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The Playhouse Starring Buster Keaton (1), Buster Keaton (2), .., & Buster Keaton (10)

Kaylee

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The Playhouse Starring Buster Keaton (1), Buster Keaton (2), .., & Buster Keaton (10)

How did Buster Keaton do it? :confused: In his 1921 film (24 mins) he appears in the same frame anywhere from 2 to 3 to 10 times! (E.g., a married couple, a mother and son, 3 musicians and 10 performers.) I know he didn't use PhotoShop! :D I know film can be horizontally spliced, can it be vertically spliced? Anyone know if that's how he did it?


ETA: I happened to see a DVD at my local library that had Buster Keaton’s: The General, Cops & The Playhouse so I checked it out.

The films are between 85 - 90 years old and they are still funny! His timing is amazing. IMHO, the other two films are better, but the technical wizardry in The Playhouse is just awesome.

All three films are available on line because they’re old enough to be in the public domain.
 
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The process is very simple, just painstakingly hard to get right. They filmed Buster in the position furtherest back on the set. Rewind the film. Set him up in position 2. Rewind film, rinse and repeat

Keaton was an absolute genius, badly under appreciated in his time. It was only towards the end of his life he really got the acclaim from movie goers he deserved
 
Are you serious? Wow. But how did he get the background to come out just right? It's an old film that obviously started to deteriorate, but the background still looks crisp (like it was only filmed once). And why wouldn't the Bruce Keaton filmed the last time around get filmed over the next time around? :confused: :confused: :confused:

ETA: As for his under appreciation, maybe because he made it look so easy? And people had a hard time separating the wonder of the new technology from the quality of his acting? :confused: Anyway, I'm glad he lived long enough to see the acclaim. I agree that he deserved it. :)
 
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Kaylee said:
Are you serious? Wow. But how did he get the background to come out just right? It's an old film that obviously started to deteriorate, but the background still looks crisp (like it was only filmed once). And why wouldn't the Bruce Keaton filmed the last time around get filmed over the next time around? :confused: :confused: :confused:
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Unfortunately I am only a student of watching films not making them. I honestly cant answer any of those questions. :(
 
But you answered the first one. :) Thank you, it was really bothering me.

Hopefully someone else will know the answer to the other questions or will have an idea on how to find out. (My google-fu failed me).
 
There's a great Keaton documentary called "A Hard Act to Follow" (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL134227AFFA6E9030) which spends some time talking about the effect but doesn't really go into detail explaining it.

Basically, it's pretty much the way MG explained it. They would mask off the camera with each and every position Keaton placed himself, probably with some kind of blackened board or something similar, move the board and try and reposition the camera and Keaton to film the next bit of sequence. As stated in the docu, it probably drove the cameraman insane.
 
In the specific instance of "The Playhouse" they specially modified the camera. It was fitted with a special shutter consisting of nine strips which could be moved independently of each other. For each version of Keaton they opened a different strip, so that each section of the negative was only exposed once. Each time the film was rewound and run through again.

The trick for Keaton was timing, for which they used a metronome. The truly impressive feat, however, was by camera operator Elgin Lessley. Because the camera was - get this - hand cranked. In order to maintain the correct timing Lessley had to run the film through the gate and just the right speed every single take.
 
What's particularly amazing to me is how they got the backgrounds to line up. Look at the lines behind his head(s) in the 3-musician orchestra scenes. I can't figure out how, even with camera shutters, spotlights, or mattes, they could get them to line up like that. I didn't think film registration was that good back then. At least it doesn't appear to be on projection, where we see quite a lot of "wobble" of the frames as a whole.
 
Maybe the wobble pattern isn't all that random, at least not for the same film cranked through the same camera at very close to the same speed. I imagine that wobbles would depend on the particular way the film was made or how it sits on the reel. If so, they probably discovered this by accident.
 
TheDoLittle said:
There's a great Keaton documentary called "A Hard Act to Follow" (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL134227AFFA6E9030) which spends some time talking about the effect but doesn't really go into detail explaining it.

Basically, it's pretty much the way MG explained it. They would mask off the camera with each and every position Keaton placed himself, probably with some kind of blackened board or something similar, move the board and try and reposition the camera and Keaton to film the next bit of sequence. As stated in the docu, it probably drove the cameraman insane.
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And I noticed that you're the nice guy who made it available on youtube on your channel! Thank you! I look forward to watching it as soon as I can. :)

gumboot said:
In the specific instance of "The Playhouse" they specially modified the camera. It was fitted with a special shutter consisting of nine strips which could be moved independently of each other. For each version of Keaton they opened a different strip, so that each section of the negative was only exposed once. Each time the film was rewound and run through again.

The trick for Keaton was timing, for which they used a metronome. The truly impressive feat, however, was by camera operator Elgin Lessley. Because the camera was - get this - hand cranked. In order to maintain the correct timing Lessley had to run the film through the gate and just the right speed every single take.
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That is really, really, really amazing. I'm glad you had that interesting tidbit of knowledge. I had a chance to look at the board for a few mins around lunchtime and I've been thinking about that on and off all afternoon/eve. And I don't normally think that much about films, but it is such an amazing feat that it was hard not to think about it.

a_unique_person said:
Hand cranked! :boggled:
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Yeah! :boggled:

Pulvinar said:
What's particularly amazing to me is how they got the backgrounds to line up. Look at the lines behind his head(s) in the 3-musician orchestra scenes. I can't figure out how, even with camera shutters, spotlights, or mattes, they could get them to line up like that. I didn't think film registration was that good back then. At least it doesn't appear to be on projection, where we see quite a lot of "wobble" of the frames as a whole.
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Pulvinar said:
Maybe the wobble pattern isn't all that random, at least not for the same film cranked through the same camera at very close to the same speed. I imagine that wobbles would depend on the particular way the film was made or how it sits on the reel. If so, they probably discovered this by accident.
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I know it's really amazing. And even if they had to film hundreds of takes before they got it right -- it's still amazing.
 
