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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
2-D? 3-D? The Technology and Aesthetics of Dimension in Early Cinema and Turn-of-the-Century Stage Performance
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Cinéma & Cie
Gwendolyn Waltz
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2-D? 3-D? The Technology and Aesthetics of Dimension in Early Cinema and Turn-of-the-Century Stage Performance
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2-D? 3-D? THE TECHNOLOGY AND AESTHETICS OF DIMENSION IN
EARLY CINEMA AND TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY STAGE PERFORMANCE
Gwendolyn Waltz




  The links of motion pictures to the science of optics and perception are well known.
For many decades any book on the history of film was essentially incomplete without
a carefully charted ancestry from the camera obscura to the cinématographe. Concerns
with dimension – how we view space – were, perhaps, secondary to photographing and
projecting movement, but depth perception was no less an object of scientific and pop-
ular curiosity; consider, for example, the ubiquity of stereopticons in middle-class
Victorian households. In a lecture to the Royal Photographic Society of London, reprint-
ed in The Moving Picture World in 1907, Robert Thorn Haines articulated an aim for
motion pictures that expresses the aesthetic basis of realism:

  Manifestly the highest perfection that could possibly be attained would consist in the repro-
  duction of the moving objects, in such a manner that they would appear upon the screen exact-
  ly the same in every respect as they in reality naturally do – that is to say, that in their repro-
  duction upon the screen they should be presented to the eyes precisely as they are in nature.1

   The degree to which an artistic medium achieved a recognizable representation of
human perception was a yardstick by which to measure, almost scientifically, its real-
ism. Dimensionality was a primary factor in this perceptual aesthetic.
   In the Western world, space has been viewed in terms of linear perspective since the
early decades of the fifteenth century; in fact, the field of physics can trace important
aspects of its heritage to perspective’s mathematical spatial concepts. However, the scien-
tific understanding of space does not automatically transfer to spatial perception. For
instance, the seeing of three-dimensional space via perspective representation in a two-
dimensional drawing, painting, or photograph is taught; perspective representation is a
                                     convention that is not necessarily natural or transcul-
                                     tural, and it is merely one of many cues we use to see
                                     objects in depth. Six are illustrated as follows (figure 1):

                                       - Size perspective – the observer measures depth by
                                       comparing the apparent size of objects which are
                                       known to be similar in height;
                                       - Interposition or occlusion – one object hides part of
                                       another from view, providing the observer with
                                       information about the objects’ order in depth;

                                       Figure 1: “Some monocular cues for the visual perception of depth”

­26                                                                       CINEMA & Cie, no. 3, Fall 2003
                                                    2-D? 3-D? THE TECHNOLOGY AND AESTHETICS

- Elevation or height in the visual field – depth is determined by the observer from the
  comparative relationship between the bases or tops of objects;
- Linear perspective – information is received about the angle of convergence between
  the optical axes of the observer’s eyes: the farther the distance, the greater the conver-
  gence;
- Texture gradient or regular density – the degree of texture, or similarities in a cluster
  of objects transmit to the observer how far or near they are to each other;
- Atmospheric perspective – the relative density of particles in the air (moisture, pollu-
  tants) between the observer and the scene creates sharper foreground and hazier back-
  ground images.2

   All of these cues are present in two-dimensional perspective painting, in traditional
illusionistic theatre (which used scenery painted in perspective), and in photographs
and motion pictures. Two additional cues are of particular importance to the aesthetics
of film and stage realism:
   Stereopsis – solid space is perceived due to binocular disparity;
   Motion perspective – This involves motion parallax, the apparent displacement of a
still object, due to the motion of the observer; edge rate, in which countable objects or
edges pass a reference point, such as trees seen passing at the side of the road from the
seat of an automobile; and global flow, which involves motion flowing all around the
observer, moving most rapidly underneath the person and decreasing with distance
towards the visual horizon.3

