WEBVTT

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That should be okay now.

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All right, why don't we...

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Come on, Mitch, your questions.

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All right, I'll tell you what.

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Why don't we just hold it like this?

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You want to come a little forward so that...

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I don't know.

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We'll have to make a test for you soon.

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All right, you came to the United States after you had talked to your brother.

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You'd been in correspondence with your brother who was employed at the time you came at what

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place?

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At Shoestake.

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At Shoestake.

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No, pardon me, at Selig.

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And tell me, what was his job?

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Can you describe his job at Selig?

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Did he write to you about that and so on?

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Yes.

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He was working partly in a machine shop building the cameras and printers, which are very much

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like cameras with cinematograph movement.

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Plus, he was in charge of a printing department, which was giving Selig a headache because

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of all that static electricity.

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Main reason for that was that film wasn't as fine, as well refined as it is today.

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It didn't lay flat.

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Therefore, going through the printer with negative, it had to be held down with pressure

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block.

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And pressure block was exactly the thing that caused all the friction and gave him all the

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headaches.

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Finally, after many and many experiments, Dan designed something that a printer, a girl

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that was printing film, could watch the negative go through and at the same time control the

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thing so there would be no problem in, well, whatever it was that they had in there.

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Okay, you can stop it now.

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All right.

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Now, he wrote to you then about his work and what did you want to do?

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You were living in Slovakia.

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And tell me about your home, where you were living and why you came to this country.

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Well, that's a long story.

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I'm not going to go into that.

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It was necessary for me because I couldn't get education there.

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To go to Germany or Bohemia or somewhere else to get education, we couldn't afford that.

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And the local government didn't like our family very well, so we were what they called politically

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unreliable.

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And therefore, my brother was pushed out, my sister was thrown out of high school, and

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I had no chance to go to a high school.

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They just didn't want us to get any education.

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And the only thing...

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Was this because you had different politics?

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That's right, because we were Slovaks, see, instead of Magyars.

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And that was our biggest problem.

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But my parents' background has been that way for many years and everybody knew about it.

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But my father wouldn't give up.

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He just fought and he worked for a new government that is a new representation in Budapest.

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That's what we were working for.

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So when my brother said or wrote, I'm going to come to visit you and I'm going to show

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you something.

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I'm going to show you how we make these so-called living pictures in America.

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And that's exactly what he did.

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By that time, when he came in, in 1912, he brought with him a skeleton projector, which

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had a cinematograph movement in it.

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And he brought in some film, a couple condensers, and that's all he brought with him.

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And when we were thinking about light, he said, don't worry about light, we'll use your

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bicycle lamp.

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And that's exactly what we did.

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We used carbide lamps and we showed local people what really happens.

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That you change pictures gradually, that each picture is a little different.

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And because they move through the projector so fast, it becomes an illusion that the things

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are moving.

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So that's what they call living pictures.

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The movies were...

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This was 1912 when he visited?

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That's 1912 when he came in there, yes.

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And at that time, or prior to that, he already had some sort of understanding with Chustek

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that they ought to make a cameraman out of me.

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But Chustek told them, before you bring him here, get him a job in a photo studio so he

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can learn something about photography.

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That's exactly what my brother did.

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He asked Mr. Sanders of Sanders and Gross, two Germans that had a studio on Mulholland

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Avenue and in Chicago Avenue, he knew him for some time.

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S-A-U-N, S-A-N-D-E-R-S?

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S-A-N-D-E-R-S, yes, Sanders and Gross.

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Uh-huh, G-R-O-S-S.

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That's right.

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And Mr. Sanders said, yes, then I'll do that, I'll give him a job, so I'll have a job there.

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And that's where I had the basic training.

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And what year was that?

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It was in 1912, in November of 1912.

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You came to this country then in 1912, in the winter of 1912, and worked there.

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How long did you work there and what did you do?

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About a year and a half.

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Uh-huh.

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And how did you feel?

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Can you describe your feelings as a young man?

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You came to Chicago, what was it like?

