At the time that
Amarilly's good-hearted but socially impossible mother, with her
little brothers and sisters, are being entertained by the rich
hostess who desires to shame the little girl from the tenements in the
eyes of her son, there is flashed on the screen, against a dark
background, an empty glass gold-fish bowl with the fish themselves
wriggling and gasping on the table beside it. The idea of "fish out of
water" was very apparent to the spectators. Later, when the
tenement-bred family had returned to their humble home, another
picture showed the gold-fish contentedly swimming about in a
well-filled bowl. It is such an effect as this that any clever writer
might think of suggesting in his scenario, and it is legitimate in
every way--far more so, in fact, than some of the tricks of
diaphragming and fading so frequently made use of by certain
directors.
A startlingly novel effect was shown some time ago in the Vitagraph
Company's production of Arthur Stringer's story, "Mortmain." Just as
Mortmain was put under ether the scene proper faded out, giving place
to a dull blur in which the faces of the doctor and his attendants
were brought right up to the lens of the camera and then withdrawn for
several feet, the action being extremely rapid, and being repeated
several times, by means of the camera mounted on a truck, as already
described.
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