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Kaylee said:
And I noticed that you're the nice guy who made it available on youtube on your channel! Thank you! I look forward to watching it as soon as I can. :)
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Ahh, well, gee, ya know... 8-)

I had the Chaplain and Lloyd ones too, but for some reasons the vids disappeared.
 
TheDoLittle said:
Ahh, well, gee, ya know... 8-)

I had the Chaplain and Lloyd ones too, but for some reasons the vids disappeared.
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Yikes! That's weird. They are such a big name I would have thought they would be more reliable. I've heard of Chaplin and I've seen a few of his movies including Modern Times. I loved that movie! I haven't heard of Lloyd though, I'll have to look him up.
 
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Pulvinar said:
What's particularly amazing to me is how they got the backgrounds to line up. Look at the lines behind his head(s) in the 3-musician orchestra scenes. I can't figure out how, even with camera shutters, spotlights, or mattes, they could get them to line up like that. I didn't think film registration was that good back then. At least it doesn't appear to be on projection, where we see quite a lot of "wobble" of the frames as a whole.
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The background isn't "lined up". The camera is locked in position and the sections of the shot are exposed one after the other. As long as the camera doesn't move everything will line up perfectly. It's a multiple exposure.
 
gumboot said:
The background isn't "lined up". The camera is locked in position and the sections of the shot are exposed one after the other. As long as the camera doesn't move everything will line up perfectly. It's a multiple exposure.
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Yes, the camera is locked down. But the film within the camera has to be repeatably registered during each frame exposure, and judging by the amount of "wobble" seen during projection that registration wasn't very good. It's hard to believe that wobble was only from the projector and not the camera; I think they used very similar mechanisms. I don't know if they had invented registration pins yet.

My theory is that the wobble follows a repeatable pattern for a given strip of film, reel, and camera, allowing the multiple exposures to align. They might have needed to crank the film through first with the lens cap on just so the first exposure following that would have the same post-rewind tension on the reel as the others.
 
Pulvinar said:
Yes, the camera is locked down. But the film within the camera has to be repeatably registered during each frame exposure, and judging by the amount of "wobble" seen during projection that registration wasn't very good.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "registration" but it's exceedingly unlikely the wobble is from the camera.


Pulvinar said:
It's hard to believe that wobble was only from the projector and not the camera; I think they used very similar mechanisms.
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Actually it's hard to believe it's from both - it will be from one or the other. And the projector is overwhelmingly the more likely candidate. In any event neither is the most likely candidate, which is wobble as a result of the transfer process, either during transfer itself or during degradation of the print/recording over time.


Pulvinar said:
I don't know if they had invented registration pins yet.
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Again, I'm not sure what you mean, but film is pulled through the camera gate by a pull-down claw which fits through the evenly spaced perforations on the film. Perforations pre-date motion picture by about five years.


Pulvinar said:
My theory is that the wobble follows a repeatable pattern for a given strip of film, reel, and camera, allowing the multiple exposures to align. They might have needed to crank the film through first with the lens cap on just so the first exposure following that would have the same post-rewind tension on the reel as the others.
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I wouldn't give your theory much weight, to be honest.
 
Kaylee said:
Yikes! That's weird. They are such a big name I would have thought they would be more reliable. I've heard of Chaplin and I've seen a few of his movies including Modern Times. I loved that movie! I haven't heard of Lloyd though, I'll have to look him up.
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Lloyd is most famous in the silent era for climbing on the outside of buildings. Unlike Keaton, he made a transition to talkies. There was really nothing wrong with Keaton's voice, but it didn't work as hard as his body. A good post-talkie Lloyd film is variously titled The Sin of Harold Diddlebock and Mad Wednesday.

One studio tried to make Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante a comedy team for the talkies. It was a terrible idea and didn't work. Keaton spent a lot of time writing for the Marx Brother's talkies (many of the gags were from Keaton's own work).
 
gumboot said:
I wouldn't give your theory much weight, to be honest.
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After researching this I agree. They call it jitter and weave, and say it's mostly due to pull-down claw wear on the holes after projecting many times, multiplied by multiple print generations. Luckily this can be mostly fixed with digital stabilization during restoration (if someone cares to).
 
epepke said:
Lloyd is most famous in the silent era for climbing on the outside of buildings. Unlike Keaton, he made a transition to talkies. There was really nothing wrong with Keaton's voice, but it didn't work as hard as his body. A good post-talkie Lloyd film is variously titled The Sin of Harold Diddlebock and Mad Wednesday.

One studio tried to make Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante a comedy team for the talkies. It was a terrible idea and didn't work. Keaton spent a lot of time writing for the Marx Brother's talkies (many of the gags were from Keaton's own work).
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The studios did throw a few bones to Mr. Keaton near the end. He appeared in a couple of beach movies and one of the greatest farces of all times: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
 
oh, and I did like the movie in the opening post. "Blew a silver dollar into four quarters." I miss vaudeville.
 
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