Siakel #3
Abstract
William Grisham interviews Jaroslav "Jerry" Siakel, a Slovakian-American cinematographer and projectionist who worked with Rothacker Film Company, Essanay Studios, and Selig Polyscope Company. They discuss the emerging cinematographic practices among different Chicago film studios during the silent film era.
Description
Jerry Siakel: (00:06)
Sure that they did otherwise they wouldn't keep him all.
William Grisham: (00:10)
Well, they kept him then, really, until the studio closed is that right? Right here. Yeah.
Jerry Siakel: (00:14)
And that, that last picture that, I think I showed you that picture. He's on a photograph on the front of this device, that developing machine in 1917. And man next to him, his birth clear up that later become president of SVE.
William Grisham: (00:36)
Now you're, you know—you talked about this processor and the fact that Selig wanted wooden not wheels, but spindles in there instead of rubber. What was the problem with Selig, that he would interfere?
Jerry Siakel: (00:55)
They for so many years, Selig, like all the other motion picture labs, were using the reels that they want to film on and those were made out of wood, hardwood, and they were saturated in paraffin, I think, if I remember correctly. So they were more or less waterproof. And I think that's where the argument came. He thought that if you use them in a tank, why shouldn't you use them in a developing? I don't know if this is true, sir, but I just imagined that was the reason and then said, no, we have so many of them side by side and continuously in chemicals, that you continuously, some are, but those that are drying didn't make any difference.
William Grisham: (01:42)
So what was this called? This was portable to be used in the army, correct?
Jerry Siakel: (01:46)
Yes, there was supposed to be a lorry built by government where they would put this thing in there.
William Grisham: (01:52)
And it'll be used on the field.
Jerry Siakel: (01:53)
On the field, yeah.
William Grisham: (01:54)
And can you describe—it was a continuous processor—but what was it—what was involved in the processor? Drying, you said.
Jerry Siakel: (02:01)
That was all in one.
William Grisham: (02:03)
Developing.
Jerry Siakel: (02:04)
Developing and washing and fixing and drying.
William Grisham: (02:07)
Right. And did it, was it ever delivered on time or not? Or was it delayed?
Jerry Siakel: (02:13)
I don't think they ever finished that.
William Grisham: (02:15)
But it had been ordered by the government.
Jerry Siakel: (02:12)
Yes.
William Grisham: (02:19)
Okay. Is there anything that you would really like to say about this because you're really among the pioneers, the film pioneers. And was it a fascinating industry or was it something that people did not really care for until a certain time? In other words, there were a lot of people who saw it, but where they audiences who perhaps went to the theater too or not? What were the audiences like?
Jerry Siakel: (02:49)
Well for us it was very fascinating thing. To us, especially those that were born in Europe, living pictures that we heard about but only reading about them in the newspaper. That's not enough. No one was able to explain to us what that is. It's awfully hard to understand. We saw a picture. We can’t imagine how the picture can live. But that was a very good that [inaudible] to many of our townspeople that came in to see the club. We projected film about that size. They looked at it, they marveled at it, but I don't think they understood it anyhow. There was a lot of things involved. The interest in movies were quite great everywhere. I attended, I went to movies a lot and the interest was so great that, um, people started to think about using motion, pictures for education.
And I think Victor's was one of them. The only man that I remember besides changing films from thirty-five to twenty-eight millimeters, which were stock place. And then he came in to Essanay and said, “Mr. Victor, send me that. You will take this negative of mine and make me a film from a twenty-eight millimeter film.” His name was Stephan Haboush. And for many years I read that name, Stephan Haboush in Chicago. But I can't, I was going to, now that you brought this up, I was going to look him up, see if it’s the same Haboush that called himself shepherd of Galilee. He brought in negatives from there and we turned that into a—
William Grisham: (04:48)
Lecture.