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What was Chicago like?

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Well, it was nice because it was different for me, but it was also unfriendly.

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We had different nationalities in a different area, and they didn't like greenhorns.

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We had all kinds of, they have all kinds of names for us, and that wasn't very pleasant.

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But then we had to put up with it, everybody did.

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So, in about a year and a half, I learned a little bit about photography, and I ventured

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into a photographic studio, foolishly, with somebody else, which followed up very soon.

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And gradually, Dan took me over to Selig.

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What was Dan's first name, his full name?

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They call him, he's Daniel Jan Seackel, or Jan Daniel Seackel.

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Daniel was his first name, and everybody called him Dan, Dan there, right.

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Dan was known all over Chicago, just like my name, Jerry, become known in this business

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for many years.

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And he took me over to Selig, and he talked to Gus Selig, who was a manager of their studio,

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of their plant.

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He was Gus' brother?

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Gus' manager, brother of Selig.

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He was the manager, right?

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That's right.

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At the time.

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This is in what year now, about 1915 or 14, or what year?

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Now let me tell you, I don't know the year exactly, but let me tell you what happened

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at Selig.

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My first job was in a shipping room for opening boxes and putting labels on the cans that

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were going out and so on.

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Then the film that came from Kodak was taken over to perforating room.

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My second job was in a perforating room.

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I worked there for a little while, and during that time that I was in a perforating room,

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there was a naturally perforating room is noisy, and so was the printing room next door to it.

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Did you use your own perforator, Mr. Sztek's perforator, or whose was it?

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I don't know who designed it, but it was the perforator that punched two hell holes instead

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of four holes.

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However, they had two Bell and Howell perforators already in the separate room where negative

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was being perforated.

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That four-

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Four-frame.

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Now you understand negative perforation is different from positive.

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Tell us about that.

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Well, the reason for that is because when film is processed, there is certain shrinkage.

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Therefore the holes from shrunk negative have to match the holes of positive when they go

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through the printing room, no matter what kind it is, or printing equipment.

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So I don't know the year when I was there, but I remember this, and you can verify this

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sometime.

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While I was worried and working in a perforating room, there was a big commotion.

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I don't know what happened.

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I asked a man, an electrician that was in charge, Mr. So-and-so, what's wrong?

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And he told me there was a big disaster.

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And I said, what does it mean?

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And my English was very limited at the time, too.

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He says, a boat capsized with electricians.

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I said, electricians?

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Well, I didn't know anything about that either.

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But later on, the cameraman were coming in with film, bringing negatives, and it was

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rush, rush for the Seelig Hearst Weekly to go out.

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So somebody there in the department asked him, go and help the people in the title room,

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where we were taking the cards as they were printed on Gordon Press, and dust them with

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silver, and then put them before camera, and made titles.

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Alright, tell me about this.

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You said Gordon Press.

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Ordinary Gordon Press, you know, that's fed by individual card was fed in, and ordinary

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ink was applied to the card, and then it was dusted with silver or aluminum dust.

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To what for?

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Oh, to give white lettering.

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See, that's the one that we photographed, and we already shoot the camera.

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And there was such a demand for those negatives and all that necessary material that had to

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go into these weekly, so one man said to me, why don't you try your hand on cranking?

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And I did, and he was surprised that I would crank at a certain speed and crank steady.

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And he said to me, what the hell did you learn this?

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I said, well, I've been practicing at home.

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At home, I said, yes, my brother brought one of these ceiling projectors home, and they

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operated same way by hand, they run the same speed, and that's what they told me, keep

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on practicing, someday you'll be a camera.

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Well, that got me started in projection then.

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Then later on, I got into an inspection room where they had half a dozen or more projectors

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going continuously, inspecting for defects, positive inspection.

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Then in between time, sometime myself, sometime another projectionist in the inspection room

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was asked to go into the projection room where they had meetings, where they were projecting negatives.

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Did they always look at the rushes, the dailies in negative form?

