The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-07-03

! ers'-that is how the critic of few
years ago faceticUsly yet truthfully
ended his review of the vaudeville
shows. AT that time vaudeville shows
and when Il crowd was in line at the
/ box office waiting to get into the the
alter, many managers put on pictures
The mere announcement that pictures
were next was sufficient to start an
audience toward the doors and they
! became known as ''chasers."
Through the efforts of six men they
are again "chasers," but the action is
reversed and the chasing is into, not
away from, the theaters, and the vol
| ume of the people affected has in
creased to the estimated number of
lao, 100000 every week
Motion pictures, according to the
New York Sun, made their first APP
pearance in 1895 at Roster and BiaPs
music hall and at Keith's Union
Square theater. New York. The films
were about forty feet in length, re-
quiring only about one minute to run
Off They were crude and they flick
cred.
The public just tolerated them as
novelty. Theatrical me- could see no
other use for them except as house
clearers." Then six men saw their
possibilities and developed them into
their present state of popularity.
These men are ]. Stuart Brackton, A.
E. Smith and William T. Rock Of the
Nitagraph company, Col William n.
Selig, of the Selig company. Siegmund
Lubin, of the Lubin company, and
George K. Spoor of the Essanay.
Acted Their Own Plays.
Ten years ago they acted in their
own pictures and personally operated
the cameras in order to keep down
expenses, and home made or cheap
scenery was used. Today, in their lat
est productions the scenes are taken
on estates or in studios owned by
them, and an army of directors and
players is employed.
High prices are now being paid by
them for the privilege of making mo-
ton picture productions from cele-
brated novels and successful stage
plays, and theatrical stars are being
added to the screen favorites for APP
pearanCe in big feature productions.
j. Stuart Brackton and A. E. Smith
were entertainers in the Lyceum, New
York, when they first became inter
ested in motion pictures; that was in
1898. Mr.. Smith invented device tc
eliminate the Objectionable Pickering,
and Mr.. Brackton devoted his ability
to perfecting the methods of express
ing thought through action.
Their first pictures were made in a
small studio on Nassau street, in New
York, and practically all the work was
performed by themselves Their
present productions are being filmed
in elaborate studios both in New
York and Los Angeles. and for one
single reel in The Juggernaut." $50
900 was spent on scene in which an
entire passenger train and railroad
bridge were wrecked.
Siegmund Lubin, an Optician and an
inventor, owned small optical store
in Philadelphia He was the first man
to operate a chain of we'll appointed
little picture theaters and make the
pictures which he exhibited. Now he
has studios in Philadelphia, Florida
and California, and recently in order
to secure the settings necessary for the
production of The Sporting Duchess"
a mansion with 500 acre estate out
side OF Philadelphia was purchased
outright.
Mr.. Selig has studios both in Europe
and America. and his zoo in Califor-
MIA is valued at close to $500, 600. A
entrance to the grounds on which L e
animal pictures are made 1t is OF
carved stone elephants and cost $50
900 to erect.
Thirty camels and tiger from his
zoo are introduced in The Carpet
auctions. In making this picture, a
sandstone was considered necessary.
and an entire company was sent into
the desert and remained there until
nature obliSed them with a terrible
storm.
George K. Spoor from modest be-
ginning has come to the point where
in producing "GrauStark. castles,
steamships and special scenery cost
ing "A fortune were used.
The hardest work that confronts
these men, now that the fight to gain
ter of selecting subjects that will APP
peal to so many million tastes. and
this in itself is no small undertaking.