The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-05-04
HOW CAMERA WIZARDS DO WONDERS :
IN MOVIES; MOST ARE GENUINE
Monroe Lathrop. in the Los Angeles

Monroe Lathrop, in the Los Angeles
Times]
Well, fans and fanettes, gather round
and you shall have some OF your
curiosity satisfied.
It's against the rules OF the game
to give away the secrets of the movies,
because the makers want you to think
the false is genuine. They're not SO
much concerned about preserving for
you the joys Of complete illusion as
for the hold they want to keep on
your Imagination.
It's not so much that they care II
you suspect the optical pleasures pro-
vided for you are sometimes faxed
with camera ingenuity. They know
you know it. But for the good Of the
business they don't want you to get
the idea that most Of them are trick
stuff.
If you did you wouldn't check your
critical faculties at the box office.
You'd be picking the drama or farce
to pieces~as it unrolled, and half Of
the story value would be lost to you.
And that might hurt the business.
But there have been some things on
the screen that you knew were faxed,
and it's a reasonable curiosity to want
to know how they were done. Let It
be said that they were only incidental,
the vest majority of scenes shown on
the screen are genuine - obtained at
enormous expense and pains or in the
case Of stunts" performed at varying
degrees Of peril to the life or limb Of
the actors.
In one week recently on California
locations one thrill-actor was killed by
| falling 700 feet from an airplane, an
other was fatally injured in leaping
| from fast moving train, and another
was badly injured trying to make an
automobile vault over a locomotive
something snapped, at the critical
| moment.
So the fakes are exceptional. But
on their face some things are tricked
up. For instance. however much con-
fidence in the legend there were
giants in those days" you have carried
over from your childhood. you know
that there are now no 100-foot giants
yet you saw in Bryant Washburn' s
comedy, "The Six Best Cellars" a
human monster walk down the road
tway and drink out Of demijohn
while people of normal size, but
pvgmies by comparison, flanked him or
either curb.
Fans Fooled by Optical Trick.
The giant was a real man, even as
| you or l." So were the people over
whom he lowered. though he could
have put several of them in his vest
pocket How was it done? Double
exposure, you answer. Wrong -
though it might have been done thai
| with "Sh0t
and it illustrates how far beyond
double exposure camera ingenuity ha:
advanced.
The giant" was the creation Of w
l.. Hall, genius, in the service of the
Famous Players-Lasky Company. HI
built a platform 16 feet wide in the
street, resembling pavement, reach
; ing from curb to curb, on which hi
placed an actor of ordinary size. Bacl
of this platform, which was Y fee
deep, were the throngs of people. Nov
the skill consisted in SO placing thu
camera that the curb lines on which
the people stood far back Of thu
giant" were caught by the lens while
the giant" was kept in perfect per
spective.
He was a Closeup" and they wer'
a "long-shot'-all in the same scene
Yet the screen seems to show thu
throngs following the walking COLOSSUS
on an even line with him, when il
: fact they were nearly 100 feet back
1t illustrates what lens in the hand
of a master Of the cameras mechan
ism and of optics and perspective cal
be made to do.
Doug Fairbanks really scales hisl
buildings and works other athleti
} marvels for the camera. Almost every
thing he is shown doing is genuine
But he can't walk on ceilings, heat
downward, as he is seen to do in
recent play, when the Clouds Rol
: By" That, of course, was a mechan
, cal Interpolation.
They built at his studio a set show
ing a room open at one side and RI
| volving on an axis like squire
cage. AS Doug walked over to tn
side wall and placed his foot on it 70
= the first step the camera, also set wit
special equipment SO that it woul
| revOlve, likewise turned, and so on a
he walked up one side, over the Gel
ing and down the other side.
To the turned camera he appeare
always to be walking on the fool
head up, but in the picture registere
on the film. always vertical, the sta
. had his head out horizontally or dowr
ward, as the case happened to bt
Z The pursuers rushing into the rooT
were introduced by double exposure.
Simple enough in the main element