Jerry Siakel: (04:49)
A lecture, yes, that was intended for churches. And he was one of those people that had a set mind about doing something. And when I was making titles for him, he had been written, “This is at three and so on.” So I tried to tell him, “Mr. Haboush, you don't have to say, this is a three.” All right. But he didn't like that. He wanted to show it on a screen. But then it didn't make any difference to me. And I left him and I left one story of Moses that somebody brought in unfinished. I left it there in, at Essanay. I just wrote Mr. Victor, “Mr. Victor, I'm going to Europe to make a movie.” And he wrote a letter and said, “Well, I'm sorry you're going. And I wish you the best of luck.” And when we got back from Europe, I didn't hear anything about twenty-eight millimeter film anymore.
William Grisham: (05:57)
Right?
Jerry Siakel: (05:58)
Phased out. But sixteen millimeter appeared at Pathé, they had a one that was another.
William Grisham: (06:06)
Pathé had another size and they also, Pathé Film, also had a safety film long before Eastman did—
Jerry Siakel: (06:15)
Eastman.
William Grisham: (06:15)
But they couldn't market it for some reason or other, you know. Whether Eastman was a monopoly or not that, I don’t know.
Jerry Siakel: (06:22)
Well, about that sixteen millimeter film. While we were at Rothacker Film company, First National bought so many positive prints from their negatives. Two-hundred, three-hundred. And with this machine they had four Depew printers already, which were better than, well not any better than Shoestack. They had Bell and Howell, and they had Depew. No, they didn't have any Shoestack.
William Grisham: (06:52)
Alright those printers then could handle a thousand feet.
Jerry Siakel: (06:54)
Yes, no, but the film was always printed at Rothacker, four-hundred [inaudible].
William Grisham: (07:00)
It was—
Jerry Siakel: (07:01)
Always—
William Grisham: (07:02)
Even though the others had a thousand?
Jerry Siakel: (07:03)
It was developed and [inaudible]. Rothacker never had an automatic developing [inaudible].
William Grisham: (07:12)
All right, prior to the four-hundred foot printer, and you went to work in about 1916, am I correct? That, all right. Prior to that, how were films assembled? There were not the four-hundred-foot printers then. When did the four-hundred foot printers come in? Probably the time you arrived, is that correct? Because the others were put together, women at spools would put one scene together and splice it, another scene together and splice it. And this was not a— these were not the negative cutters. These were the positive assemblers.
Jerry Siakel: (07:45)
That I don't know. Where did you get that story? Now that, at Selig, we already had a long roll, not any longer than four-hundred feet, but something between a hundred and one-hundred and fifty.
William Grisham: (07:56)
That’s what I’m trying to track down, when that came in because prior to that there were positive assemblers.
Jerry Siakel: (08:02)
Yes. But we still had to have positive assemblers—
William Grisham: (08:06)
Because of the what?
Jerry Siakel: (08:07)
Because they were only one-hundred and fifty foot scene or even in the First National—
William Grisham: (08:12)
So here's what I'm trying to say is there would be one-hundred and fifty foot scene. Then there would be a title that would have to be spliced in.
Jerry Siakel: (08:20)
It already was printed in and inserted in the negative.
William Grisham: (08:25)
All right. Now, you know—
Jerry Siakel: (08:27)
The only titles that were inserted in the story, as far as I remember at Selig, are in the news reel that had a future showing, and that was printed along with negative. The only title that reinserted was like the one that I mentioned when we—
William Grisham: (08:49)
Well, the scenes were then still positively assembled where they knock. In other words, there would be a scene that in a positive, that's what these women were doing with their little white gloves and so on, they were not negative cutters. They would, they would, see, I have quotes from Hazel Buddemeyer who worked as a cutter, a positive assembler over at Essanay.
Jerry Siakel: (09:12)
Well.
William Grisham: (09:13)
In 1908, and ‘9, and ‘10. And then she said that those scenes— there would be a whole lot of them in the positives.
Jerry Siakel: (09:18)
It’d be 1910—
William Grisham: (09:20)
Ten, eleven.