  Although stereopsis was a technical concern of pre-cinema technology throughout
the nineteenth century, it does not appear as a visual cue in two-dimensional motion
pictures. In 1839, Charles Wheatstone invented the stereoscope. Methods of stereo-
scopic projection were in commercial use by the 1860s; audiences peered through
two-color “tinters” placed in a fan or worn as spectacles – early 3-D glasses.4 The
Lumières had some success projecting moving pictures in low-stereoscopic relief in
1903, as did Famous Players Film Company in 1915,5 but the conceptualization of the
principles for stereoscopic projection outran developments in its technology.
Polarized light systems were patented in the 1890s, but were not “perfected” until
nearly half a century later.6
  Haines, in The Moving Picture World article mentioned earlier, ranked stereoscopy as
the second essential element required for cinematography to reach an ideal realism of
effect. Steady projection (no flickering) was first on his list, and color was his third
requirement.7 Picture projection became smoother over the years, but like stereoscopic
motion, effective (realistic) color was dependent on technical practices that took decades
to develop. In the meantime, however, inventors continued to experiment, employing
other cues of depth perception to increase the sense of dimension in motion pictures.
  One tactic was to create physical distance between the viewers and the movie screen.
According to Dennis Sharp, in The Picture Palace and Other Buildings for the Movies, the
downstage area in front of the screen was “indispensable [...] for giving a shadow box
effect around the screen and to add depth to the picture itself;” often the stages of neigh-
borhood “Pictureplay Theatres” had permanent settings consisting of architectural fea-
tures, plants, fountains, or scenes “depicted on angled flats which were meant to empha-
size the three-dimensional make-believe of the picture on the screen.”8 One such arrange-

                                                                                         ­27
GWENDOLYN WALTZ

                                     ment, patented by A.R. Flint in 1918, recycled an old the-
                                     atre trick – forced perspective. Flint described his
                                     “Device or Means for Giving Stereoscopic or Distance
                                     Effect to Moving Pictures Shown upon Screens:” “I
                                     arrange a proscenium [...] of box or cone shape at an
                                     interval in front of the screen [...], the picture is thus
                                     exhibited as though shown at a distance through an
                                     elongated aperture” (figure 2).

                                       Capitalizing on the visual cues of size perspective,
                                     interposition, and linear perspective, his device
                                     employed “various decorative treatments of the prosce-
                                     nium.” The area in front of the movie screen could be
                                     designed to “harmonize with the subjects being thrown
                                     upon the screen,” showing in its treatment the

                                      rapidly vanishing sides of an apartment or a continuation of
                                      the sides of the theater, or of a street or parts of an open-air
Figure 2: Flint’s stereoscopic device scene; the top of the proscenium may represent the ceiling of
  an apartment or the sky; and the bottom thereof the floor of an apartment, ground surface, sea
  or the like.

  An illusion of depth was created, he explained, since

  the eye receives a distance illusion from the surroundings and unconsciously carries this idea
  of gradually increasing distance into the flat picture itself, the movement of the objects shown
  upon the screen increasing the illusion that they actually stand in front of their background.

  Binocular disparity also was intended to play a part in the dimensional enhancement:

                                         The surrounding device forming an aperture in front of
                                         the picture; when the eye is fixed upon the latter the
                                         structure of the device impinges on the line of vision of
                                         each eye at a slightly different angle, the two eyes there-
                                         fore do not take identical vision as they would from a flat
                                         surface, and the receipt by each eye of a different picture
                                         produces the effect of stereoscopy.9

                                           Another inventor, Ole Andrew Owen, in a 1921
                                         patent, added a specially-crafted screen to his treat-
                                         ment of the stage area in an attempt to “remove the
                                         suggestion of a flat surface by removing the sharp
                                         edges of the picture itself and to give it an effect
                                         such as if the picture were suspended and viewed
                                         through a tube.”10 A row of shrubbery provided an
                                         interposition cue, and the deflected edges of the
Figure 3: Owen’s “Motion-Picture
Stage Illusion”                          ground-glass screen were designed to blend the

­28
                                                       2-D? 3-D? THE TECHNOLOGY AND AESTHETICS

motion picture gradually outwards, so that it faded into the shadow box of dark vel-
vet drapes that enclosed the stage (figure 3).

