Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 2 (1909 Into the Film Industry): Cameras

Cameras were most difficult to procure, for the Patents Company had a stranglehold on the most important patents for such devices. A potential solution was found in the Bianchi camera made by the Columbia Phonograph Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, following experimentation by one of its phonograph recording engineers. However, the Bianchi was difficult to use, and when not affixed solidly to an immovable base, serious problems developed. This inadequacy was not lost on the editorial department of The Film Index, a magazine devoted to Patents Company films, which loftily stated that the unit has "long since been found impracticable." Note In rebuttal in The Moving Picture World, inventor Joseph Bianchi stated that his camera had been tested in competition with the Bioscope camera at the Edison and Eastman Kodak factories, and "all who examined the comparative test admitted that the Bianchi camera made the best showing. The additional cameras under construction here at Bridgeport are all nearly completed, awaiting my personal and final inspection." The inventor went on to say that his camera assured absolutely perfect registration and freedom from electrical markings caused by static which otherwise ruined thousands of feet of film.

The Moving Picture World, March 17, 1910, informed readers that a representative of the journal had paid another visit to New Rochelle and had confirmed his earlier impression of the good things being done there. The Bianchi mechanism, which was one of the few motion picture cameras available from sources other than the Patents Company, was described:

The Thanhouser factory is a well equipped installation for the making of moving pictures. The stage has been well designed and is in competent hands; the development facilities are up to date and calculated to make good prints.... The factory is such as to impress us that Mr. Thanhouser's earnestness and ability will make good in the production of moving pictures.

Now to the Bianchi camera. The reader hardly needs telling that the salient feature of the moving picture camera in general use is that the film in its passage behind the lens has an intermittent movement, produced by the operation of sprocket and perforations. As the film is led down on the focal plane it has a brief moment of rest, and is given a brief moment of obscuration by the revolving shutter. This means, in practical language, that it is kept still for an appreciable length of time in order that the image may be rapidly impressed upon it. It is at the moment of rest for roughly, let us say, one twentieth of a second.... The Bianchi camera entirely ignores this fundamental principle. The film in its passage along the focal point behind the lens has a continuous movement. It is never at rest. It is always in motion....

The vital principle of the Bianchi camera differs entirely from the principle of other cameras. In the latter we have practically what is very rapid stationary photography, and in the Bianchi camera it is very rapid movement photography. That is to say, while the subject moves so does the film upon which the image is projected. In theory then, according to the laws of persistence of vision, the film in the Bianchi camera must, while not remaining still, have the effect of doing so, in order that the sharp image may be impressed upon it. If means are not adopted for keeping the film still for an appreciable length of time in the Bianchi camera, then you would not get a sharp image. You would simply have a blur and your picture would be all fuzzy and out of focus....

How then, has the inventor overcome this difficulty?... To explain: immediately in the axis of the taking lens, that is, in simpler language, at the back of it, he places another lens. Then, in the revolving shutter which is interposed between the lens and the focal plane, there is placed another specially-designed lens, which, as the shutter revolves, is always erect and which, area for area, roughly synchronizes in movement with a particular part of the film in which the image is imprinted. In other words, supplementary lens and film move together, so that the image which that supplementary lens receives is sharply impressed upon the sensitized celluloid. Now, nearly in contact with the latter, is a little frame which also moves perpendicularly to the axis of the image, so the effect of this frame on the pictures is to keep each picture separate one from the other and to prevent overlapping. We have stated the principle of the Bianchi camera, we think, in as simple language as possible....

Notwithstanding the avowed simplicity of the explanation, the device would not perform satisfactorily. Later Thanhouser replaced the Bianchi units with other cameras, makers unspecified, and still later with Pathé cameras made in France. Even while Bianchi cameras were available to Thanhouser and other Independent producers, who advertised that they were operating under the Columbia License, these unsatisfactory machines were primarily a cover for using illegal Edison or other Patents Company cameras, or to take attention away from one or another of the new cameras which appeared on the market from time to time. Note