[78-L] Was it staged? - 1906 film of a cable car ride

Thu Mar 24 12:02:59 PDT 2011

"Rope" wasn't a big deal because there were only a few people in the film, which took place in one apartment front room. Just Jimmy Stewart, Farley Granger, and John Dall. Not nearly as complex as a street scene with extras, vehicles, and a constantly moving crane with the camera. It's the coordination of all of the extras, not the length of the exposure that causes the problem that leads me to believe that the 1906 was probably more spontaneous than some might think. I watched it again, and I'm wondering if the one guy wearing the bowler hat in the open motor car - with the steering wheel on the right side, was merely circling around the cable car, following it. He may have been hired by the cameraman to watch out for possible interferences from pedestrians, bystanders, etc., rather than to "pump up" the busyness of the street. We will never know for sure. It is incredible to realize how many of the people in that film would die in the next few from the earthquake and that all of the buildings we see in the film were pulverized.

Cary Ginell

> Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:07:02 -0400
> From: mbiel at mbiel.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Was it staged? - 1906 film of a cable car ride
> 
> On 3/24/2011 2:20 AM, Andrew Homzy wrote:
> > Gary makes good points - and that inspired me to do more research -
> >
> > He notes that Welles' 1958 "Touch Of Evil" is 3.5 minutes of continuous shooting.
> 
> Chickenfeed.  Ten years earlier in 1948 Hitchcock shot most of "Rope" in 
> continuous approx 10 minute shots joined together with matched close-ups 
> of an object.
> > But perhaps now, the most celebrated single shot - virtuosic, actually - is the entire film "Russian Ark (Russian: Русский ковчег Transliteration: Russkij Kovcheg) - a 2002 Russian historical drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov. It was filmed using a single 96-minute Steadicam sequence shot."
> 
> I seem to recall that there were joins in this film similar to "Rope".
> 
> Long continuous shots are actually quite common in television of the 50s 
> and early sixties.  If you look at the Bell Telephone Hour programs from 
> around 1961 that still exist on color videotape, they shot entire 
> musical dance productions in one continuous single camera shot.  I 
> remember one number with, I think, Ray Bolger, where there is a splice 
> edit halfway thru a 10 minute number to make a magical scene change, but 
> otherwise it is one shot before and after the edit.  Considering the 
> huge size and weight of the RCA TK-41 cameras which often did not have a 
> zoom lens, the sweeping camera movements dollying in and out and 
> trucking left and right are amazing.   I think some of the Fred Astaire 
> Evenings With had extended single shots -- he is always shot full-body.  
> Color mis-matching among cameras often make camera transitions obvious 
> and they were often kept to a minimum.  Camera cuts change the pace of a 
> scene, and TV back then often used them just to increase excitement in 
> confrontational dialogue by cutting to closeups during scenes which 
> otherwise were long two-shots.  You see this in Requiem For A Heavyweight.
> > But getting back to the 1906 film, we must remember that early film makers, such as D. W. Griffith, had a lot of experience staging lengthy scenes utilizing many actors and thousands of barely-trained extras. However, their cameras were not capable of containing enough film for such long shots.
> 
> The philosophy of some early films was to re-create the theater stage by 
> showing all the action in a long shot continuously.  Legend has it that 
> it was thought that the audience would not understand cutting and 
> close-ups, and that Griffith was one of the first to introduce some of 
> these effects.  But even 1903 Great Train Robbery has some, and also 
> includes paralllel time lines.
> 
> > I discovered that in 1948, a 35mm camera could hold 1000 feet of film - enough for a 10-inute shot.
> >
> 
> Safety codes usually limited nitrate film to 1000 foot lengths, and no 
> more than two reels were ever allowed to be opem at any one time in 
> projection rooms.  (Of course in Technicolor cameras there are three 
> reels in the film magazine.)  BUt remember, the ten minute length is 
> based on the sound speed of 90 feet per minute/24 frames per second.  
> Silent film was usually shot at 60 feet per minute, but that was usually 
> approx since most silent cameras were hand cranked.
> 
> > What was the capacity of cameras in 1906? A lot less, I would say. My research - Wikipedia is great -
> 
> Wikipedia is UNRELIABLE.  Generally if it says something, don't believe 
> it.  What you have done is not in any way "research".  Go to some 
> original sources, watch the films yourself, and crack open a BOOK once 
> in a while.
> 
> In the 1890s Edison could get film in 25 or 50 foot lengths.  Film 
> distributor catalogs for exhibitors usually show the footage lengths 
> since that is how they were priced.  100 feet was the usual max for 
> scenes like a railroad station, street scene, waterhose joke, etc until 
> the short 10 minute feature was introduced between 1903 and 1905.
> 
> > supports this: D. W. Griffith's 1916 film,  "Intolerance" runs for 157 minutes - yet, the average shot length is only  5.9 seconds.
> 
>   What is the average of a 2 second cut-away and a 60 second shot?  What 
> if there are several two-second cutaways in that 60 second shot?  It was 
> filmed continuously but now each segment is shorter.  Also, this film 
> exist in multiple versions, none quite what the original was supposed to 
> be.  Some of the big scenes were shot with multiple cameras 
> simultaneously and sequentially which could allow for hours of 
> "continuous" shooting.
> 
> 
> >
> > All of which-to-say, I not only believe that the 1906 film was staged, but that it was shot in several segments. Cheers,  Andrew
> 
