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LIGHTING THE MOVIE
STUDIO
By F. A. MURPHY
I N the United States today are more
than a hundred motion picture concerns,
more than five thousand regularly
employed motion picture
actors, and countless casuals and
"supes", and the amount of money invested
mounts up to many millions.
To protect this investment, the photographynecessarily
has
to be superb,
and
perfect
photography
demands ext
raordinary
lighting equipment.
The motion picture
camera makes sixteen exposures
to the seconc
This high rate of speed requires
a lighting that will
act unerringly on the sensitized
film. The quality
and quantity of light must
be uniform and constant as
long as the camera man
turns the crank. Satisfactory
light does not necessarily
mean the mellow
glow of sunshine. Half
the studios are today
equipped with mercury arc
lighting apparatus that
casts a greenish, sickly hue
upon the countenances of
the actors. Whereas the
motion picture theater-goer sees a fair
damsel of creamy skin and light fluffy
hair, happily folded in the arms of a
noble, bronzed hero, the camera man, the
director and all, in fact, who are taking
part in the production see only the pallor
of green anemia upon the cheeks of the
768
cooing pair. In fact, no movie heroine
is beautiful to her leading man.
Overhead are great batteries of
Cooper Hewitt lights—strong but cool
lights—scores upon scores of them, and
from every wall the overhead batteries
are reinforced by others equally formidable.
The ideal light is actinic, that is,
rich in the green, blue and violet rays.
It has not the glare of the ordinary
electric light because the light is diffused
everywhere, not
concentrated, not
coming from a point;
it comes from an area.
An elaborate mechanism
is required in
conjunction with the
lights of a motion picture
studio. The batteries
are suspended
from a trolley system
so that they may be
run back or forth
across the huge stage
to any position that
may be required. This
necessitates a great
deal of changing and
moving about of the
lights, so a unit that
is easily handled is a
prime necessity. The
battery illustrated
here has proved itself
The Cooper-Hewitt Battery to be most satisfactory.
It can be connected or disconnected
in a hurry, and wheeled over to the
place where an exciting scene is being
filmed without summoning a whole staff
of porters and electrical experts to do
the moving—one efficient electrician can
tend a dozen batteries.