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No, I'm not positive that they always did that, but that's where I saw the negatives

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being projected, that's where I projected negatives.

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And you could read them then after a while.

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That's right.

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You get so familiar with that.

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But what was most interesting is after they finished the scene, and they talked about

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the scene, and they talked about this is no good, and this is no good, and we'll cut this

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out, or we got to change the scene, and so on.

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So I was all ears, and it was kind of educational procedure for me.

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But I have a picture of that.

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That's the only other picture I have of ceiling in the projection room.

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Marvelous.

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Yeah.

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That is excellent description of all of this.

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And then may I ask you now a few questions?

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Yeah, go ahead.

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Where did you live in Chicago?

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Did you live with your Czech community, or rather the Slovakian community?

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Where was that?

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What neighborhood was that?

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Well, it was around Milwaukee and Chicago, I have known.

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There was an Atlantic organization there that had their own building which is still standing

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there.

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Well, the name don't make any difference.

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Yes, it does, if you remember the name.

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It's so-called Slavia.

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It was an independent kind of an organization.

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Anybody could belong to that.

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So later on we got Serbs, and we got Poles, and whoever was in the neighborhood and want

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to practice in athletics because so-called is something like German Turner Association.

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Turner Association, yeah.

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That's right, same thing, yeah.

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There, then they had little stage there, and they had few place, and so on.

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And that's where I got to know Shustek a little bit better, because Shustek kind of looked

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after me too, just like my brother.

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They kept on pushing me.

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How much older was he then?

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Can you estimate then you were about?

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My brother?

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No, Shustek.

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I don't know that.

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How much older was your brother then you?

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Ten years.

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Ten years older.

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Yeah, he was born in January, and I was born in January.

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Ten years after.

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Interesting.

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My brother had education.

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Not only the mechanical education, which he got in Budapest, which must have been very

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good, because in a night school that he went to, they gave him a first prize after four

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years of study.

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He brought those things home.

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He was, he had training, some kind of a training in instrument work.

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Now I didn't understand mechanics at that time, and I couldn't tell you just what he

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was doing, but he was able to join Selig.

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And if I understand it correctly, they were repairing optical things too.

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And my brother talked about Peck Court.

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I didn't know what that was, but I know it was a street called Alley.

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He had worked at Peck Court.

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Yeah, it was an alley somewhere downtown.

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And he went with Selig, and he stayed with Selig until Selig closed out.

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Very good.

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Now, Selig, did you stay with Selig until the studio was closed, or how did you go somewhere

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else?

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No, in 1917, the war was on, and Selig was already moving to California, moving quite

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fast.

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I think most of the plant was already closed, but my brother, Selig had a contract to build

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a processing outfit for government.

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00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:16.980
Can you tell us about that?

242
00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:19.680
Well, I got a picture of that to show you.

243
00:15:19.820 --> 00:15:21.480
Was this a continuous printer?

244
00:15:21.480 --> 00:15:23.780
A continuous processing outfit.

245
00:15:23.980 --> 00:15:24.500
Processing.

246
00:15:24.660 --> 00:15:27.180
Yeah, developing, washing, and drying.

247
00:15:27.500 --> 00:15:32.060
I don't know what they were going to do about printing, probably process the same way.

248
00:15:32.680 --> 00:15:35.660
Those things were new to me at that time.

249
00:15:36.420 --> 00:15:45.560
So while I was still at, my brother was at Selig, and I was still at Selig, my brother

250
00:15:45.560 --> 00:15:52.360
said to a man, an engineer from Washington, that my little brother is going to be drafted,

251
00:15:53.580 --> 00:15:57.100
and if you want to put him, try to get him into a photographic division.

252
00:15:57.980 --> 00:15:59.000
And he said yes, then I would.

253
00:15:59.000 --> 00:15:59.580
Of the Army.

254
00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:00.740
Of the Army, yes.

255
00:16:00.880 --> 00:16:01.960
And he did that.

256
00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:02.600
Great.

257
00:16:02.660 --> 00:16:03.880
He assigned me to it.

