Early Film Production in England: The Origin of Montage, Close-Ups, and Chase Sequence

IN HIS book, Le Cinematographe scientifique et industriel, published in 1911, Jacques Ducom gave one chapter to trick scenes, classifying them in twenty types. The first is "an abrupt change of setting." According to M. Ducom, this is how it is accomplished: "Through the medium of the motion picture a change of set can be accomplished most easily. If the scene is finished and the actors leave the set, all that is needed is for the camera to cease turning at that moment.... On the next film, action is continued (in another set). The first good print is immediately spliced to the last of the preceding scene."