David Horsley — A Double Exposure Camera (1915) 🇺🇸
David Horsley Invents Device that Simplifies Cameraman’s Problem — Has Done Other Things.
David Horsley, who is something of an inventor of motion picture apparatus, has just perfected a camera which takes two exposures and makes two separate double-exposed negatives at one time. Mr. Horsley has been working over this idea for a long time, and is greatly elated over his success. The new duplex double-exposure camera is already in use in the Centaur studios in Bayonne and has demonstrated its thorough practicability in actual test. The possibilities opened up by Mr. Horsley’s device are almost without limit. Both the vision and the scene are made at one time and either or both may be faded in or out by an independent controller. The mechanism is operated by a spring motor, which can be set to any speed from one to twenty-four that may be desired. This motive device enables the camera man to give his attention to the more important details in photography. The duplex negative is made merely as an insurance against any defect in, or accident that might happen to, a single negative, such as static, scratching, errors in the developing, etc., thereby obviating the necessities of costly retakes.
Some of the effects that have already been accomplished with the new camera are most weird and startling. In one protean comedy several different human heads change and alternate on one body with startling rapidity. And the illusions are said to be perfect. In another test a lion is seen eating peacefully out of the same plate with a little girl.
Another great advantage as great in its way as the effects is the time and money which will be saved by the Horsley camera over the double exposure method now in general use.
In the first place, as both the scenes and visions are made at one time and in one location, the same light is used for each. Under the present method, scenes and visions are made at different times and the negative has to be rewound with exactness, and the acting in the second exposure timed with minute precision. Any error, however slight, will spoil the entire effect, and the work has to be done over and over any number of times, until the combination has been accurately obtained. The Horsley camera, by making both exposures on the same film at the same time, entirely eliminates these wastes and uncertainties, and proportionately reduces the cost of production.
Another unique feature which adds wonder and broadens the scope of Mr. Horsley’s invention, is a device which registers the words spoken by the character right on the picture, so that speeches and necessary subtitles are read as the scenes are being unfolded.
Mr. Horsley was the first independent manufacturer, and within six years has advanced from a little one-room studio to the possession of one of the largest and most important plants — a combination factory and studio — in this country. His equipment in the Centaur Film Co. at Bayonne includes, in addition to the studio and commercial plant, machine and carpenter shops, and a silver precipitator and smelter through which he recovers from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars worth of silver from the exhausted hypo, raw stock perforations and discarded films.
Mr. Horsley’s first great success as a producer was achieved with “Mutt and Jeff.” These one reel comedies are said to have reached a weekly distribution of 47 copies and to have cleared over $60,000 for their maker. Mr. Horsley then erected the Nestor plant, with which asset he entered the Universal Film Co. His holdings in that organization today are considerable.
Last spring Mr. Horsley resumed the producing of one-reel comedies, and quite recently he purchased the Bostock show, one of the largest collections of trained wild animals in existence. These animals are now in Los Angeles, where they will soon be exploited as an independent show enterprise, and in motion pictures.
These achievements have been important in themselves, but it is as the inventor of such superior mechanical devices as the electric film polisher, the durable step printer, the 1,000 ft. continuous printer with automatic light shift, the axoimetre (talking picture attachment), and other practical inventions culminating in the new double exposure camera that the genius of David Horsley is revealed in full.
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A Lubin Melodrama That Is Unconventional in Which the Unexpected Happens.
Reviewed by W. Stephen Bush
I sincerely believe that this feature will be highly acceptable to the great masses of moving picture patrons. It has a strong plot, though somewhat intricate. Instead of a hero we have a heroine of very pleasing appearance, considerable histrionic skill and an engaging and sympathetic personality. Lillie Leslie in the triple role of the Duchess of Granville, The White Mask, and Mrs. Julia Dean holds the center of the screen from the first inch of film to the last, and she forms the connecting link between the various and sometimes divergent parts of the story.
The play abounds in sensations, all of which develop naturally in the course of the story. The action being laid in two continents, there were plenty of opportunities to emphasize the advantages of the screen over the stage. These opportunities were utilized to the fullest. Much of the action centers about the court of the Belgian King Leopold. The scenes in this part of the play are particularly fine, the settings being notable for richness and elegance and painstaking correctness. Gilbert Ely gave a startlingly faithful impersonation of the late King of the Belgians.
The story quickly awakens and amply sustains the interest of the spectator. Its original construction and its screen adaptation are exceptionally good. Another merit of the play is its novelty and its departure from conventional melodramatic lines. Here, the unexpected happens, rather than the expected and interest of the spectator is never permitted to flag. The title, which may be said to be “fetching,” is the name given to a mysterious dancer, famous for her skill, but determined to withhold her identity from the general public, and therefore wearing a white mask every time she appears on the stage. The effort on the part of many admirers of the woman to penetrate the mask and discover the dancer’s identity forms part of the action in the play. Joseph Smiley, who directed the play, also took the part of the villain, and he would be a cruel critic, indeed, who would want a more desperate villain. He deserves great credit both for his acting and for his intelligent and conscientious work as a director.
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Kleine Makes The Commuters
The George Kleine studio at 11 East 14th street, New York, has been busily engaged filming The Commuters. An original cast under the direction of George Fitzmaurice is rapidly completing the famous stage comedy.
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David Horsley
Scene from The White Mask (Lubin)
Collection: Moving Picture World, January 1915