  Solid glass mirror-screens, as described by Robert Grau in The Stage in the Twentieth
Century (1912), gave motion pictures a “roundness, stereoscopicness and depth, that can
be produced in no other way;” transparent glass was used for rear projection.11 Stage
effects with glass screens had been in use as early as 1847, and were popularized by




Figure 4: Engravings of two “Pepper’s Ghost” effects


  Professor John Henry Pepper and Henry Dircks in the 1860s and 1870s as “Pepper’s
Ghost” and the “Dircksian Phantasmagoria,” in which the movements of an offstage
performer were reflected onstage onto a sheet of glass placed diagonally across the
stage (figure 4).12

   Moritz Lewin, in a 1915 patent, applied the “Pepper’s Ghost” glass-screen arrange-
ment to a theatrical appliance, “by means of which cinematographic figures may be
projected upon the stage in a plastic manner, so as to assume a very realistic appear-
                                                       ance and to be well set off from
                                                       the background.”13 For mov-
                                                       ing pictures, Lewin’s arrange-
                                                       ment used two projectors, one
                                                       with a film of the performers
                                                       (which was rear-projected
                                                       onto a screen [figures 5 & 6,
                                                       #11] located in the “wings” at
                                                       the side of the stage), and
                                                       another with a film of the sce-
                                                       nic background (projected
                                                       onto a screen upstage, from
                                                       the rear [#24]). The images
                                                       from the two screens were
                                                       reflected together, from two
                                                       directions, onto a plate-glass
                                                       screen (#20). Separate projec-
                                                       tion of performer and back-
Figure 5: Lewin’s “Theatrical Appliance”               ground images had been a

                                                                                           ­29
GWENDOLYN WALTZ

                                                                     mode of exhibition since
                                                                     around 1898.14 Lewin claimed
                                                                     to increase the appearance of
                                                                     depth further with his screen’s
                                                                     double-reflecting construction:
                                                                     a row of oblong glass bars,
                                                                     arranged behind the glass
                                                                     screen and backed by scrim fab-
                                                                     ric, which is opaque when light-
                                                                     ed from the front, and transpar-
                                                                     ent when lighted from the back
                                                                     (figure 6: front view, patent’s
                                                                     “Fig. 5,” and top view, patent’s
                                                                     “Fig. 6”).
                                                                     Reflecting the motion-picture
                                                                     images through two thickness-
                                                                     es of glass, Lewin believed,
                                                                     caused them “to assume a plas-
Figure 6: Side and front elevations of screen; top views of screen   tic shape, thus resembling liv-
and stage set-up                                                    ing and other solid bodies in
                                                                    space.”15
A supplementary alternative he suggested for his patent was for a multi-media effect
with motion pictures and live actors. In this case, the living actors performed atop a
                                                 platform (figure 6, #26) in front of the second,
                                                 upstage screen (#24) and appeared to take part in
                                                 the filmed scene by positioning themselves and
                                                 reacting properly as their images on the glass
                                                 screen intermingled with those of the film. The 2-
                                                 D and 3-D elements, in a sense, were equalized as
                                                 visually consistent in the reflected picture.
                                                   Another 1915 patent used similar reflecting prin-
                                                 ciples. The image of moving performers (filmed or
                                                 from a stereopticon device) was front-projected
                                                 onto a white screen placed upstage, at the rear of
                                                 the stage (figure 7, B). The film was viewed through
                                                 a plate of glass (A) that was slanted back and
                                                 upwards, angled from the proscenium-line of the
                                                 stage floor. A painted background (D), was hung
                                                 above – parallel to – the stage floor, and its image
                                                 was reflected onto the glass screen and viewed in
                                                 combination with the image of the filmed actors.
                                                 Charles E.R. Schneider, the inventor, explained the
                                                 resulting effect of stereoscopic relief: “This is
                                                 accounted for by reason of the distance between
                                                 the inclined glass showing the landscape and the
Figure 7: Schneider’s “Apparatus for             back screen on which the image is actually reflect-
Showing Picture in Relief”
                                                 ed, and which being viewed through the glass,

­30
                                                         2-D? 3-D? THE TECHNOLOGY AND AESTHETICS

                                                             acquires the aspect of bulk, relief
                                                             and distance”16 – essentially the
                                                             visual cue of interposition.

