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THE EVENING LEDGER PHOTOPLAY SECTION, SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1915.
3-
LUBIN FORECASTS FUTURE THE PHOTOPLAY OF
OF MOTION PICTURES THE DAYS YET TO COME
Pioneer Photoplay Producer Predicts Perfection in the
Art Declares Home Cinematography Is at Hand.
What His Company Expects to Accomplish.
By SEEGMUND LUBIN
A New Art and a New Audience in the Making' Coming
Co-operation of the Drama and the Photoplay.
Popular Amusement Must Not Be Expensive.
NO INDUSTRY In the world has, within
such a comparatively short time, ex
panded as rapidly as the making of mo
tion pictures. Marvelous things have been
accomplished in the past, but this will be
as nothing to what will ba achieved In
the future. We, of the Lubin Company,
are working with ono end In slsht per
fection In motion pictures, and I think we
may say. with due modesty, that we are
accomplishing better results all the time,
not alone in the production of plays, but
in the experimental and inventive work
we are carrying on constantly In our lab
oratories. In the old days pictures were crude, few
players had good acting ability, our me
chanical apparatus was poor and the theatre-loving
people at least the big major
ity of them passed by without the slight
est Interest our little "shows." Compare
those conditions with what la being done
today. Over in New York they are show
ing "The Sporting Duchess," one of my
feature pictures, which cost mo thou
sands and thousands of dollars to pro
duce. In Madison Square Garden, with a
seating capacity of 12,000
Today we are combing the world for
the greatest writers, the greatest players
and the greatest plays, and to secure them
and get a production that will appeal to
the big picture-loving public we never
hesitate a minute over the cost. Never
before has the Lubin Company been mak
ing more pictures than It is today. At our
factory In Betzwood we are printing mora
than a million and a half feet of film each
week, and our studios, situated In different
parts of the country, are working six days
In the week producing not only dramas,
comedies and farces, but various kinds of
educational, industrial and medical pic
tures. My payroll Includes more than
2000 people at present and this does not
include the army of extra people we use.
I am continually asked what the future
of the motion picture will be. I answer,
it will be marvelous. There will be many
readjustments and revolutions, naturally,
but all will be for the betterment of pic
tures. For Instance I predicted some time
ago that the average person would soon
be able to go to his photographer and
instead of a still picture of himself or his
family would have motion pictures made
and would show them at home himself
to his relatives and friends
Home Movies Coming
After many years of experimenting 1
have completed a little house apparatus
through which regular film can be shown.
No electricity is needed to run it. and
pictures can be shown in either day or
artificial light. This machine weighs less
than five pounds, can be placed on a
chair or table, and Is very simple to run.
The cost of it, when put on the market,
will probably be between 12 and $15.
which will enable almost any one to be
his own exhibitor.
I have also perfected a new motion
picture camera for the use of portrait
photographers. It will not be very Ions
before every photographer will be equip
ped with one of these cameras, and then
every one can have motion pictures made
of themselves, developed, and shown at
home through my little house apparatus.
How much better It will be to see our
relatives and friends In motion pictures
than by looking at them In still pictures
or oil paintings.
We are rapidly approaching the time
when exhibitors will specialize In the
type of pictures they show. Ono tnea
tre will show nothing but big feature
productions, another win devote Ms pro
gram exclusively to comedies and farces,
others to travel. Industrial and educa
tional pictures and so on. There win also
be theatres devoted entirely to little
folks, where fairy stories and all the
wonderful tales we were told when we
were children win be shown on the
screen.
In co-operation with a number of dis
tinguished specialists we are doing1 splen
did work at present with medical and
surgical moving pictures. Unusual phasea
of medical and surgical work are photo
graphed, and these films are shown ia
hospitals and medical colleges all over
the world, and one can readily understand
how valuable these pictures are to the
profession In the splendid work beinr
done today by the medical world In pre
venting disease, we are doing all we
can to assist.
The Educational Field
The time ia rapidly approaching when
motion pictures will be used In every
school and college In the land. All over
the country at the present time schools
are using pictures as an aid to instruc
tion and getting splendid results. Edu
cators are coming to realize that the
sense of sight Is a most Important factor
to deal with and that impressions gath
ered through sight are always more last
ing. The motion picture Is revolutionizing
the business world, too The modern
drummer no longer travels with a lot of
big. heavy trunks. He takes a few
samples of his goods with him' in a small
case and demonstrates what he has to
sell with motion pictures. The man who
sells clothing, shoes, hats and various'
other lines does not have to take a lot
of goods with him now for the films
demonstrate everything In detail. To
the manufacturer of heavy machines and
other big goods, the motion picture has
been a great aid. for agents can travel
all over the world with a few reels of
film and demonstrate every phase of
his products from the time it la as
sembled until It is doing the work for
which It was designed.
Along dramatic and comedy lines the
Lubin Company has big things planned
ahead, and I have engaged some of the
best-known artists and artistes In the
world to appear In our productions.
