Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-02-05
Life Is a Stage and
the World Its Setting
Work Which Is Necessary to Natures
Wonderful Backgrounds
BY HUGH FORD

4 THROUGH the stage and the motion
/ picture are inevitably linked to-
gether by many common ties, there is
at least one point at which they diverge
widely-the obtaining of settings. When
the motion picture was new and naturally
looked to its older brother for guidance.
the studio played very important part
in the staging of picture plays. Borrow
ing the scene painter and the stage car
penter from the theatre, the motion
picture producer proceeded to build and
to paint the greater portion of his back
grounds.
So, as in the theatre, the painted drop
represented everything that the stage had
ever called upon it to portray, from the
village street to the exterior of a house
or the very woods themselves. There
weie.two reasons forstLls failure of the
film men to take advantage at once of the
realism In settings which was offered by
the mobility of the motion-picture
camera One was the fact that the
technicalities of moving picture photog-
nphy did not develop to that point which
4 permitted the use of the camera in
natural sunlight for some time after the
actual taking of moving pictures became
. commercial possibility. A great deal
OF the early experimentation had taken
place with artificial light and the newer
development was not matured at once.
The other reason was the fact that a
great deal of trick work was INDUCED in
curing these early stages OF the photo
play. Men were shown climbing up and
down the fronts of houses with great ease
. nfu AE.t Nf of
necessity be carried on in the studio, The
process was very simple. A canvas replica
OF the front Of building was painted and
erected in the studio. Then. when the
scenes on the sidewalk had been photo
eIaphed' the canvas was taken down and
laid upon the floor of the stage, the cam
era being shifted to a platform from
which 1t was tilted downward to focus
upon the canvas. The man who was to
ee seen crawling up the front of the
oundlng would then proceed to crawl on
nands and knees across the canvas, his
ohiy peril existing in the possibility of
selting splinters in his palms.
When the finished picture was shown.
.he public gasped at the sight of this
man rlsking his neck by the daring feat
Vi ascending the face of a building.
lou can Tool the people some of the
une but the trick work began to pail
the most gullible of persons learned to
.. ss'be that 1t was far from a fact that
~ u you see it in the films it is true"
ahoush many trick comedies continued
Please. the manufactured thrill ceased
1snilil' Meanwhile exterior photography,
sneh nrst manifested itself in the pictur-
~ oi express trains, race horses and au-
somooiles, became more and more inn
Po.taht and the use of natural settings
'spldly Increased in vogue.
Rat was the parting of the ways, so
ts - Us backgrounds are concerned, be-
,s's ,Fp the theatre and the motion pic
~. mere realism stepped i'm, in the one
ssse, and filled gap which must ever
.,ah unified in the other. But the
n.y. was by no means taken in its en-
1sS' AZ this time New York and New
csusy were the producing centres and
.sotnla ,tla was as yet undeveloped from
u'uoh-picture standpoint. AS result