Jerry Siakel: (09:21)
And I came in in ’12 [inaudible].
William Grisham: (09:22)
So the four-hundred foot printers came in, maybe, you know, ‘13 or ’14, up to ‘16 because they were there then. And then the thousand footers came in the late part of the teens.
Jerry Siakel: (09:33)
When the processing machine were started.
William Grisham: (09:36)
Right.
Jerry Siakel: (09:37)
Now it's kinda hard for me to answer that question because I have never seen that done that way. The only time that we inserted titles were with—
William Grisham: (09:49)
How many scenes, let’s put it this way, we're in a positive? How many scenes had splices in them in a positive one-thousand foot reel? Let's put it that way. How many splices in a thousand foot reel? Since you had to run them off, how many splices were there?
Jerry Siakel: (10:07)
There were only splices that being a hundred, hundred and fifty, or twenty-five or five feet, or something—
William Grisham: (10:14)
But there were splices. There were maybe a score of splices that—
Jerry Siakel: (10:17)
Yes.
William Grisham: (10:17)
That ended up in a positive film. I'm not talking about a negative, I'm talking about a positive.
Jerry Siakel: (10:22)
Well, that depended on a special scene. Now I'll have to explain it to you this way. Even as late as 1920, ’21, ‘22, ‘23, when I come back to Rothacker again after we got back from, even then we had to insert five foot scenes sometimes. When we were cutting in a night scene into a day scene or sunlight or recalling something. So once in a while we had those inserts in positive, but usually not. They were runoff and the same tint. You don't need a black and white or yellow or whatever. And if there was a insert, there was a space for it. And that, that was put into a reel. That wasn't done very much [inaudible].
William Grisham: (11:15)
Well still the normal one-thousand foot reel would have a number of splices in it.
Jerry Siakel: (11:19)
Oh yes.
William Grisham: (11:20)
All right. That's what, that's what I wanted to know because in the continuous one-thousand foot print, printer, they could take a negative that had been properly cut and there would be no splices in it. That's what I'm trying to say.
Jerry Siakel: (11:51)
That’s right.
William Grisham: (11:52)
But when you had the four-hundred foot printer, you were still assembling your positives with splices?
Jerry Siakel: (11:40)
Not all the way through, depending on what the scenes were like.
William Grisham: (11:45)
Uh-huh. Well, that's what I was trying to determine, yeah.
Jerry Siakel: (11:47)
When we started to tone and dye films, we had to do more assembly of positives than we did when we had only black and white film.
William Grisham: (11:58)
Alright The Landing of Columbus, The Coming of Columbus was in most versions was completely colored, not just tinted; it was colored.
Jerry Siakel: (12:05)
Hand colored.
William Grisham: (12:06)
Hand colored. And according to what I have learned, it was done in Europe. And they did it perhaps with a stencil process. Have you ever heard of a stencil?
Jerry Siakel: (12:16)
Yes.
William Grisham: (12:17)
How was that done?
Jerry Siakel: (12:18)
I don’t know.
William Grisham: (12:18)
They stayed within stencils, was is it, what was it Pathé or Lumiere or who did it?
Jerry Siakel: (12:22)
Pathé is the one that Dan talked about. And he was interested in that process for a long time, but they couldn't figure out anything practical that would apply for instance, sky, for such a length—
William Grisham: (12:39)
Flesh tones and so on.
Jerry Siakel: (12:42)
And make metrices of some kind to imprint the thing in here. That, that wasn't very practical. So hand-colored film was still cheaper than in the long run. There wasn't as many prints made, but I've seen some of them. We tried some of them at Selig and, and we gave it up. It wasn't, it wasn't profitable.
William Grisham: (13:04)
I saw the hand-colored print of the 1911 Landing of Columbus. And it's absolutely beautiful. But the colors jump around, you know, but it's a beautiful thing.
