame” the picture shows a full size reproduction of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and yet the actual construction of the set was only to the top of the entrance doors, the upper portion being supplied with glass work and miniature models.
Mirrors and Prisms
Eleventh, simultaneous double exposure by means of mirrors and prisms. This is a reversal of the means by which two identical images are made with one lens in the color cameras. By this reversal two images may be superimposed and photographed on the same frame simultaneously and as the two images may be independently focused much smaller models and paintings may be utilized than in the glass work process. It is even possible to use a motion picture, previously taken, for the background of the new composite, so that actors in the studio may be shown amid the waving palms of a background photographed in the Sahara desert. This method has lately been heralded as a wonderful German invention under the name of the Schuefftan process but is antedated by several American users, among whom are David Horsely, J. Searle Dawlev and myself.
Double Printing
Twelfth, double printing, which consists of making a composite negative by duping from two or more specially prepared positives and masking devices, or in making a special positive from two or more negatives and then duping the result. This corresponds in principle to multiple exposure in the camera. It is usually used to superimpose dark images on high lighted areas, a thing which is difficult to do in the camera.
Traveling Platte
Thirteenth, the traveling matte. By this process figures in action may be superimposed against any background without being necessary to build any sets at all. It requires very accurate mechanism to work it and is patented. It is sometimes called the Williams process from the name of the patentee, Frank Williams. It consists in photographing the action against a white background.
By over exposure and intensification a silhouette of the action forms a mask or traveling matte which is interposed between the printing light and the background negative while a print is made from it. This positive film is then run through the printing machine a second time in register with the action negative, thus printing in the details of the acting figures. From this double print a dupe negative is made for further printing. The silhouette print masks the places occupied by the action figures and the original action negative has a dense black ground which masks the background negative image when making the master positive.
Projection Printing
Fourteenth. Projection printing with separate positive and negative control. In this process the printing is not done by contact as in the ordinary printing machine but by projecting the image from the negative onto the positive. The movement of the negative and positive films is controlled by separate mechanisms so that by manipulation of the controls any combination of the negative
action series can be recorded in consecutive order on the positive film. The action on the original negative can thus be stopped, accelerated, retarded or reversed on the positive and by multiple masking and printing several successive phases of action of the same moving figure may be shown on the screen simultaneously. Max Fleischer and Alvin Knechtal are exponents of this process.
Other Method
Fifteenth. Mechanical devices operated independently and not connected mechanically with the operation of photography or printing have not been considered as coming within the province of this paper. They are too numerous to even attempt their listing. It should be said in this connection, however, that the trick photographer leaves no stone unturned in seeking to produce the desired effect and any device which lends itself to his use is considered his legitimate ally.