> Scientific experiments are "staged".  The shooting of the scene I 
> described of The Fugitive was staged -- the street was closed.  I 
> suppose the company paid their fare, mounted a camera, and paid a few 
> drivers to drive around the streetcar.
> 
> Mike Biel   mbiel at mbiel.com
> 
> >
> > On 2011-03-23, at 10:24 PM, Cary Ginell wrote:
> >
> >>>  From all the descriptions, I think that you are only partially right. It's possible some of may have been staged, but certainly not all of it. Could the constant circling of certain cars have been simply curious followers? A member of the crew who was camera happy and wanted to get his picture taken? Is there any documentation to prove that this was scripted for this purpose? The statement in the article about the film says:
> >> And it appears the drivers on Market Street were recruited to fill up
> >> the screen, circling around the camera to make the city look more
> >> lively.
> >>
> >> The operative phrase "it appears" means that it's only guesswork and speculation. The drivers in the film are so wacko, the circling of the cars could have been simply the equivalent of mischievous kids running alongside the car and waving: just curious onlookers.
> >>
> >> You want to see a staged film that kind of reminds me of this? Check out the opening scene to Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4  It's a single crane shot - no cuts - that lasts about 3 and a half minutes of screen time. Look at all the passersby, automobiles, and even goats that had to be meticulously timed and coordinated in order to create this scene without stopping the film or changing cameras. It's one of the most celebrated openings in film history and must have been a real bear to coordinate. Could that possibly have been staged in 1906? The 1906 film is three times as long as the "Touch of Evil" opening, and is also done in one long take. It would have been impossible back then to have staged any part of this, other than the possibly uncontrollable circling of a few cars around the camera. I think it is debatable, without any real evidence, that any part of the 1906 film was staged. And I like to think that way.
> >>
> >> Cary Ginell
> >>
> >>> From: homzy at vax2.concordia.ca
> >>> Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:55:18 -0700
> >>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> >>> Subject: Re: [78-L] It was staged - 1906 film of a cable car ride
> >>>
> >>> I'm vindicated! I knew it was staged.
> >>>
> >>> Andrew
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 2011-03-23, at 3:49 PM, DanKj wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> This film has been on the American Memory pages of the Library of Congress for at least 12 years, and the description
> >>>> includes : "a careful tracking of automobile traffic shows that almost all of the autos seen circle around the camera/cable
> >>>> car many times (one ten times). This traffic was apparently staged by the producer to give Market Street the appearance of a
> >>>> prosperous modern boulevard with many automobiles. "
> >>>>
> >>>> http://tinyurl.com/4bp3rk2
> >>>>
> >>>> That doesn't mean that the pedestrians or other drivers knew about it - there are some disappointed faces when the
> >>>> streetcar fails to stop to pick up passengers.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> The newsboys at the end sure knew what a movie camera looked like, with all their waving&  smiling - but that's mostly
> >>>> AFTER the end of the LoC copy - it is cut short.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>> From: "Sammy Jones"<sjones69 at bellsouth.net>
> >>>> To:<78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> >>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 3:17 PM
> >>>> Subject: [78-L] It was staged - 1906 film of a cable car ride
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Here's an interesting article shedding light on much of the mystery around the film.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2010/10/17/historic-1906-marketstreet-film/
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Film historian David Kiehn was able to identify several license plates and discover the dates and to whom they were
> >>>>> registered.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Somewhere I've read that many of the cars appear over and over again, suggesting that they circled the trolley throughout
> >>>>> the film to give the impression of heavy traffic.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Sammy Jones
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Cary Ginell wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I agree with Craig. The logistics of staging such a scenario would be ridiculous to do even today. There were too many
> >>>>> people looking too natural for it to be phony. That would have taken all of the charm out of the scene anyway, so if it's
> >>>>> true, I refuse to believe it. Is there evidence that this was staged?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Cary Ginell
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:47:28 -0500
> >>>>>> From: craigventresco at gmail.com
> >>>>>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> >>>>>> Subject: Re: [78-L] It was staged - 1906 film of a cable car ride
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I don't think it was staged. I like near that street and people still
> >>>>>> stumble around there like they're in a  haze!
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 10:43 AM, Andrew Homzy<homzy at vax2.concordia.ca>wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Danger didn't register because it was a staged scene -
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> At least, that's what I think. Notice how all the u-turns look exactly the
> >>>>>>> same arc - they even seem to occur at regular intervals.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Cheers,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Andrew
> 
> 
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