Imagine you are looking down at the tramp’s head from the point where the camera is, with the train moving rapidly, and you can get an idea of what is shown on the screen.] [Illustration: _Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation._ A CLOSER VIEW OF THE PRECEDING “TAKE.” Note the number board leaning against the leg of the camera tripod. Before each scene is taken, this board is exposed in front of the camera with the scenario-number of the scene on it for identification.] CHAPTER III THE WORLD THROUGH A CAMERA There are two kinds of motion pictures. One sort is the regular “feature,”—usually a six or seven reel photoplay, the bulk of the evening’s entertainment—and the other kind is illustrated by the “news reels.” One kind tells stories. The other shows facts. “Robin Hood,” for instance, tells a story. But the wonderful picture that showed the great horse-race between Man-o’-War and Sir Barton was merely a series of remarkable photographs of what actually happened. There are of course many intermediate pictures and combinations, part way between the two, as we shall see; but when you stop to think of it all pictures fall under one or another of the two main classifications. Either they are entertainment pure and simple, possibly with a background of truth or philosophy or fact, or else they are reality, presented as entertainment. And here is an interesting thing: while the story side of motion-picture making, that has developed to a great extent from stage drama, has already reached very great heights, the other side of picture-making, that we see illustrated in the news reels, is still relatively in its babyhood. Scenics and news reels and an occasional so-called “scientific” or instructive reel are about all we have so far on this side of picture making, that will probably within our own lifetime come to be far greater than the other. The “reality” films have developed from straight photography. They take the place of kodak snapshots, and stereopticon slides, and illustrations in magazines, newspapers, and books. Between the two, cameras have come already to circle the whole world. Not long ago in a New York skyscraper given over mostly to motion-picture offices and enterprises, three camera men met. “Say, I’m glad to be back!” exclaimed one; “I’ve been down in the Solomons for nearly a year. Australia before that, and all through the South Seas. Got some wonderful pictures of head-hunters. They nearly got _me_, once, when I struck an island where they were all stirred up because some white man had killed a couple of them.” “I’m just back from India, myself,” remarked the second, “Upper Ganges, and all through there. Got a lot of great religious stuff.” “You fellows have been seeing a lot of the world,” sighed the third, “while I’ve been stuck right here solid for the last eighteen months. Last eight months on a big French Revolution picture.”