832 



Popular Science Monthly 



The mechanism of the attachment by means 

 of which the colors are blended on the screen 



nearer the day when natural color motion 

 pictures will be the only ones in use. 



Experiments are now under way for 

 perfecting a process of dyeing the black and 

 white film the color of the four primary 

 hues. If this can be done — and recent 

 tests seem to promise that it can — there 

 will be no need of the four-colored filter on 

 the projector, and this natural color system 

 will be simplified so much 

 further. 



It is planned to take 

 the black and white film 

 which has been exposed 

 in the camera and sim- 

 ply immerse it in vats 

 containing the various 

 dyes. When it is 

 placed in the red vat, 

 for instance, all of the 

 individual pictures of 

 the film, excepting the one- 

 fourth of them which corre- 

 spond to the red portions of 

 the scene, are covered up by small 

 rubber blocks. The dye cannot touch 

 them, therefore, while those parts of 

 the pictures which correspond to the 

 red portions of the scene are colored 

 red. 



After these pictures have dried, 

 they are covered up and the rubber 

 blocks are removed from those por- 

 tions of the picture to be dyed blue 

 in a similar way. And this is done for 

 the yellow and the green-blue portions 

 also. The film is thus colored di- 

 rectly and no extra filter is needed 

 on the projector. 



"Editing" a Motion-Picture Film 

 with a Phonograph 



AFTER a motion-picture film has been 

 1\ developed and printed it is sent to the 

 general manager or to the director to be 

 "edited." Like an author's manuscript in 

 the hands of an editor, it is shortened here 

 and there, the captions altered, some parts 

 entirely "cut" or deleted, and the whole 

 film dressed up to suit the ideas of the men 

 closest in touch with the theater-going 

 public. 



The editing takes place in the projection 

 room, but the altering — cutting the film and 

 changing it — is done in the cutting and 

 assembling room by men who do nothing 

 else. Sometimes the men in the cutting 

 room ("cutters," in the trade lingo) are so 

 overwhelmed and confused with orders 

 issued by the studio officials that they are 

 compelled to ask for additional expla- 

 nations. Needless to say this wastes much 

 time. 



By means of the phonograph, however, 

 one motion-picture company is eliminating 

 this waste and saving money. As the 

 director watches a picture in the projection 

 room he utters his editing orders into 

 the transmitter of a dictating machine. 

 The film is then sent back to 

 the cutting room with the 

 phonograph record. 



As the director watches 

 a picture he utters his 

 editing corrections in- 

 to the transmitter of 

 a dictating machine 



In the cutting and assembling room the corrections 

 are made from the records of the dictating machine 



