CINEMA’S NEXT STEP

Evening Star, Issue 22456, 29 September 1936, Page 11

CINEMA’S NEXT STEP

THREE-DIMENSIONAL EMOTIONS Heroine’s locks enticingly close; heroes’ muscles bulging clear out to here; noses sticking out from screen Lilians’ faces just like noses really do; raindrops from storm scenes all but dousing theatre audiences— These are the latest realistic effects motion pictures are setting out to exploit . (writes Robert K. Shellaby, in the ‘ Christian Science Monitor’). Long-awaited developments in thirddimensional pictures have added to the conspiracy of fooling the public into believing that what is before their eyes is actually taking place then and there. Like the entire process of projection, though, it’s all an illusion—this engaging effect which gives depth and perspective to a heretofore flat screen. What is the magic wand producing the illusion? There isn’t any ,single one on which the theatregoing public has yet had a chance to stamp its approval. . , Artists, physical scientists and film technicians in each of their realms have but recently .offered to commercial test the results of their experiments. Just as their predecessors did, they are courting the box office sanction which named the fate of varying methods in the early days, of photography, projection, and sound recording. Now, even as then, Hollywood is confident of improvement, and is looking to the current batch of inventions to yield a third-dimension technique as standard as those of the sound track and technicolour. “Third dimension in films? Why, you’ve got it with colour!” And it’s just as easy as that to Robert Edmund Jones as he sits in his cubby-hole shack in the middle of a Hollywood studio sound stage, working out technicolour sequences. NOT SIMPLE, But you have to reaf.se that there are few, if any, other Robert Edmund Joneses, and, unless are developed, third dimension through the use of colour will be far from simple, if or Mr Jones, with his years of experience in stage set designing, is definitely one of but few capable of directing photography to catch the delicate shadings so necessary to the illusion. “ When you look at a Gainsborough or a Whistler or a Holbein, you are aware of depth because of the exquisite touch. And if artists, real artists, are put on the job in Hollywood, that same result can be attained.” One of the most outstanding technical devices to achieve depth is the recent invention of the late Donovan Foster, a light engineer, who with twin light beams through the single film frame on the common reel projected two images upon the vertical screen. This super-imposition, with the beams slightly offset in focus, creates the illusion of depth, and the bold relief is not only apparent from the screen on the back into the - scene, but also is strikingly embossed on the screen surface. This arrangement resulted through efforts to eliminate distortion of screen figures when viewed from extreme side seats in a theatre. And, as the search for true colour has brought the third dimension, this attempt to make “ solid ” figures resulted in the elusive illusion of depth. Witnessing the demonstration of this process not long ago in a Hollywood laboratory, one saw the foreground figures stand ' out boldly. One’s gaze travelled “ beyond •” the shoulders _ of the characters to the scene stretching out like a view from a window, and the screen was less obstructive than a pane. From the extreme sides of the projection room itself the distortion became apparent only within a 20deg angle, much less than the average bane of wide movie palaces. If the projection room had been able to hang its screen on a drop far back on a as is usually done in theatres to minimise the distortion, the grotesque thinness would not have been noticeable. Simply, this two-image series is the old stereopticon process, where each eye looked at a picture and created the illusion of depth by focusing the images on top of each other. _ Stereopticon principles have stirred up much commotion for many years in invention circles. Just as two lenses were required to enjoy a trip through foreign lands in an old-fashioned parlour, at least two additional attempts at eliciting the third dimension have utilised spectacles for the film spectator. TWO EYE IMAGES. Their camera takes a picture having two eye images spaced eye-distance

apart; in other words, it catches what an observer would see with his own eyes if he were standing where the camera took the picture. In projection, these two images are mixed belter skelter on the screen. The Polaroid spectacles unscramble this mixture so that each eye sees its own image and only its own image. True stereoscopy is only achieved with two eye pictures eye-distance apart. These can be photographed by a number of means; but in projecting them the two images must be superimposed, since in normal viewing one’* two eyes focus at the same point. At present the problem of unscrambling these images in colour can bo solved only through polarised light which permits the use of all colours., And the combination of depth and colour greatly enhances the picture. Sideseat distortion is also. partially eliminated by this system, and it is' possible to utilise any present, or future colour process. PUBLIC CHOICE. The public will\decide which will bo the ultimate technique. Difficulties in. the production and projection of the eyeglass methods almost preclude the adoption of such radical changes. Tech- ’ nicolour, combined with the prism unit, is holding the attention of Hollywood. Those of- us who respond easily to emotional stimulus without celluloid suggestions may feel that the search fop the third dimension is. after all, carrying coals to Newcastle. Haven’t w# alivays, if the story was gripping enough and the sets inviting, lived right on the scene itself? _ That’s the common goal of motion pictures, and third dimension is a step toward it. Indeed, it may be only a step in stride to the day of ghost-like figures stalking and talking through the theatre* the illusion increased by artificially stimulated touch-and smell. Yet, improvements in mechanics are of littlevalue if cinema plots do not likewise carry conviction.