258
00:16:03.900 --> 00:16:04.740
And you went where?

259
00:16:04.800 --> 00:16:05.100
Where did you go then?

260
00:16:05.100 --> 00:16:06.460
I went to Cornell.

261
00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:07.440
Cornell, yeah.

262
00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:12.820
But first I spent six weeks with infantry, two weeks with Signal Corps, then I don't

263
00:16:12.820 --> 00:16:18.160
know how many weeks on Bedloz Island in New York, waiting to get a group of people together.

264
00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:24.300
And when they got, I think, a hundred of us, maybe not that many, then they shipped us

265
00:16:24.300 --> 00:16:28.620
to Cornell University, where they had a section ready for us.

266
00:16:28.760 --> 00:16:31.960
Part of Rockefeller Hall was assigned to Army.

267
00:16:32.060 --> 00:16:33.620
And how long were you there at Cornell?

268
00:16:33.740 --> 00:16:41.860
Just to finish the course, and then a few weeks to teach new recruits that come in there.

269
00:16:41.860 --> 00:16:43.220
So you were a teacher there then?

270
00:16:43.900 --> 00:16:44.860
Well, that's not teaching.

271
00:16:45.040 --> 00:16:46.020
They're just showing me.

272
00:16:46.340 --> 00:16:47.460
They're nothing to teaching.

273
00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:48.200
I see.

274
00:16:48.820 --> 00:16:56.260
No, they were, that's where I met a man about whom I'm going to tell you quite a bit, a

275
00:16:56.260 --> 00:17:01.860
fellow that was with Ansco Company, a fellow by the name Thompson, that was a very good

276
00:17:01.860 --> 00:17:10.100
chemist that I later was in contact with when we were trying to develop a direct positive

277
00:17:10.100 --> 00:17:11.360
or direct negative.

278
00:17:11.360 --> 00:17:13.800
But I have to show you letters on that.

279
00:17:13.840 --> 00:17:17.360
Did he develop a continuous printer called the Spur Thompson?

280
00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:18.280
Oh, no, no.

281
00:17:18.360 --> 00:17:19.560
It was not the same Thompson?

282
00:17:19.620 --> 00:17:19.840
No, no.

283
00:17:20.120 --> 00:17:22.660
This fellow was a trouble shooter for Ansco Company.

284
00:17:22.660 --> 00:17:22.980
I see.

285
00:17:22.980 --> 00:17:23.900
He was in Binghampton.

286
00:17:24.180 --> 00:17:24.780
All right.

287
00:17:24.820 --> 00:17:33.420
No, I don't know who developed that, but after I got back from service, when I went to, well,

288
00:17:33.620 --> 00:17:36.160
Shustegh again was working on...

289
00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:38.100
Was he still with Selig, Mr. Shustegh?

290
00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:39.540
No, he has his own shop.

291
00:17:39.620 --> 00:17:39.980
All right.

292
00:17:39.980 --> 00:17:40.740
Tell me about that.

293
00:17:40.780 --> 00:17:41.400
What was it called?

294
00:17:41.600 --> 00:17:42.320
The Shustegh what?

295
00:17:42.760 --> 00:17:44.600
I don't know what they'd call it, sir.

296
00:17:44.940 --> 00:17:48.840
All I knew is that once in a while we would go and visit Shustegh.

297
00:17:48.940 --> 00:17:52.840
Now, he had about half a dozen machinists working for him.

298
00:17:54.020 --> 00:17:56.860
One of them, a man is still working, still living.

299
00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:04.400
He's in a Bohemian old people's home, and I was trying to get in touch with him to tell

300
00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:05.940
me something about Selig.

301
00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:13.260
Dan worked there, and also fellow by the name Lovati worked there that designed and patented

302
00:18:13.260 --> 00:18:15.740
a new viewfinder for motion picture camera.

303
00:18:16.360 --> 00:18:17.760
I'll tell you about that later.

304
00:18:18.740 --> 00:18:20.020
Was a reflexive viewfinder.

