Preserving the Orchestra Leader's Art 



THE special talents possessed by 

 celebrated orchestra leaders are 

 to be immortalized. What is more, 

 it now becomes possible for the same 

 leader to direct hundreds of bands at 

 once from a motion-picture screen. 



An orchestra leader must be photo- 

 graphed both as he appears to his 

 musicians and to his audience — in other 

 words, he must be photographed in 

 front and in back. He takes his place, 

 as shown in the accompanying illustra- 

 tion, between two cameras, which arecon- 

 cealed by partitions so as not to be in- 

 cluded in the picture. Camera I takes 

 the front and camera 2 the back view, 

 while the conductor is beating time. 

 But in each case the image covers only 

 half the film. One-half negative reg- 

 isters the front views and the other half 

 the back views. 



The two films are cut in half and 

 joined, so that we now have a single 



film which carries the two sets of pic- 

 tures, and which can be used in a moving- 

 picture projector with certain modifica- 

 tions, as shown in our illustration. 



A screen is employed, the upper half 

 of which is transparent, the lower half 

 opaque. The set of pictures showing the 

 front view is thrown on to the lower 

 opaque half which lies in front of the 

 musicians, so that they see the leader 

 just as he would appear when really 

 conducting the orchestra. This is all 

 that would be absolutely necessary as 

 far as the musicians are concerned. But 

 at a concert the effect is much better 

 when the audience can see the leader as 

 well. The second or back view comes 

 into use here. The back view of the 

 conductor is thrown on to the upper 

 transparent screen, so that the audience 

 seems to see the leader as usual. A 

 partition prevents the musicians from 

 seeing the upper half of the screen. 



At the upper left the two concealed cameras are shown. Each takes but half a negative, 

 the halves being pieced together as in the lower left picture. A screen having a transparent 

 portion for the audience to see and an opaque portion for the musicians alone, is employed 



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