Preserving the Orchestra Leader's Art
��THE special talents possessed by celebrated orchestra leaders are to be immortalized. What is more, it now becomes possible for the same leader to direct hundreds of bands at once from a motion-picture screen.
An orchestra leader must be photo- graphed both as he appears to his musicians and to his audience — in other words, he must be photographed in front and in back. He takes his place, as shown in the accompanying illustra- tion, between two cameras, which arecon- cealed by partitions so as not to be in- cluded in the picture. Camera I takes the front and camera 2 the back view, while the conductor is beating time. But in each case the image covers only half the film. One-half negative reg- isters the front views and the other half the back views.
The two films are cut in half and joined, so that we now have a single
��film which carries the two sets of pic- tures, and which can be used in a moving- picture projector with certain modifica- tions, as shown in our illustration.
A screen is employed, the upper half of which is transparent, the lower half opaque. The set of pictures showing the front view is thrown on to the lower opaque half which lies in front of the musicians, so that they see the leader just as he would appear when really conducting the orchestra. This is all that would be absolutely necessary as far as the musicians are concerned. But at a concert the effect is much better when the audience can see the leader as well. The second or back view comes into use here. The back view of the conductor is thrown on to the upper transparent screen, so that the audience seems to see the leader as usual. A partition prevents the musicians from seeing the upper half of the screen.
���At the upper left the two concealed cameras are shown. Each takes but half a negative, the halves being pieced together as in the lower left picture. A screen having a transparent portion for the audience to see and an opaque portion for the musicians alone, is employed
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