A-B-C of Motion Pictures

A-B-C of Motion Pictures by Robert E. Welsh

A-B-C of Motion Pictures by Robert E. Welsh traces the development of motion pictures from early optical toys to the organized industry of its day. It opens with the zoetrope of 1830, explaining the optical principle of persistence of vision that underlies all motion-picture work, then moves through Edward Muybridge's 1871-72 experiments photographing Governor Leland Stanford's race-horse, Occident, with batteries of cameras, and the subsequent work of Dr. Marey. It covers the search for flexible film, crediting the Rev. Hannibal Goodwin with the original patent on celluloid film process and George Eastman and his co-worker Walker with commercializing it, and recounts Thomas A. Edison's kinetoscope, introduced at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, followed by his vitascope and the cinematograph of Lumière, shown in New York in 1896. Early industry figures named include Siegmund Lubin, William N. Selig, Henry Marvin, George Kleine, Francis Marion, William T. Rock, Albert E. Smith, and J. Stuart Blackton, along with the patent battles that led to a 1908 combination of major companies, countered by independents. The text describes the rise of the multiple-reel picture, crediting George Kleine's American exploitation of the Italian "Quo Vadis?", and surveys production centers in Europe and the United States, especially Los Angeles and New York. It then explains in detail the mechanics of the motion-picture camera and projection machine, trick effects such as double exposure, miniature models, reversed film, and the state of talking pictures and natural-color film. Further sections discuss news pictorials, educational and industrial films, animated cartoons, and the business of writing photoplays, including advice from editor Lawrence McCloskey on plot construction, illustrated by a developed example about an old woman, a daughter-figure, and a returning son. The work includes the National Board of Censorship's role, the economics of production and distribution ("state rights," feature programs, exchanges), and a full model scenario, "Across the Great Divide" by Edward C. Taylor, reproduced with the author's annotations on scene construction, subtitles, and flashes, telling of telegraph operator Bob Carson, his sweetheart Mary Carter, and the outlaw Black Jack during an attempted train holdup. The book closes with practical guidance for amateur theatrical societies on staging their own motion pictures, covering costs, casting, directing, locations, and timing of production.

By Robert E. Welsh · First published 1916 · Genre: Non-fiction, Technical Writing, Educational Reference · 9 chapters · 26,269 words

First lines

Like practically all other modern mechanical wonders, the motion picture was not the invention of any one man. Rather, the picture as we know it to-day is the cumulative result of the toil and experiments of a score of workers, whose efforts cover over half a century. As far back as 1795 scientists were striving to produce the phenomena of pictures that moved. Succeeding generations all saw experimenters working toward the same object, each contributing his mite of improvement, until, with Thomas A. Edison's invention of the kinetoscope, in 1893, the day of modern motion pictures dawned.

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motion picture history · film technology · cinematography · early cinema · persistence of vision · special effects · motion picture camera · projection machine · celluloid film · kinetoscope · patent disputes · film studios

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