The Romance of the Bioscope.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4, 28 July 1906, Page 29

The Romance of the Bioscope.

So familiar bavc wc become witli ani mated pictures, always looking for them as a matter of course to provide an agreeable interlude in, or a fitting finish to, any sort of popular entertainment. that it seems difficult to realise that the various inventions which make moving pictures possible were only assembled a few years ago. When they were shown for the first lime they came as a surprise and created a sensation. The story of the slow development from the date, of the zoeotrope—the first machine to show pictures in motion —to the present result is too long to tell here, for it covers a period of over forty years. The first difficulty that had to be overcome lay in the impossibility of securing a series of photographs of objects in motion by a single camera. M. Marcy, a Frenchman, eventually solved it; then Edison went one better by utilising celluloid in Jong strips. But for the invention of this material inventors might to-day be still searching for a substitute, and animated photographs might still In* a dream. The camera by which photographs that are later to be reproduced in animation. life size or above it, are taken is a far different machine from the ordinary camera, although this is not apparent from its exterior, except in that it has a handle to be worked by the operator instead of a button or ball to be pressed. It is in its interior the great difference lies. Here there are two dark boxes ami many wheels. Tn one of the dark boxes there is a length of celluloid film wound round a spool. The film runs behind the camera lens into another dark box, over cogged xvheels which keep it in taut position. As the handle is turned this film tinwimls out of ofiO bok into the other, the photograph being taken as it passes the Tens. The film is only an inch and a-quarter Inside, and the act mt I picture is one

inch wide and about three-quarters of an inch deep, and each picture is distinct and separate in itself. This result could not, of course, bo obtained it the film passed the lens without stop ping; in that case the photograph would be just an indistinct smudge. As the film runs past the lens at the speed of one foot per second, it stops sixteen times for a fortieth of a second on each occasion, and it is in that brief period that the photograph is secured. It is this small picture which is seen magnified on the screen many hundreds of times. One-fortieth of a second is not a high rate of speed at which to take photo-' graphs, but it is sufficient tb give sixteen separate pictures in a second which number have been found amply sufficient to give the appearance of a continuous movement when shown on the screen. In the infancy of the invention as many as forty distinct photos, were taken in a second, but this was later found to be quite necessary, a discovery which resulted in a saving of expenditure, for while at the higher speed 150 feet of film were required to depict an incident lasting a minute, but 50 feet are used at the lower speed. So much for the method of securing the pictures. The next step is to print them, and a very essential step, too, as were .this impossible—if only the positive film could be used—there would only be the one set. of pictures of one incident in existence which would naturally increase the expense of production. The film is taken from the camera, developed, fixed, and printed on to lengths of celluloid just as an ordinary photograph is duplicated many times by being printed on sensitised paper. Then any one possessing a bioscope may purchase a length of negative film and show the same pictures in England as are being shown in other parts of the world. The projecting machine — bioscope, biograph, or any other graph or scope suitably prefixed—by the use of which the photographs are shown in all lifelike movements on the screen, looks a complicated affair enough, but is simple in working. Behind the lens of the projector a glare of anything up to 3,000 candlepower is provided by the carbons, jn front of the lens, from a .wheel above, the film is unwound at the rate of a foot a second, winding on to a wheel below. In front of the film as it speeds past the lens a two-bladed screw revolves at a terrific rate. One of these blades is transparent, the other opaque; and but for this piece of mechanism the pictures would show on the screen only as a misty streak, devoid of detail. As the pictures were taken in tfie camera, so they are reproduced on the screen, and between each picture a slight stop is necessary. The period of this halt is covered by the revolting blades or shutter, and only by their aid is the effect of animation made possible. We are interested, excited, or amused gazing at the screen, according to the nature of the subject shown thereon and never give a thought to the fact that we are looking not at one picture but at hundreds, combining to make that one. In one short minute no fewer than 960 photographs have been thrown on the screen, and 60 feet of film has been run off to show them- photographs each but little larger than a postage stamp, which we behold magnified many times. Let us make another interesting calculation -to show clearer one of the wonders of animated photography from the mechanical point of view. Suppose, for example, that you have gazed on a subject that has occupied the screen for ten minutes. Tn that time 600 feet of film will have passed in front of the lens, and you have seen no fewer than 9600 pictures, though recognising them only as one. But there are some subjects occupying much longer time, as, for instance, the elaborate adventure founded on Jules Verne’s famous story, and known as (i A Trip to the Moon.” The film for this was no less than a quarter of a mile in length, and 20,000 separate photographs were printed on it. It took over twenty minutes Io show. Than the photographing of subjects for the bioscope it would be difficult to find a more attractive feature of the animated photography industry, whether those subjects be serious actually, humorous, or scientific. Thousands of camera men are engaged in the business' all over the world. photographing nature

iu all her moods as seen from various aspects. happenings great and small of momentary interest and of interest that will ever endure. In preparing the films for the theatre it is not only the developing, fixing, and printing that have to In* accomplished. Often parts of the positive film are useless. and these have to be cut out and the good pictures joined up: often, too. the resultant work of two cameras tak ing one event has to be manipulated in this way. Consequently the picture one sees on a screen for a matter of ten minutes does not always take ten minutes to secure. In one case, that of a red deer hunt, a 750-feet film, which shows for twelve minutes, took a bioscope operator four months to get. In that time he attended no fewer than twenty-two different meets, rode over a thousand miles with his camera, and used 1701) feet of film, of which close on a thousand proved useless. Quite a different class of work is the preparation of spectacles and humorous incidents, and subjects of domestic interest. For these scenes, often elaborate, have to be specially built, and actors and actresses engaged. “ Whirling the Worlds,” an extravaganza in locomotion, ami a masterpiece in inragination. was an elaborate spectacle of French conception ami execution. A body of scientists have built for them railway trains, living machines, motor ears, and a submarine boat, by the aid of which they visit the sun and the depths of the sea. To explain their adventures would require an article in itself. and it must suffice to say that this wonderful series of pictures, which took twenty-five minutes to show, were not secured under ten months, and only at a cost of £ 1300. Eight men spent five and a-half months in building the pro]H*rties and scenery, and eighty actors and actresses were engaged to take part in the show.