The looking glass. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1894-????, December 25, 1897, Page 6, Image 6
6
HOW THE VITASCOPE
PICTURES WERE MADE.
A Curious Story of the Taking of
the Record at Carson City.
The Operators Ran Short of Film and Were Obliged
to Cut Out the Intermissions Between 'the
Rounds—Difficulty Experienced in Patch
ing up the Pictures for Exhibition
Purposes—The Fate of the Fake
Views in an lowa Town.
There are a number of curious and interesting
details in connection with the vitascope panorama
of the Corbett-Fitzsimmons mill, exhibited here last
week, that have never yet been given to the public.
Those who saw the pictures were surprised at the
fact that the intermissions between the rounds were
nearly all omittted. The shadowy forms of the
pugilists would be seen to retire to their respective
corners when time was called, and their seconds,
rubbers and handlers instantly surrounded their
chairs. Then would come a sudden jerk of the
film, the picture would be blurred for a brief fraction
of time, and the two fighters would be seen once
more in the center of the ring.
The general supposition was that these omissions
had been made to reduce the time of the exhibition
to the limits of an ordinary evening’s entertainment.
There was, however, another and much more inter
esting reason. According to the electrician who
was with the show, and who had been present when
the original negatives were taken at Carson City,
the intermissionsjwere left out to save film.
“We went to the fight very badly provided with
film,” he said, “and were frightened half to death
for fear it would give out before the mill was over.
So after a few minutes we stopped the machine be
tween rounds and only took the actual fighting.
Each round under the Queensbury rules lasted three
minutes and the intermission one minute each. In
that way we saved one fourth of the film. If the
fight had lasted eight more rounds we would have
run out of it altogether.”
The pictures are taken forty to the second and as
they are exactly one inch deep the operation uses
up 200 feet of film a minute. This film is a strip of
transparent celluloid with a sensitized surface and it
can be made any length desired. As a matter of
fact nearly two miles of it were used at Carson
City
While the record of the great fight is a truly won
derful affair the pictures are very defective compared
to the views that have been exhibited here on the
biograph and cimeomatograph. Os course all these
machines are alike in principle ' but they vary
slightly in mechanical construction. The defects in
the pictures are largely due, however, to other
causes, some very curious. Strange to say, after
spending thousands of dollars to pull off the fight,
the Veriscope Company, at the head of which is
Dan Stuart, neglected to provide the necessary
appliances at the ringside to take the pictures suc
cessfully. The photographic machine was set up
in a rickety shed' where it was impossible to get it
entirely rigid, and instead of being operated by a
motor it was turned by hand with a cog-wheel de
vice. The result was that the pictures were not
evenly “timed” and some are perfectly distinct
while others are mere shadows.
Another trouble was caused by freshly painting
the frame work of the recording machine on the
morning of the fight. The consequence of this was
that the vibrations spattered the film with micro
scopic drops of paint, and that is what caused the
black spots which so greatly disfigured the repro
ductions.
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WAITING FOR SANTA CL
A Photographic Art Study Made so
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