                                                           This sort of arrangement was
                                                        critiqued      and      evidently
                                                        improved upon by Louis E.
                                                        Hammond and Herman A. Smith
                                                        in 1923. The wording of their
                                                        patent’s text suggests that an
                                                        ongoing problem-solving “dis-
                                                         cussion” regarding stereoscopy
                                                         had been taking place over many
Figure 8: Hammond and Smith’s “Illusion Appliance”
                                                         years in the entertainment com-
munity, at least in terms of inventors’ reactions to and improvements upon each other’s
designs. Regular motion pictures, said Hammond and Smith, lost their “desired realis-
tic effect” because of the

  constant [...] flickering movement of the entire scene or setting. Furthermore, with the pres-
  ent methods of projection the pictures are what is commonly known as “flat,” it being
  impossible to obtain the proper degree of perspective to overcome this in the slightest
  degree. [...] [V]arious means have heretofore been suggested [for combining filmed figures
  with a still background,] but none has presented a satisfactory solution of the problem. 17

  The difficulty with earlier arrangements (see, for example, Schneider’s 1915 inven-
tion), Hammond and Smith explained, was that light which was meant to illuminate
the still, painted background tended to fall onto the glass screen, causing reflective
distortions. Also a front projection of filmed performers, shown on a glass screen, pro-
duced a “ghost,” or double image “visible to spectators in certain portions of the audi-
torium.” Hammond and Smith’s invention used back projection for the film of the
performers, and still-scenery front-projected from a stereopticon; a synchronized
phonograph gave voice to the pictures (figure 8). They claimed that:

  In some instances where our appliance has been employed, and the focal planes of the co-
  operating apparatus have been so adjusted to produce increase of life-like size [life-sized pro-
  jections], there has been considerable confusion in the minds of the auditors or spectators of
  the exhibittion as to whether the performance was by human beings or mechanical devices.

   Theatre productions at the turn of the last century can be divided into two general cat-
egories concerning the depiction of realistic stage pictures. Most familiar is the “slice of
life” style associated with the movements of Naturalism and Realism, in which the stage
set became a three-dimensional environment, with few or no painted trompe-l’œil or per-
spective effects. David Belasco’s 1909 production of The Easiest Way (in which the entire
interior of a boarding-house room was bought, down to the wallpaper, and reassembled
on the stage), is an extreme example of realistic scenic authenticity. The second category
involves a style of realistic illusionism that derived much of its inventive vitality from
scenic practices developed for, or popularized by, melodrama.18 Many of these practices

                                                                                                 ­31
GWENDOLYN WALTZ

recreated the perceptual effects of motion perspective, and were meant to set dramatic
scenes spatially free (in the imagination of the audience) from the static confines of the
stage. Frequently the fantastic, action-packed plots of the plays in this category were hard-
ly veritable depictions of actual life, but, as we also see today in suspense, fantasy, and sci-
ence-fiction movies, the more improbable the plot, the more important it was (and is) to
ground its presentation in a familiar, realistic scenic style, so as to infuse the story with
believability.
  During the second half of the nineteenth century, effects involving motion were enor-
mously popular. The scenic depiction of depth in motion was epitomized in effects that
employed stage panoramas and treadmills for races between horses, automobiles, and/or
locomotives. It is evident in engravings illustrating the workings of stage machinery, often
published in popular science journals like Scientific American, that the cues for spatial
motion perception were well understood. In, for instance, productions of The County Fair
(1889) and Paris port de mer (1891), passing fence-posts gave edge rate information in the




