Page 8 - 2022-06

After screening each roll the film is rewound On the screen the Governor arrives at Parlia-
using the little rewinder supplied. For the light ment House (preceded by the mongrel dog).
source Fred is still using a limelight burner- Again the Guard salutes and the wonderful
"lt's the brightest light source available at the moving images by Fred Wills enable us to
moment". Limelight was very popular in the relive that delightful moment of history -a
late 1800s, being used for slide projection in hundred years on.
magic lanterns and for theatre spotlights too- The Lumiere in projection mode.
hence the term "being in the limelight". They
could use a number of explosive gases-coal
gas, acetylene (carbide), ether or hydrogen-
mixed in each case with oxygen. Oxygen and
hydrogen is interplanetary rocket fuel!
And limelight is now to be used with nitrate
film. This explosive cocktail caused many
theatres to go off with a bang! And of course
the spectacular fires that followed ensured that
limelight did not make it very far into the 20 th
Century. However, nitrate film survived for The harvesting scenes taken at Allora are of
over 50 years, with very strict fire excellent photographic quality, the sharp clear
regulations controlling its use.
pictures leap from the screen and the action in
Fred connects a long rubber hose between the all the scenes suggest that Fred had the eye of
burner and the coal gas supply in the room. a first class filmmaker.
The oxygen container is already attached. He
opens the coal gas tap and lights the jet, then The fact that the negatives and prints have
carefully opens the oxygen tap. The flame lasted over 100 years speaks very highly of
impinges on the little block of lime which Fred's excellent processing techniques-
becomes incandescent with a spot of brilliant definitely to archival standards. From the 30
white light. This spot is focused through a rolls of film shot by Fred and his Assistant,
double optical condenser system on to the Henry Mobsby, only two negatives and one
print were lost through camera or
picture aperture in the Lumiere.
processing problems, a great achievement con-
sidering that in 1899 this startling new tech-
Right: A limelight nology was a completely new ball-game.
burner of the The quality of the Lumiere film, both base and
'mixer' type used emulsion, was outstanding, especially consid-
by Fred Wills ering the infancy of the industry.
with the Cinema-
tographe in pro-
Fred Wills excellent work can be seen in the
National Film and Sound Archives (NFSA)
The room is darkened and Fred starts turning
the handle at two revolutions per second. A video "Queensland's First Films", produced
flickering picture appears on the screen, and narrated by Chris Long.
caused by the Cinematographe's single bladed
shutter. Improved projector design would soon Again I wish to acknowledge the huge amount of
provide a faster pull down and multi-bladed research carried out by Melbourne based Film His-
torian Chris Long and Mr. Pat Laughren of Griffith
shutters would soon dramatically reduce University. Much of their work was used in prepar-
the flicker to tolerable proportions. But "going ing this series on the Lumiere Cinematographe and
to the flickers" became "going to the flicks" a Mr. Frederick Charles Wills - the World's first
phrase that was to remain in our vocabulary for Government Cinematographer.
the next 50 years.
8 REEL DEALS June 2022