305
00:18:20.040 --> 00:18:20.660
That's right.

306
00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:21.220
Interesting.

307
00:18:21.480 --> 00:18:24.500
That's being used today on all cameras.

308
00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:26.600
All right.

309
00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:34.440
Then you...now tell me, at Selig, were there a number of Germans working for him and Bohemians?

310
00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:36.340
Not that many Bohemians.

311
00:18:36.340 --> 00:18:37.240
But Germans.

312
00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:37.700
Germans, yes.

313
00:18:37.700 --> 00:18:38.360
Great number of Germans.

314
00:18:38.360 --> 00:18:39.320
Germans and Swedes, yes.

315
00:18:40.200 --> 00:18:45.140
Did you ever hear of the Schiller Theater in Chicago, a German theater at all?

316
00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:50.440
Did you ever go to any of the storefront Nickelodeons?

317
00:18:50.760 --> 00:18:50.920
Yes.

318
00:18:51.180 --> 00:18:51.180


319
00:18:51.420 --> 00:18:52.440
How were they run?

320
00:18:52.500 --> 00:18:53.720
Can you describe them?

321
00:18:53.740 --> 00:18:54.460
I can't tell you that.

322
00:18:54.640 --> 00:19:03.100
That was...I remember that while at Selig, someone was already working on talking pictures

323
00:19:03.100 --> 00:19:07.140
where they had that contact with phonograph and so on.

324
00:19:08.740 --> 00:19:14.580
Dan took me to McVicker's Theater where they had one part of a World of Will program where

325
00:19:14.580 --> 00:19:17.600
they showed those movies and also talking.

326
00:19:18.760 --> 00:19:24.740
Later Dan got into that talking picture equipment quite extensively.

327
00:19:25.560 --> 00:19:30.080
Then did you...after Selig, where did you go after Selig then?

328
00:19:31.780 --> 00:19:33.880
After Selig, I went to service.

329
00:19:34.060 --> 00:19:39.060
After service, I went to Rotheker Film Company.

330
00:19:39.160 --> 00:19:41.280
And where was it located at the time?

331
00:19:41.760 --> 00:19:42.700
Rotheker Film?

332
00:19:42.860 --> 00:19:43.840
There were two locations.

333
00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:45.260
One was on Erie Street.

334
00:19:45.340 --> 00:19:47.180
That's Industrial Motion Pictures.

335
00:19:47.480 --> 00:19:49.820
That was not the same Rotheker that I worked for.

336
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:57.720
See, Rotheker...Watterson Rotheker started as a industrial movies which were also advertising

337
00:19:57.720 --> 00:19:58.320
movies.

338
00:19:58.360 --> 00:19:58.860
Right.

339
00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:08.080
Then there was...this is kind of interesting because it has some connection with ordinary

340
00:20:08.080 --> 00:20:13.060
motion pictures and some is purely an advertising shorts like.

341
00:20:14.300 --> 00:20:23.300
Rotheker had a department that they call Dealer Service Department and a fellow by name Dewey

342
00:20:23.300 --> 00:20:24.900
was in charge of it.

343
00:20:24.900 --> 00:20:32.640
They made shorts for motion picture theaters at 25 foot, 50 feet, 100 feet.

344
00:20:33.260 --> 00:20:33.600
Advertising shorts?

345
00:20:33.780 --> 00:20:42.940
Advertising shorts which were stock stories and they attached titles or names of advertisers

346
00:20:42.940 --> 00:20:44.200
to the end.

347
00:20:44.740 --> 00:20:48.760
Well, that become kind of monotonous to many people.

348
00:20:48.980 --> 00:20:50.740
They had dealers all over the United States.

349
00:20:50.740 --> 00:20:56.100
They bought those things 10, 15, 20 of these things and they used them over and over again.

350
00:20:57.740 --> 00:21:02.000
Then it become kind of monotonous to attach those titles to the shorts.

351
00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:13.660
So one man from Oklahoma approached Rotheker or rather Dewey if he would kind of work in

352
00:21:13.660 --> 00:21:16.280
the advertisers name right into the scene.

