The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1920-07-16
TAXING ON THE
MOVIE FILM

know how they were done. Let 1t be
said that they were only incidental;
the vast majority of the 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 o.
limb of the actors.
In one week recently in California
locations one thrill-actor was killed by
falling 700 feet from an airplane, an.
other was fatally injured in leaping
from a fast-moving train, and another
was badly injured trying to make an
automobile vault over a locomotive
something snapt at the critical mo-
ment.
So the fakes are exceptional. But
on their face something's 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 one-hundred-
foot giants in the California movie
studios. And yet you saw in Bryant
Washburn's comedy, "The Six Best
Cellars" human monster walk dowc
the roadway and drink out of demi-
john while people of normal size, but
pigmies by comparison, fianked him
on either curb.
The giant was a real man, "even as
you and 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, your answer. Wrong
though it might have been done that
way. 1t was all done with one "shot,"
and it illustrates how far beyond dou-
BILE exposure camera ingenuity has adj
vanced.
The "giant" was the creation of w.
L. Hall, genius in the service of the
Famouse Players-Lasky Company. He
built a platform sixteen feet wide in
the street, resembling pavement
reaching from curb to curb, on which
he placed an actor of ordinary size.
Back of this platform, which was sew
enty-two feet deep, were the throngs
of people. Now the skill CONSISTED in
so placing the camera that the curb
lines on which the people stood far
back of the "giant" were caught by
the lens while the "giant" was kept in
perfect perspective.
He was a closeup" and they were
a "long-shot"- the same scene.
Yet the screen seems to show the
throngs following the walking colossus
on an even line with him, when in fact
they were nearly one hundred feet
back 1t illustrates what lens in the
hands of master of the cameras
mechanism and of optics and perspec
tive can be made to do.
Doug Fairbanks really scales high
buildings and works other athletic
marvels for the camera. Almost every.
thing he is shown doing is genuine
But he can't walk on ceilings, head
downward as he is seen to do in his
last play, when the Clouds Roll By
That, of course, was a mechanical
Interpolation
They built at his studio set show
ing room open at one side and re-
volving on an axis like squirrel cage.
AS Doug walked over to the side wall
and placed his foot on it for the first
step the camera, also set with special
equipment, so that it would revolve,
likewise turned, and so on as he
walked up one side, over the ceiling.
and down the other s1oe.
To the turned camera he appeared
always to be walking on the floor, heal
up, but in the picture registered on
the film, always vertical, the star had
his head out horizontally or downward,
as the case happened to be. The pur-
suers rushing into the room were in
troduced by double exposure.
Simple enough in the main elements,
but the art was to get the mechanism
of the room and the camera adjusted
to such a mathematical nicely that the
artifice would't be given away at some
point in the revolution A somewhat
similar method was used in filming
the earthquake scene in Bryant Wash
burns play, "Why Smith Left Home
with it's heaving and rocking build
ings.
In one of Fairbanks plays is a scene
showing a city being overwhelmed by
food. This was done by sending a
sluice over a town of miniature build
ings; and to overcome the jerky effect
/ he