TRICKS IN MOVING PICTURES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3294, 12 August 1911, Page 9

TRICKS IN MOVING PICTURES.

HOW FAKING IS DONE. There is the railroad .accident obtained' by meansi of children’s toys; the war ship and the aeroplane, which are also photographs of playthings ; the burglar in lids unheard of performance of climbing the front: of a house; and—last but not least—the man clinging to the ceiling of a room. The pictures explain tiiemselves. But when we see a man jumping out of a fourth-story window, see him fall fifty feet to the ground and then get up and run away, unhurt, we ask: How is this possible ? The origin of the picture is very simple. The fugitive jumps out of a low window in the studio, which is fitted up in the style of till© desired room. Then the photographing process is interrupted. The next picture is taken in the street, in front of a real house. A life-size puppet is dropped from' one of the windows; when it has reached the ground the machine stops, the actor puts himself in the place of the figure; the reel is stai'ted again, the man gets up and runs away. In like manner auto (accidents and similar episodes are arranged. Another impossibility—a man swims through a river and on the other side 'he climbs a ten-foot wall without difficulty. Origin of the picture : The man is photographed sliding from the wall into the water, but in taking the picture the reel is turned wrong way, so the motion is reversed when tlie picture is reeled l off in the right direction. The last obstacle in representing the seemingly impossible was cleared away when some clever mind, conceived the idea of stopping the photographing process, not after a senes of picture:,, but after each single picture or after two or three of them The work involved was enormous, as eighteen pictures are taken every second, that is to say, about 50,000 pictures are required for a reel, which is to amuse the public only ten minutes! But human perseverance has accomplished the task, and the results obtained are extraordinary. The following examples will piove it: A pile of small stones are put on a black table, and the apparatus is fastened vertically above the stones. Then a short turn of the crank, and a few.identical pictures of the atone pile are taken One of the stones is then removed from the pile; another short turn, which gives two or three pictures showing the first stone separate from the pile. The process is repeated until tlie stones laid aside by had show he writing: "Good Night!” The finished film does no’t show tlie hand that removed one stone after another, but creates tlie impression that the stones arrange themselves in the loian of magic writing. Instead of tlie stones, a lump of clay mav be placed on the table and some kind of figure is gradually modelled from it by hand ; but, this hand being invisible, it seems as if the figure formed itself. In the same way a herring can gradually be sent back into the tin can from which it was taken.—Tlie Gartenlaube, Leipsic.