Figure 9: Illustration of stage machinery for   Figure 10: Engraving for article, “Some Stage
The Country Fair                                Effects in Ben Hur”

foreground of the stage picture (figure 9). For some plays the stage floor, painted as a dirt
track, appeared to move with receding speed as it approached the “horizon” at the back of
the stage. Rows of belts, painted in earth tones, “were set parallel to the curtain line; they
were motor-controlled and the speed was gradually reduced on each succeeding upstage
belt to give the effect of motion perspective,”19 creating a sense of parallax, and even of
global flow, since the ground effects were combined with a more slowly moving stage
panorama which unrolled a background of painted scenery across the rear of the stage.
This set-up was particularly effective when, as in Ben Hur (1899), three (or more) panora-
mas were arranged in a semicircle behind the action (figure 10). Sometimes the panoram-
ic scene at the back of the stage was “stepped” into receding rows of mini-panoramas, each
band of scenery moving at a slightly different speed, such as in Bedford’s Hope, a 1906
melodrama written and designed by an “effects man,” Lincoln J. Carter. “Audiences are
captivated by the marvelously realistic reproduction of natural phenomena in form and
motion,” stated Robert Grau in 1912, “The theatre-going public senses the greatest pleas-

­32
                                                     2-D? 3-D? THE TECHNOLOGY AND AESTHETICS

urable emotions when it sees action delineated in a realistic atmosphere; its attention fol-
lows easily [...] the unfolding of the play when the imagination is not distracted by
grotesquely inadequate scenic accompaniment. Reality is the thing.”20

                                                               After theatres began
                                                             installing electric stage
                                                             lighting in the 1880s to
                                                             replace gas lighting (which
                                                             had cast an uneven, yet
                                                             atmospheric glow that soft-
                                                             ened the appearance of the
                                                             stage picture), painted set-
                                                             tings – whether still or mov-
                                                             ing – were, with growing
                                                             frequency,      viewed     as
                                                             “grotesquely inadequate”
                                                             because of their stark two-
                                                             dimensional contrast to
                                                             three-dimensional actors.
                                                             Beginning around 1898,
                                                             moving pictures were incor-
                                                             porated in a number of pro-
                                                             ductions as replacements
                                                             for painted stage panora-
                                                             mas.21 Frank D. Thomas,
                                                             certainly the most prolifi-
                                                             cally patented American
                                                             inventor of multi-media
                                                             effects, supplied motion-
                                                             picture scenery for Broad-
                                                             way producers (including
Figure 11: Thomas’ “Stage Effect”                            Florenz Ziegfeld, Lew
                                                             Fields, Eddie Foy, and the
Shubert Brothers) from 1907 into the 1920s. “I realized that we had at last hit the bull’s
eye with something totally different from anything that had preceded us in this sort of
stage-craft,” he said in a 1911 article for Green Book.22 For a time, at least, motion pic-
tures provided a photographic realism, with accurate dimensional cues, that audi-
ences reportedly accepted as more convincing than painted scenery.

  Thomas’ stage was, essentially, a white screen: “nothing but white drops and wings,”
floor cloths and groundrows, onto which filmed scenery – “colored true to nature” –
was projected (figure 11: patent’s “Fig. 1,” #23, 24, & 26).23 Actors performed in spot-
lighted areas amid, or from slits or areas cut into the screens (figure 11: patent’s “Fig. 1,”
#30-32); the spotlights highlighted their performance, and probably muted the degree
of relief in which the actors were seen, uniting their dimensional appearance with that
of the scenery. A multi-media effect, Thomas observed, created a “sense of compelling
realism” and “made audiences lose sight of the fact that while it was good, it was palpa-

                                                                                           ­33
GWENDOLYN WALTZ

                                                                        bly artificial.” He described a
                                                                        “Bathing Girls” effect he had
                                                                        created for Ziegfeld’s first edi-
                                                                        tion of the Follies in 1907 (fig-
                                                                        ure 12):

                                                                        When the effect was first tried
                                                                        out in public, it resulted in a
                                                                        most amusing incident. Just as
                                                                        the waves rolled down toward
                                                                        them, there was a wild, mad
                                                                        scramble on the part of the
                                                                        front row auditors to escape the
                                                                        deluge they unconsciously
                                                                        thought was coming their way.
                                                                        We could, of course, have had
                                                                        no better tribute to the realism
                                                                        of the impression.24

                                                                          The “punch” effect, com-
                                                                        mented on world-wide with
                                                                        regard to early film viewing,
                                                                        provided a sense of forward
                                                                        movement – possibly a depth-
                                                                        perception cue we could add
Figure 12: Design illustration of Thomas’ “Illusion Apparatus”; front
view (above) and side elevation (below)                                 to our list.

