Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/177

 Popular Science Monthly

��Vol. 89 No. «

��239 Fourth Ave., New York

August, 1916

��$1.50 Annually

��Catastrophes by the Foot

��To paraphrase the word.s of a well- known humorist, there is motion- picture realism and, on the other hand, there is motion-picture realism. There is cinema realism which consists mainly in cheap and uncon\incins illu- sions. Into this class falls llie director who substitutes a miniature dreadnought in a batiuub for the real article, or the director who mounts his camera on a rolling i:)latform, this de\'ice giving to the steady deck of a ship the appearance of rolling and tossing. On the other hand there is the director who will command his pla\-crs to leap real precipices on horseback. He is the same director who t, will sink a com p a n y of

��a stretch of nailed-down scenery on a floating dry-dock. This type of director is the man who is giving the public its most shivery thrills.

Sinking a "set" on a floating dry-dock has been done more than once. In fact, it is a favorite trick. A stateroom of a ship is built of wood strips, painted can- vas and a porthole. It is erected on the platform of a floating dry-dock and the camera adjusted. The action, dramat- ically speaking, starts. The sea-cocks of the dock are opened and it gradually sinks. Water creeps up — the ship is sinking! The cameraman cranks, the actors go through all of the pantomimics necessary to convey the alarming infor- ion that he ship is

���Would you care to be a motion-picture operator or a motion -picture actor, after this? Would you look brazenly out of the picture and care naught for the opinion of the man on the wharf?

163

�� �