Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/64

 that only sixteen flashes of the car have been thrown on the screen during that second. Therefore, whatever particular part of the car we are looking at has fallen on sixteen different spots of the screen, and each spot is just one foot to the side of the previous one, because the screen is by assumption just sixteen feet wide. Now these separations are so wide that the eye cannot help noticing them even in the fraction of a second; there is not sufficient blending of images to form smooth motion; and the so-called flicker results.

However, if the car is photographed going obliquely away from us, the entire motion may occupy only a small area of the screen, no matter how far or fast the car goes; consequently the images fall much closer together and the flicker becomes so slight that we scarcely notice it. Also, since the field of movement is smaller in extent, the rolling of our eyes in ranging over the subject is less, and the fatigue of the muscles is so slight that we scarcely notice that either.

We have been arguing that large violent movements on the screen hurt the eyes, and we hope that our readers agree with us. But if any one is doubtful we invite him to make the following test. Go to any movie theater and sit down in the seventh or eighth row. Then after having seen about half of the picture, move back to the last row, or stand behind the last row. The picture will immediately seem more restful to the eyes, because the distance has made the screen seem smaller and the motions slower, two changes which, of course, make less work for the eyes. Now stay in the new position until the program is finished, and then see that part of the picture which