                                                           In closing, let me indulge in
                                                         a conceptual jeu d’esprit that
                                                         may serve as a referencing
                                                         structure for the dimensional
                                                         experiments discussed above.
                                                         While      turn-of-the-century
                                                         inventors were puzzling over
                                                         how best to achieve an “accu-
                                                         rate” film- or stage-representa-
                                                         tion of visual dimensional per-
                                                         ception, mathematicians were
                                                         altering the substance of geo-
                                                         metric space by investigating
                                                         non-Euclidean theories, creat-
                                                         ing the framework in which
                                                         modern math and physics sub-
sequently flourished. Felix Hausdorff in 1919 laid the foundation for fractal geometry
(which was developed more fully by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975). Although nineteenth-
century science was based in the observation of nature, the math did not “add up:” real-
world objects do not occupy the regularized space assumed by traditional geometries

­34
                                                        2-D? 3-D? THE TECHNOLOGY AND AESTHETICS

which interpret nature through a “geometric fiction” that cannot describe in detail the
irregular shapes of leaves, clouds, coastlines, mountains, etc.25 Fractal geometry can.
  A simple explanation of fractal geometry is provided by O.B. Hardison, Jr., in
Disappearing Through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century.
In Euclidean geometry, a point is said to have zero dimension, a line has one, and a plane
has two dimensions. Now in fractal geometry, the line, which in traditional geometric
terms has the one dimension of length, can be imagined to continue its path as a doodle
that spreads across a page of paper. As the surface of the page is covered, the line starts to
resemble a plane. In fractal geometry, the degree to which this one-dimensional line takes
on two-dimensional planarity could be measured, assigning the doodle a dimensional
measurement of, say, 1.6.26 Similarly, a planar to cubic shift from two dimensions to
three, could be imagined along the gradated, dimensional continuum of fractal geometry.
Traditional “regular geometries” are clearly limited. At what precise point does one
dimension become two? When do two dimensions become three?
  A trompe-l’œil perspective painting, a stage scene with perspective scenery, a motion pic-
ture, or a multi-media scenic experiment – if “regular geometry” defines the spatial model
for any of these, there are only two choices available with which to describe our experience
of depth: two dimensions or three. Historically, in all of these examples, most viewers have
chosen to see three. Inventors (and critics), however, seem to have operated in an aesthetic
mode that was more fractal, as the comparative nature of the inventing process suggests:
one person’s stereoscopic effect could be improved upon by another. It almost seems as if
these inventors were attempting to “stretch” the perception of 2-D media towards 3-D.
  It would be absurd to employ fractals as an instrument with which to measure dimen-
sional perception – attempting to determine quantifiably the fractal degrees to which
we see two or three dimensions. However, a fractal analogy can be used to discuss per-
ceptual experience and related technology. A fractal analogy removes the criteria from
an “either/or,” 2-D or 3-D, reference structure and places discussion in a broader, more
comparative context. Analyses resulting from this context, therefore, can involve the
many factors (such as visual cues and viewing conventions) that, as patents and pro-
duction histories attest, were points of focus for experimentation in exhibition tech-
niques, audience perception, and presentation context.



