glass lantern slides Archives - Silent Cinema Society

INTERMISSION

(OR…THE FILM JUST BROKE)

In the years of silent cinema, lantern slides were used primarily to announce coming attractions, advertise products and services, and to entertain the audience while film reels were being changed on the projector. It also served as an emergency pacifier whenever the film broke or caught on fire (really! —early nitrate film was highly combustible).

The itinerant projectionist had a large case of several slide categories: pre-show and intermission slides including sing-alongs, code of conduct announcements, upcoming programs, and advertisers’ lures. Yes, there were “commercials” way back then, too. There were also emergency procedure slides in case of a film catching on fire or other common catastrophe.

The authentic glass lantern slides shown on this page are from the collection of Joe Rinaudo, silent cinema historian and preservationist. They are all original images, optically restored by Chaz DeSimone and re-mounted by Mr. Rinaudo.

Here’s what the worn, scratched, faded slides looked like before they were restored to original splendor:

and after:

Type is sharpened, colors are restored, contrast is expanded, and every scratch and spec of dust is removed. (See the black poodle on the riser in the “before” image? It wasn’t until I zoomed in close while removing dust and scratches, that I realized that wasn’t a poodle or cat or chimpanzee—it was a huge blotch on the film.) The brilliant colors are bleeding outside the image because these black and white photographs were hand-colored with vibrant transparent dyes. Considering how small the slides are, it took a fine brush and a steady hand to stay within the lines. You’ll notice an unevenness in some large areas of color, where the ink tended to blob, streak or mottle.

These brilliant slides added a splash of color to an otherwise monochromatic show.

HISTORY OF THE LANTERN SLIDE

The magic lantern was invented long before moving pictures. Here’s some history from Wikipedia:

The magic lantern or Laterna Magica is an early type of image projector developed in the 17th century. It was commonly used for educational and entertainment purposes.

The magic lantern used a concave mirror in back of a light source to direct as much of the light as possible through a small rectangular sheet of glass—a “lantern slide”—on which was the painted or photographic image to be projected, and onward into a lens at the front of the apparatus. The lens was adjusted to optimally focus the plane of the slide at the distance of the projection screen, which could be simply a white wall, and it therefore formed an enlarged image of the slide on the screen.

Apart from sunlight, the only light sources available at the time of invention in the 16th century were candles and oil lamps, which were very inefficient and produced very dim projected images. The invention of the Argand lamp in the 1790s helped to make the images brighter. The invention of limelight in the 1820s made them very much brighter. The invention of the intensely bright electric arc lamp in the 1860s eliminated the need for combustible gases or hazardous chemicals, and eventually the incandescent electric lamp further improved safety and convenience, although not brightness.

The magic lantern was not only a direct ancestor of the motion picture projector, but it could itself be used to project moving images, which was achieved by the use of various types of mechanical slides. Typically, two glass slides, one with the stationary part of the picture and the other with the part that was to move, would be placed one on top of the other and projected together, then the moving slide would be hand-operated, either directly or by means of a lever or other mechanism. Chromotrope slides, which produced eye-dazzling displays of continuously cycling abstract geometrical patterns and colors, were operated by means of a small crank and pulley wheel that rotated a glass disc.

—Wikipedia; read full article here