353
00:21:17.320 --> 00:21:22.260
And Dewey thought, well, we'll have to ask somebody that will design something like that.

354
00:21:22.540 --> 00:21:28.200
So they approached Shustek and Shustek, he always was willing to listen.

355
00:21:28.260 --> 00:21:30.380
So he said, well, we'll work out something.

356
00:21:30.500 --> 00:21:36.380
So he built a special printer which you could stop on a frame and start.

357
00:21:37.500 --> 00:21:41.460
And naturally when we were printing these shorts, we were printing them slowly.

358
00:21:41.540 --> 00:21:43.940
They didn't go through like Bell and Howell and so on.

359
00:21:43.940 --> 00:21:45.320
They were not that important.

360
00:21:45.840 --> 00:21:47.120
They were not that good either.

361
00:21:48.820 --> 00:21:59.200
But he designed a printer, probably 36 or maybe 4 feet long, large condensers, light

362
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:07.860
inside and a slight carrier similar to that in there but with the length, I'd have to

363
00:22:07.860 --> 00:22:10.380
kind of make a sketch of the thing, how the thing worked.

364
00:22:10.380 --> 00:22:16.740
But after the scene was, while the scene was being printed, we could stop on a frame,

365
00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:23.960
insert this slide, throw it out of focus and then we did not bring it gradually into focus.

366
00:22:23.980 --> 00:22:26.420
So we brought in a title into focus.

367
00:22:26.540 --> 00:22:29.420
That required kind of tricky operation.

368
00:22:31.460 --> 00:22:40.860
And Shustek told Ratlik or Dewey, Shustek was asked, where are we going to get a man

369
00:22:40.860 --> 00:22:41.960
to run this thing?

370
00:22:42.320 --> 00:22:46.920
And Shustek said, well, Jerry, he knows a little bit about photography.

371
00:22:47.080 --> 00:22:50.000
So I went to Shustek and I worked on that printer.

372
00:22:50.580 --> 00:22:56.280
Then I went into the production of these little shorts with Dewey.

373
00:22:56.280 --> 00:23:02.880
Still him in charge because he was selling and advertising the thing under Rotheker's name.

374
00:23:03.300 --> 00:23:06.760
Now that place was in one of the Rotheker buildings or what?

375
00:23:07.020 --> 00:23:10.500
That was where today SV is located.

376
00:23:10.840 --> 00:23:12.040
That's the Rotheker.

377
00:23:12.420 --> 00:23:16.740
SV is at Southport and Diversity.

378
00:23:17.420 --> 00:23:18.160
It's there today.

379
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:19.580
Southport and Diversity.

380
00:23:20.240 --> 00:23:23.560
All right, the other Rotheker plant was on Erie Street.

381
00:23:23.560 --> 00:23:29.160
Yes, that was, Rotheker was known as Industrial Motion Pictures.

382
00:23:29.320 --> 00:23:29.700
Right.

383
00:23:31.160 --> 00:23:35.900
But Rotheker owned that, but then he married into a family.

384
00:23:37.500 --> 00:23:41.400
His father-in-law was an undertaker and he had quite a bit of money.

385
00:23:41.560 --> 00:23:46.940
And I guess he helped his son-in-law to build that factory that's standing there today,

386
00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:47.980
rather than studio.

387
00:23:48.180 --> 00:23:49.360
It was already a studio.

388
00:23:49.580 --> 00:23:50.960
It had coupical lights.

389
00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:52.820
It had all the modern facilities.

390
00:23:52.820 --> 00:23:55.340
And they also printed the Chaplin films there.

391
00:23:55.420 --> 00:23:56.700
No, not Rotheker.

392
00:23:56.760 --> 00:23:58.600
I have a news item.

393
00:23:58.760 --> 00:24:00.660
It says that for First National.

394
00:24:01.060 --> 00:24:02.180
They did it for First National.