1 Robert Thorn Haines, “Animated Photography: The Principles and Advantages of Duplex
  Projection,” Part I, The Moving Picture World, Vol. 1, no. 3 (March 23, 1907), p. 39.
2 James Cutting, Peter M. Vishton, “Perceiving Layout and Knowing Distances: The Integration,
  Relative Potency, and Contextual Use of Different Information about Depth,” in William
  Epstein, Sheena Rogers (eds.), Perception of Space and Motion (San Diego: Academic Press, 1995),
  pp. 79, 83, 86, 88, and 91.
3 J. Cutting, P.M. Vishton, op. cit., pp. 89-90.
4 The fan “tinter” is mentioned by Charles Francis Jenkins, Oscar B. Depue, Handbook for Motion
  Picture and Stereopticon Operators, cited in Joseph H. North, The Early Development of the
  Motion Picture (1887-1909), Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1949 (New York: Arno Press,
  1973), p. 248.
5 R.M. Hayes, 3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema (Jefferson:
  McFarland & Co., 1989), pp. 2-3.

                                                                                               ­35
GWENDOLYN WALTZ

6 Lenny Lipton, Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema. A Study in Depth (New York: Van
   Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1982), p. 33.
7 R.T. Haines, op. cit., p. 39. In Part II of his lecture, Haines describes his own method of stereo-
   scopic projection. See The Moving Picture World, Vol. 1, no 4 (March 30, 1907), pp. 54-56.
8 Dennis Sharp, The Picture Palace and Other Buildings for the Movies (London: Hugh Evelyn,
   1969), pp. 54 and 70.
9 Abraham Reginald Flint, “Device of Means for Giving Stereoscopic or Distance Effect to Moving
   Pictures Shown Upon Screens,” U.S. Patent no. 1,284,084 (November 5, 1918).
10 Ole Andrew Owen, “Motion-Picture Stage Illusion,” U.S. Patent no. 1,395,513 (November 1, 1921).
11 Mirror-screens were overly expensive investments for most exhibitors. Robert Grau, The Stage
   in the Twentieth Century (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969 [1912]), pp. 112-113.
12 By 1847 M. Henri Robin was exhibiting “Living Phantasmagoria” in Europe; in 1851 he present-
   ed the effect in London. Robin’s illusion might have been copied by John Henry Pepper and
   Henry Dircks, who constructed their version of the effect in 1858. Robin later challenged
   Pepper’s claim as its originator. See David Price, MAGIC: A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the
   Theater (New York: Cornwall Books, 1985), pp. 113 and 119.
13 Moritz Lewin (assignor to Henry Waterson), “Theatrical Appliance,” U.S. Patent no. 1,150,869
   (August 24, 1915).
14 Charles Francis Jenkins, Animated Pictures (New York: Arno Press & New York Times, 1970
   [1898]), p. 79.
15 M. Lewin, op. cit.
16 Charles E.R. Schneider, “Apparatus for Showing Pictures in Relief,” U.S. Patent no. 1,124,665
   (January 12, 1915).
17 Louis E. Hammond, Herman A. Smith (said Hammond assignor to Edgar J. Marston), “Illusion
   Appliance,” U.S. Patent no. 1,456,233 (May 22, 1923).
18 Motion effects were notably employed in the “legitimate” theatre as well. For example, a moving
   panorama combined with a boat were used in productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in
   the second half of the nineteenth century by the American producer, Augustin Daly. After the
   royal hunting party discovered the quartet of young lovers (waking from their night of super-
   natural mismatchings), the group embarked for Athens on a “barge,” and appeared to glide past
   splendidly changing scenes, which were rolled across the stage in the form of a background
   panorama and downstage groundrows. See Charles H. Shattuck, Shakespeare on the American
   Stage: From Booth and Barrett to Sothern and Marlowe, Vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Folger Books,
   1987), p. 73. Four photographs of the panoramic setting are reproduced on pp. 74-75.
19 Richard L. Arnold, “Animated Scenery,” Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 16, no. 3 (October
   1964), p. 251.
20 R. Grau, op. cit., p. 344.
21 In the United States, this substitution (motion pictures for painted panoramas) was suggested
   only a few months after Edison exhibited his Vitascope (see George Parsons Lathrop, “Stage
   Scenery and the Vitascope,” The North American Review, Vol. 163, no. 478 [September 1896],
   pp. 377-381). The earliest use of motion-picture scenery in the U.S.A. (of which I am aware) was
   in Lincoln J. Carter’s Chattanooga, in 1898. During the first decade of the 1900s, films replaced
   panoramas in a number of horse-racing plays produced by stock, or touring, companies who
   could not afford elaborate stage machinery. See chapter two in my Projection and Performance:
   Early Multi-Media in the American Theatre, Ph.D. dissertation, Tufts University, 1991.
22 Frank D. Thomas, “The Realism of Modern Stage Effects,” Green Book, no. 5 (May 1911), p. 1008.
23 F.D. Thomas, op. cit., pp. 1010 and 1008.

