SCENERY CHANGED BY LIGHTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18431, 15 March 1922, Page 9

SCENERY CHANGED BY LIGHTS

WONDERFUL INVENTION THAT DOES AWAY WITH SCENE SHIFTING. Theatres are being "speeded up." Scenery and costumes can be changed in ?. flash without a single piece of scenery being shifted. A snow-clad mountain may be transformed into a rajah’s palace without the curtain being dropped. M. Adrian SamoilolT. a Russian, has invented the wonderful device which will do this, and bis invention has been shown to London at the Loudon Hippodrome. Every woman knows the. striking differences in effect that can be produced by the arrangement of stripes in dress materials —and how certain patterns increase or decrease the apparent height of the wearer. By arrangement of line alone we can entirely altef the appearance of an object, as was demonstrated during the War, when ships were dazzle-painted.” By changing colours we can bring about even greater differences and by combining the two effects we arrive at the apaprently miraculous changes presented by M. Samoiloff. WHY YOU SEE COLOURS. Ordinary white light is made up of separate rays, and a beam of white light can be split up into seven colours—violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red, in the order named. All objects, unless they are dead black, reflect some or all of the light that falls on them. If all the light is reflected, unchanged, the object appears white, but if a certain portion only—say, the red rays—is reflected, then the object will appear red. If the green rays were reflected, the object would appear green, and so on. The remainder of the rays are lost on the surface of the object. If no light at all is reflected, the object appears dead black—so black is really an entire absence of colour. THE LIGHT IS "FILTERED.” Now if an object that appears red in ordinary light is viewed in light fyom which all red rays have been removed, the object will look black, for it can only reflect red Tays, and as there are no red rays, none of the light is reflected. It is possible to prepare “light-fil-ters,” so that of the seven coloured rays one colour only may be allowed to pass through the filter; or the filter may allow six of the rays to pass through and stop the seventh. In fact, any one or more colours may, be removed from the light. Imagine a stage to be lighted by groups of lamps that can be switched on or off at will. The light from each group has had certain colours removed by light filters. A LOT OF PATIENCE NECESSARY If the red rays have been removed then all red objects on the stage become black, the other colours, of course, remaining unchanged. A dress of red and yellow stripes would, in this light, appear as black and yellow. Such a change could be made in a flash. The scenery may be changed almost as simply, for certain lines can be made to stand out boldly under one kind of light, whilst others, representing a different scene, will stand out when the light is changed. That is the broad principle on which the wonderful effects are produced. The difficulties overcome by M. Samoiloff were enormous, and the perfecting of his invention must have demanded an immense amount of research and inexhaustible patience.