By KENNETH MACGOWAN
Dramatic Editor of the Everting Ledger
WHEN yon see the words "Shubert
Feature," "Oliver Morosco Photo
play Company" or "William A. Brady
Picture Flays Inc."; when yon read of
Lawranco D'Orsay and Frank Keenan
with the Universal or of William Faver
sham's work with the Metro; when you
see far yourself David Belasco s share in
some of the Lasky productions. It means
another blow for that foolish old notion
that the drama and the photoplay are
natural antagonists.
The movies have caused a good deal oc
trouble for the theatres. But the losses
are the sort that come with any new ex
tension of mechanical or artistic ingenu
ity. They are disastrous to the average
American manager only because his busi
ness 13 conducted on such unsound eco
nomic principles that he can't make the
necessary readjustments.
The future is going to be different. The
photoplay and the drama will go forward
side by side, co-operating financially and
technically, and even collaborating- artisti
cally. Undoubtedly the managers and pro
ducers whose talents are better suited to
photoplay or acted drama will cling
pretty close to his best field. But there
win nevertheless be a very large co-operation
on the producing and financial
sides. There will, of course, be a very
much larger Interchange of help via the
actors.
Signs of artistic collaboration, of the
creation of a new art-form wedding
photoplay and drama, are already In.
sight. The forerunner of a new sort of
theatrical entertainment was "The Battle
Cry." the play Augustus Thoma3 staged.
In which episodes of the- drama were
connected fay nlma of Incidents happening
la between. New York has just seen,
in "The Alien," an entertainment In which
George Beb&n appears both on the
screen and In the flesh. In the alliance
of 01m and play there ia a large field for
artistic exploration.
Of course, the photoplay Itself is going
forward toward the coal of a very beau
tiful and moving art. The really notable
fi'm productions, from "The Inferno"
through "Quo Vadis" and 'ablria" to
"The Birth of a Nation." show what the
trend seems certain to be. The photoplay
Is going to develop the spectacular, the
picturesque, the plastic and the purely
beautiful to an extent that the stage can
never equal.
The theatre has always had two ten
dencies, the realistic or critical, and the
poetic or spectacular. The photoplay can
never touch the first of these to any ex
tent until the synchronization of mechani
cal speech Is perfected, and until that
day It win never render the poetic drama
as the theatre can by means of dialogue.
But. meantime, it can far outdistance the
stage in the production of scenes of
beauty, romance and adventure. It
can do this so splendidly that, even
though speech is added to the films, the
photoplay will still find its richest field
In the spectacular. There it can do with
its scenery everything' in the way c
novel and beautifully designed back
grounds that the "new stagecraft" of
Germany and Bussis. has mads possible
In the theatre. But It can add to this
a whole world of wonderful settings that
the theatre must forego. All the most
spectacular and lovely of nature's
beauties are at the command only of the
camera enowy mountains, wind-swept
clifts and pounding; sea, water caverns,
great forests and winding valleys. Into
this superb setting the human may b
thrown in endlessly dramatic and sig
nificant ways. Ships and marching'
armies, wide-ranging- battles and the tre
mendous excitement of the cross-country
chase, the loneliness of far peaks, are
all famnim. to the patrons of the photo
play. Add to this the endless opportunities for
beautiful and miraculous camera- work
the tricks or the trade which leave
nothing human or superhuman impossible
and the future of the photoplay art la
hard to Umit.
The theatre Is going to learn something
from all this; and it Is going to devote
Its energies more closely to the fields
where it may ba truly great psycholog
ical and social drama, critical comedy
and the poetic play eschewing more and
more the melodrama and spectacle in
which the photoplay excels.
But it Is going to profit even more by
the audience which the photoplay Is edu
cating. Frankly, the modern $2 theatre
Is not democratic. The theatre Is not a
popular amusement. Its art has left mil
lions untouched, the big mass of man
kind. The photoplay has brought a form
of art Into lives that have gone without.
The picture house Is not only drawing
audiences the theatre has never touched.
It Is drawing these people and the casual
playgoer with them, night after night,
playing steadily on their artistic sensi
bilities. The photoplay audiences are
achieving the basic fact in artistic devel
opment, experience, at a most grati
fying rate. The more contact a man has
with any art. the sooner the cheap palls,
the sooner he must have something better.
Already the progress of this educative
factor In the films la evident nough.
Out of the photoplay theatre of the
future will come a really democratic au
dience of trained lovers of their art. de
manding a finer type of film. And
which la the most important thing to
the man whose chief Interest may be la
the spoken drama this audience will
turn naturally to the sister art of the
photoplay for a form of theatrical en
tertainment that the films don't quite
give. The photoplay Is going to do some
thing for the drama that the aristocratic
theatre of our day la Impotent to achieve.
But it Is going to do far more for the
people who patronize it.
THEN AND NOW!