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24 F.D. Thomas, op. cit., p. 1009; and Frank D. Thomas, “Illusion Apparatus,” U.S. Patent no. 863,470
   (August 13, 1907).
25 O.B. Hardison, Jr., Disappearing Through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth
   Century (New York: Penguin Books, 1989), p. 59. Felix Hausdorff (1868-1942) was interested in
   the continuity or closeness of spaces; he wrote about set theory and topology, and in his paper,
   “Dimension und äusseres Mass”, Mathemahische Annalen, Vol. 79, no. 157, (1919), he introduced
   the concept of the fractal or “Hausdorff dimension.” The difficulties of measuring irregular
   forms with classical geometry had captured the attention of mathematicians for nearly fifty
   years before Hausdorff’s studies.
26 O.B. Hardison, Jr., op. cit., p. 61.




List of figures

1. Illustration originally titled, “Some monocular cues for the visual perception of depth,” in
   Theo C. Meyering, Historical Roots of Cognitive Science: The Rise of a Cognitive Theory of
   Perception from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
   Publishers, 1989), p. 160.

2. Design illustration of Abraham Reginald Flint’s “Device or Means for Giving Stereoscopic or
   Distance Effect to Moving Pictures Shown upon Screens,” U.S. Patent no. 1,284,084
   (November 5, 1918); front view.

3. Design illustration of Ole Andrew Owen’s “Motion-Picture Stage Illusion,” U.S. Patent no.
   1,395,513 (November 1, 1921); front and top views.

4. Engravings of two “Pepper’s Ghost” effects: “Raising a ghost by magic lantern” from The Magic
   Lantern: How to Buy and How to Use It, and How to Raise a Ghost (“by A Mere Phantom”), 1880,
   rpt. in Erik Barnouw, The Magician and the Cinema (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), p.
   28; and “living skeleton” effect from Albert A. Hopkins, Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific
   Diversions (New York: Arno Press, 1977 [1897]), p. 54.

5. Design illustration of Moritz Lewin’s (assignor to Henry Waterson) “Theatrical Appliance,” U.S.
   Patent no. 1,150,869 (August 24, 1915); isometric view of stage set-up.

6. Ibid.; side and front elevations of screen (patent’s “Fig. 4” & “Fig. 5”), and top views of screen
   and stage set-up (patent’s “Fig. 6” & “Fig. 3”).

7. Design illustration of Charles E.R. Schneider’s “Apparatus for Showing Pictures in Relief,”
   U.S. Patent no. 1,124,665 (January 12, 1915); side elevation, top view, and example of painted
   background (D).

8. Design illustration of Louis E. Hammond and Herman A. Smith’s (said Hammond assignor to
   Edgar J. Marston) “Illusion Appliance,” U.S. Patent no. 1,456,233 (May 22, 1923); isometric view.


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9. Illustration of stage machinery for The County Fair from Albert A. Hopkins (ed.), Magic: Stage
   Illusions and Scientific Diversions (New York: Arno Press, 1977 [1897]), p. 325.

10. Engraving for article, “Some Stage Effects in ‘Ben Hur,’” Scientific American, Vol. 83, no. 8
    (August 25, 1900), p. 119.

11. Design illustration of Frank D. Thomas’ “Stage Effect,” U.S. Patent no. 1,186,451 (June 6, 1916);
    side elevation and front view.

12. Design illustrations of Frank D. Thomas’ “Illusion Apparatus,” U.S. Patent no. 863,470
    (August 13, 1907); front view and side elevation.




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