MOVING PICTURES 



3991 



MOVING PICTURES 



veloped, rinsed, "fixed," and rinsed again. For 

 drying it is wound on a great cylindrical frame 

 and fanned. This drying process is a very deli- 

 cate one. The drying cannot be done with 

 warm air because heat melts the emulsion with 

 which the film is coated. The room in which 

 the drying is done has to be absolutely dust- 

 proof because the tiniest particles of dust would 

 spot, and thus spoil, the film. 



The developed film is known as the negative. 

 The films which go out to the picture theaters 



known as positives. Positive films are not 



le until the negative has been inspected 

 and the entire picture "assembled." For, as it 



been noted above, scenes are not taken in 

 their consecutive order, and a negative is, 

 therefore, usually an unassorted group of dozens 

 of scenes. But each of these scenes is num- 

 bered, at the time the picture is taken, in a 

 very simple way. Someone in the picture sim- 

 ply holds up a card on which the number of the 

 scene is printed and this appears in the photo- 

 graph. The camera-man, too, has marked the 

 end of all scenes by punching a hole in the 

 film. 



The negative, when developed, is cut in two 

 wherever these holes have been punched. The 

 sections of film are dropped into cylindrical 

 containers and sent to another workroom. Here 

 operators sort the lengths of film according to 

 number, and glue them together. This nega- 

 is then inspected by the director, who 

 cuts out any imperfect portions and indicates 

 where the printed explanatory matter is to be 

 inserted. These captions are printed in silver 

 on black cards, photographed separately, and 

 inserted in the finished negative. It is from 

 hat the positive prints are taken. 

 ; Tints are made by means of very 

 elaborate and efficient machines operated by 

 electricity. Because of the enormous number 

 of positive prints which have to be made, the 

 printing room is one of the largest in the de- 

 veloping plant. 



Distributing the Finished Film. Practically 



he film produced is handled by the film 



"exchanges" located in all the large cities. It 



comes to them from the producing plants, each 



in a round zinc box, securely protected 



i dust and fire. The exchanges do not sell 

 a film to a theater, but simply rent it, and 

 eventually it all returns to the producing plant, 

 where, if it is worth saving, it is stored in a 



fireproof vault. A large film exchange, 

 which keeps thousands of films moving all the 

 time, is an exceedingly busy place. Usually a 



film is out of the exchange for only three or 

 four days. As soon as it comes in again it is 

 inspected for broken places and for spots and 

 dirt. Torn places are cut out and the film 

 glued together again, and, if it is very dirty, it 

 is washed in the film laundry which all large 

 exchanges maintain. If it is badly spotted it is 

 retouched by hand and then is ready to go out 

 again. In the hands of careful operators one 

 film can usually be run five hundred times, but 

 the life of many films is much shorter than 

 this. 



The Projecting Machine. A moving picture 

 projector is nothing more nor less than a stere- 

 opticon lantern in combination with a mecha- 

 nism for moving the film in front of the lens of 

 that lantern. The film must move at such a 



THE PROJECTING MACHINE 

 An instrument like the one shown above flashes 

 upon the screen the pictures you may enjoy 

 evening. pr<>\ il-i your favorite theater has the 

 latest machine, with 1917 patents. 



rate of speed that sixteen pictures are pro- 

 jected in one second. But this motion cannot 

 be smoothly continuous. The motion of the 

 film must be intermittent; it must move ahead 

 and then come to rest at the exact instant when 

 the revolving shutter exposes it to the beam of 

 light from the lantern; and then, when the 

 shutter cuts off the light, it must move ahead 

 again. The mechanism for moving the film 

 is almost exactly like that in the camera. The 