395
00:24:02.680 --> 00:24:07.980
Oh, well, for First National, yes, because you see, that's what happened after a while.

396
00:24:09.500 --> 00:24:13.180
They became a...

397
00:24:13.180 --> 00:24:19.160
Rotheker become part of First National, I guess, because they produce Lost World together.

398
00:24:20.020 --> 00:24:25.140
Well, First National chose him because he had such a fine laboratory on Erie Street.

399
00:24:25.500 --> 00:24:33.980
Then he went off to found one of the great plants in Los Angeles, actually.

400
00:24:36.920 --> 00:24:42.160
Rotheker was responsible for, or at least some of his people were responsible for...

401
00:24:44.560 --> 00:24:45.500
What do you call them?

402
00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:48.820
At any rate, let's go on.

403
00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:50.140
I've got that in my notes.

404
00:24:50.740 --> 00:24:57.120
Well, I never knew Rotheker under that name on Erie Street.

405
00:24:57.240 --> 00:25:00.080
I only knew Rotheker on Viversey Parkway.

406
00:25:00.080 --> 00:25:08.480
But I knew that he was at one time on Erie Street because my brother had something to do with some kind of a machinery.

407
00:25:09.360 --> 00:25:11.980
So this is in the late teens that you're with Rotheker then.

408
00:25:12.020 --> 00:25:12.520
Is that right?

409
00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:13.760
What was the year?

410
00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:17.080
Because it was certainly before 1921, wasn't it?

411
00:25:18.600 --> 00:25:21.520
Now, let me explain it to you this way.

412
00:25:24.280 --> 00:25:38.160
In 1920, Rotheker was talking about phasing out this short film production because it was not paying enough, not enough profit in it.

413
00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:44.160
And second, it was a nuisance to run these short films when we had such an enormous demand for...

414
00:25:45.900 --> 00:25:46.520
Industrial?

415
00:25:46.920 --> 00:25:49.280
No, full features for First National.

416
00:25:51.540 --> 00:25:54.900
So I knew that I was going to be let out.

417
00:25:56.080 --> 00:25:58.260
Then something else happened.

418
00:25:58.940 --> 00:26:11.400
Shusteg was building 28 millimeter printer that would take 35 millimeter negative and convert them into a non-slow burning film, 28 millimeter film.

419
00:26:11.660 --> 00:26:12.520
He made that.

420
00:26:12.520 --> 00:26:15.220
He built it for Victor Animatograph Company.

421
00:26:15.560 --> 00:26:16.640
Victor Animatograph.

422
00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:18.320
From Davenport, Iowa.

423
00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:23.340
And when he got it done, Mr. Victor...

424
00:26:23.340 --> 00:26:25.300
I got to know Mr. Victor pretty well.

425
00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:26.640
He was a very fine man.

426
00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:33.800
Mr. Victor asked Mr. Shusteg, we got to have a man to run this.

427
00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:36.320
And Mr. Shusteg said, what?

428
00:26:36.840 --> 00:26:40.680
I know one guy, a young lad by the name Jerry Siakel.

429
00:26:40.840 --> 00:26:42.460
He says, why don't you approach him?

430
00:26:42.460 --> 00:26:45.020
And he did, and I went to work for him.

431
00:26:45.460 --> 00:26:53.340
I went to work at SNA and they did have a processing unit at that time because...

432
00:26:53.340 --> 00:26:57.840
Do you mean SNA, E-S-S-A-N-A-Y or S and A?

433
00:26:58.400 --> 00:26:59.100
There were two.

434
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:01.800
Was it SNA over on Argyle?

435
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:02.280
Yeah.

436
00:27:02.380 --> 00:27:04.620
You went to work for SNA on Argyle then?

437
00:27:04.620 --> 00:27:05.100
That's right.

438
00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:06.500
They were doing the Victor machine...

439
00:27:06.500 --> 00:27:07.640
They were doing this...

440
00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:08.800
No, not...

441
00:27:08.800 --> 00:27:10.440
I didn't work for SNA.

