All this leads up to the fact that failure to adopt some adequate means for securing the synchronization of camera and projection speed operates to place the entire finished product of the motion picture industry at the mercy of the theatre manager and projectionist, insofar as has to do with speed of action of all moving objects. Very often this is carried to an extent which causes the action to appear ridiculous and farcical. On the other hand the projectionist may sadly mar the effectiveness of many scenes by permitting the projector to pound along at set, unvarying speed, throughout a production in which the taking speed of scenes varies widely. This is, in fact, a very common source of injury to the artistic effect of productions, the projectionist excusing it by pointing to the time schedule, which may or may not be a valid excuse, because often it would be possible for a projectionist to gain on one scene what might be lost on another. Camera speed is presumed to be standard- one and the same thing all the time.
Cameramen vehemently declare it to be so, or at least that the possible variations are very slight.
On the other hand projectionists, to whom the task of reproducing the scenes before the public is intrusted, are a unit in declaring this to be untrue. Whether it is possible to adopt and compel cameramen to use some unvarying taking speed I do not know, but certainly if it could be done, without injury in other directions, it would operate to enormously improve that which the public sees upon the screen, because we could then demand that the projector be operated at standard taking speed, and would have a cogent argument behind that demand. He is filled with pride as he looks upon some fine bit of acting- a death bed scene, for instance. But the finely acted scene will bring no tears to the eyes of the vast majority of audiences. Instead of the daughter giving her dying mother a fond embrace and a loving kiss, she is made literally to grab the mother, yank her head up, dab their lips together and scuttle away as though it were a deuced nuisance and she was glad it was over with.