Volume I: Narrative History

 

Chapter 2 (1909 Into the Film  Industry): Motion Picture Photography

At the time of Edwin Thanhouser's entry into the industry, motion picture film was orthochromatic, and the color red projected on the screen as deep black. As the film was not sensitive to various shades of red, filming could begin relatively early in the day, when the sun was still rising in the east and the rays had strong elements of orange and red. However, toward the end of the afternoon the blues and purples in the sun's rays caused problems, for the film was sensitive to these colors, and sequences taken later in the day presented tone-matching difficulties with those taken earlier.

The film speed was so slow that bright daylight was needed for outdoor scenes, and brilliant carbon-arc or mercury vapor lamps were needed indoors. Players had to take great care not to become blinded or burned by the intense light. Thanhouser's glass-roofed skating rink building became a hothouse each summer, and it was necessary for adequate ventilation to erect several sets outdoors on platforms, under cloth for light diffusion.

In general, the industry used three types of studios at the time:

1. Open air studios were just that: sets built on wooden platforms, sometimes movable so that they could be turned to follow the arc of the sun through the sky, and illuminated by natural light. This type was fine if a sequence to be filmed was short and did not have to be matched in tone or brightness to another scene on the same stage taken another day, for to do so properly would require filming both sequences at about the same time each day and under similar weather conditions, something that was not always possible to do. In order to eliminate harsh shadows and to diffuse the light, strips of thin white cloth were often placed over the sets tent-roof fashion.

2. So-called "daylight studios" were set up indoors under a roof made of large panels of glass, similar to the construction of a greenhouse. Again, thin cloth was used to diffuse the sun's rays on bright days. Illumination in daylight studios was supplemented by artificial lighting. Such sets could be erected and used over a period of time, without concern about clear or rainy weather, or cold or heat.

3. The third type, known as the "dark studio," was indoors under a solid roof and was illuminated solely by artificial means. The Biograph studio, indoors in a brownstone building at 11 East 14th Street, New York City, was of this type.

Cameras were hand-cranked by the operator. If it was desired to have an event show great speed, such as a dramatic automobile chase, the camera would be cranked slowly, so that a given amount of action would occupy fewer frames of film and, when projected, would pass on the screen more quickly than during the actual event. Conversely, a camera cranked at fast speed resulted in slow motion on the screen. Cinematography was an art, and a good cameraman was among the greatest assets any motion picture company could have.

Often the cameraman would double as the director, especially for the one-reel subjects of the early years and for pictures taken with small crews at locations distant from the studio. Carl Louis Gregory, who joined Thanhouser soon after business began in New Rochelle, was a gifted cameraman, and much of the acclaim given to the excellent photography seen in Thanhouser films can be credited to him. He also directed numerous subjects. Preceding Gregory by a picture or two at the Thanhouser Company was Alfred Huger Moses, Jr., a cameraman who would remain with the firm throughout most of its existence. Blair Smith, who came to Thanhouser from the Edison studio, gets the credit for photographing the first Thanhouser release, The Actor's Children.

The Thanhouser Company had no executives or employees who were afraid of plain hard work. John Andren, who was treasurer of the company in 1912, performed his daily duties as a carpenter building stage sets! When they weren't busy turning the crank, cameramen often filled bit parts as actors or helped out in other ways. Although an occasional player would be too good to get his or her hands dirty, most were willing to chip in and help when needed.

Film was made of highly-inflammable cellulose nitrate stock, referred to as celluloid. Scarcely a period of a few months would elapse without the trade publications reporting on disastrous conflagrations at motion picture studios or film processing facilities. Few major studios were exempt from the dangerous consequences of handling film which burned with explosive intensity. Over a period of time, Powers, Eclair, Lubin, and others suffered disastrous fires.

Shortly after operations commenced in New Rochelle in 1909, Edwin and Gertrude Thanhouser compiled a list of 20 things that could and did go wrong to ruin thousands of feet of expensive motion picture film in the course of perforating, exposing, developing, processing, copying, and storing it. Note

Film was expensive, and, as amazing as it might seem to a later generation of cinematographers, in the early years of the Thanhouser enterprise nearly all of the film footage taken was actually used in the finished product. Retakes were few and far between. While no figures survive, it is estimated that a typical film with a finished length of one reel, or approximately 1,000 feet, was edited from no more than 1,200 feet of exposed stock. Apparently, elsewhere in the industry it was not uncommon to expose several thousand feet or more of film for each finished one-reel production. Note

 

After the film was exposed, it was sent to Thanhouser's laboratory, where it was processed. After being viewed by the director, unwanted segments were deleted, and the remaining parts were put together in logical scenario sequence by a crew known as the joining room brigade.

The Joining Room "brigade" showing (left to right): Blanche Bugle, Rose Scott, Hattie McCroskery, Elizabeth Walters, Anna Eagan, Tillie Specht, Nora Riley, Nettie Stamp, and Irene Christie. Seated with the dog is

Mrs. Charles Van Houten. A version of this picture appeared in The Moving Picture News of January 20, 1912. Courtesy of the American Museum of the Moving Image/Lawrence Williams Collection. (M-2-X)

 

The film laboratory then made from about 20 to several dozen finished projection prints, which were then sent to exchanges. As prints became dirty or damaged, subjects considered to have further commercial appeal were returned to Thanhouser for repairing, cleaning, and polishing.

Although Thanhouser made an effort to keep its films in circulation for the longest possible time, in practice most were forgotten after about a year. In an era when acting, directing, and photographic techniques were rapidly advancing, a 1910 film shown in 1912 seemed obsolete. There were numerous exceptions among Thanhouser films and those made by others, and in 1916, when Biograph decided to release films made in 1913 and earlier by D.W. Griffith, former head director for the firm, the reissues apparently met with some degree of success. Many firms took old films, gave them new titles, added new and longer subtitles, and re-released them to audiences deemed suitably gullible. For the most part, reissues were nothing more than rewarmed leftovers. To Thanhouser's credit, during the years of its 1909-1917 film production not a single Thanhouser subject was ever reissued under a different title as a new attraction.

 

Copyright © 1995 Q. David Bowers. All Rights Reserved.