442
00:27:10.560 --> 00:27:16.340
I worked at the SNA lab, but I was paid by Victor.

443
00:27:16.560 --> 00:27:17.040
Uh-huh.

444
00:27:17.040 --> 00:27:25.260
And he had contracted with SNA to take some of these movies that he had to turn them into

445
00:27:25.260 --> 00:27:28.120
non-theatrically used 28-millimeter films.

446
00:27:28.380 --> 00:27:28.600
Terrific.

447
00:27:28.600 --> 00:27:29.060
That's great.

448
00:27:29.140 --> 00:27:31.300
But he was not the only...

449
00:27:31.300 --> 00:27:35.760
That was not the only object of Victor's.

450
00:27:35.840 --> 00:27:42.260
He also wanted to get into a motion picture work because Victor had a large library bigger

451
00:27:42.260 --> 00:27:44.220
than McIntosh at that time.

452
00:27:45.220 --> 00:27:47.400
And he also produced...

453
00:27:47.400 --> 00:27:52.980
He also built motion pictures in Davenport with a beater movement.

454
00:27:53.520 --> 00:27:55.120
Do you know what beater movement is?

455
00:27:56.180 --> 00:27:57.100
Yeah, I do know.

456
00:27:57.440 --> 00:27:58.320
One of the first...

457
00:27:58.320 --> 00:28:02.140
In fact, the first camera and movie projector had beater movements.

458
00:28:02.580 --> 00:28:03.720
Yeah, well, that's what he built.

459
00:28:03.880 --> 00:28:05.480
All of course, those things aren't good, you know.

460
00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:06.860
No, because you're a frame line.

461
00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:09.200
No, not only that, but it's not steady.

462
00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:09.940
Right.

463
00:28:10.520 --> 00:28:11.100
It's chatterous.

464
00:28:11.120 --> 00:28:11.660
Yeah, yeah.

465
00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:17.960
Anyhow, Victor wanted to get into that kind of a business.

466
00:28:19.120 --> 00:28:22.120
And I worked there, I don't know how long.

467
00:28:22.560 --> 00:28:31.660
All I remember is that I have two union-paid cards because I had to join the union at SNH.

468
00:28:31.660 --> 00:28:34.700
I never belonged to the union before, but I did that.

469
00:28:35.700 --> 00:28:48.000
Then this organization in 1920 started to talk about this Tetrafilm that I finally got to connect...

470
00:28:48.700 --> 00:28:50.000
How do you spell that?

471
00:28:50.460 --> 00:28:54.420
T-A-T-R-A.

472
00:28:54.420 --> 00:28:55.200
Tetrafilm.

473
00:28:55.200 --> 00:28:55.780
Tetrafilm.

474
00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:59.060
That's the name of a mountain in Czechoslovakia.

475
00:28:59.060 --> 00:28:59.720
Uh-huh.

476
00:28:59.720 --> 00:29:05.760
And they were talking about making film, making film.

477
00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:13.120
But in the meantime, even while at Rotheker, I was making documentaries about what was going on in Chicago.

478
00:29:14.360 --> 00:29:19.060
Shoestec was one that arranged for that.

479
00:29:19.420 --> 00:29:21.420
I hired Rotheker cameraman.

480
00:29:21.860 --> 00:29:24.300
I had to render camera from Rotheker.

481
00:29:25.480 --> 00:29:29.420
And I hired cameraman, and we got this and whatever we needed.

482
00:29:29.420 --> 00:29:34.820
And we made documentary for Bohemians, documentary for Czechs.

483
00:29:35.140 --> 00:29:36.560
This was through Rotheker then?

484
00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:37.740
No, through Rotheker.

485
00:29:38.100 --> 00:29:41.140
That was our political connection.

486
00:29:41.320 --> 00:29:43.140
Very good. Very good.

487
00:29:43.220 --> 00:29:46.560
And that's where I met my wife too, in one of those affairs.

488
00:29:46.840 --> 00:29:51.680
That's where I photographed Masaryk too, and I photographed Kelly.