Inventions; Science; Technology -- Social aspects; Technology and civilization
The vitascope is the principal name now in use for moving picture
machines. In all these instruments in order that the film projection
may be visible to an audience it is necessary to have a very intense
light. A source of such light is found in the electric focusing lamp.
At or near the focal point of the projecting lantern condenser the
film is made to travel across the field as in the kinetoscope. A water
cell in front of the condenser absorbs most of the heat and transmits
most of the light from the arc lamp, and the small picture thus highly
illuminated is protected from injury. A projecting lens of rather short
focus throws a large image of each picture on the screen, and the rapid
succession of these completes the illusion of life-like motion.
Hundreds of patents have been made on cameras, projecting lenses and
machines from the days of the kinetoscope to the present time when
clear-cut moving pictures portray life so closely and so well as almost
to deceive the eye. In fact in many cases the counterfeit is taken for
the reality and audiences as much aroused as if they were looking upon
a scene of actual life. We can well believe the story of the Irishman,
who on seeing the stage villain abduct the young lady, made a rush at
the canvas yelling out,--"Let me at the blackguard and I'll murder
him."
Though but fifteen years old the moving picture industry has sent out
its branches into all civilized lands and is giving employment to an
army of thousands. It would be hard to tell how many mimic actors and
actresses make a living by posing for the camera; their name is legion.
Among them are many professionals who receive as good a salary as on
the stage.
Some of the large concerns both in Europe and America at times employ
from one hundred to two hundred hands and even more to illustrate some
of the productions. They send their photographers and actors all over
the world for settings. Most of the business, however, is done near
home. With trapping and other paraphernalia a stage setting can be
effected to simulate almost any scene.
Almost anything under the sun can be enacted in a moving picture studio,
from the drowning of a cat to the hanging of a man; a horse race or
fire alarm is not outside the possible and the aviator has been depicted
"flying" high in the heavens.
The places where the pictures are prepared must be adapted for the
purpose. They are called studios and have glass roofs and in most of
them a good section of the walls are also glass. The floor space is
divided into sections for the setting or staging of different
productions, therefore several representations can take place at the
same time before the eyes of the cameras. There are "properties" of
all kinds from the ragged garments of the beggar to kingly ermine and
queenly silks. Paste diamonds sparkle in necklaces, crowns and tiaras,
seeming to rival the scintillations of the Kohinoor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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