William Grisham: (13:16)
And that was done on the Indiana side of the lake. Well, is there anything that you would like to add or remember or recall, and then if you have any, if you want to just think about it for a while, I could come back later, of course, and go over this with you [inaudible].
Jerry Siakel: (13:34)
Well after you listen to this tape yourself, if you have something on your notes that you wanted to talk about, why don't you jot it down and I'll do the same thing. I'll send you a tape.
William Grisham: (13:48)
Marvelous. The other thing is, what about a time clock? Did you punch a time clock? At Essanay they had to. I was just wondering if Selig—
Jerry Siakel: (13:56)
At Essanay. At Selig too. I didn't stop punching clock until I stopped. I punched a clock until I started at Rothacker. And that, Dewey was the kind of a manager that told whoever it was in charge that “I don't want Jerry to punch clock.” And I told him, well, “I don't mind.” He says, ”No, I don't want you.” He said, “I want you to remember one thing, an ordinary man gets paid by the hour. The other man gets paid by the week. The better man gets paid by the month. But it takes [inaudible] to get paid by the year, remember that.” And from then on, I never punched a clock.
William Grisham: (14:36)
Good. Even the actors and actresses and the directors punched a clock over at Essanay. Yeah, they did it Essanay. I know that. All right. I don't want to keep you anymore, but I know there's a lot more to add to this. For instance, your wife, she had acted in some of those.
Jerry Siakel: (14:48)
No.
William Grisham: (14:49)
She had not been acting. Did you use her in films?
Jerry Siakel: (14:51)
No.
William Grisham: (14:52)
You did not. Uh-huh.
Jerry Siakel: (14:54)
I, I didn't even use any of the members of our theatrical society in film that I worked at Rothacker.
William Grisham: (15:01)
Uh-huh.
Jerry Siakel: (15:02)
No. It wasn't, it wasn't—
William Grisham: (15:06)
They were commercial. So they were really the first theatrical commercials, weren’t they?
Jerry Siakel: (15:10)
That's right. They were, and they were—they had to tell the story in that short time. Some were clever and some were just an ordinary scenes.
William Grisham: (15:21)
Yeah. Where did you learn composition? Because your film, the Slovakian film is beautiful. Where did you learn your composition? That's what I like to know. Cause it was very, very well done. Well, had you learned that to a certain extent at Selig or how, because—
Jerry Siakel: (15:36)
No. No. You see, the man that I got to know later on, a commercial artist [inaudible], told me what every artist and photographer has to know. His lines, focusing point, and so on. Try to remember to do this and that. Now he himself went to Czechoslovakia in 1920 and made a movie of an athletic event there. I learned a lot from him and I learned a lot from the other members of Arts, Bohemian Art Club.
William Grisham: (16:15)
So you really, because you really have it. It's a beautiful film. And have you been able to get those frames? I'm very concerned about it. Are you getting those frames replaced that were destroyed? You know, when you tried to show it.
Jerry Siakel: (16:29)
Oh that, yeah.
William Grisham: (16:29)
Is it—is there any way you can get the completed thing for yourself?
Jerry Siakel: (16:32)
No that—it’s all right. Our film is good. I fixed the projector. There was nothing wrong with it.
William Grisham: (16:38)
No, but I'm saying that the burnt frames, can you get those replaced? Cause that's too good not to—
Jerry Siakel: (16:43)
No that, one or two frames don’t make much difference.
William Grisham: (16:47)
Well, I don't know about that. You better get, get those frames replaced. That was a beautiful film. What I saw and I’d love to see the whole thing.
Jerry Siakel: (16:53)
You should see, I kind of like it myself.
William Grisham: (16:55)
It’s a beautiful film. It really is. And it should be preserved, preserving it in Europe, but it should also be preserved here, you know. The only other thing that I have to ask you is, and I can turn this off.
Sure that they did otherwise they wouldn't keep him all.
William Grisham: (00:10)
Well, they kept him then, really, until the studio closed is that right? Right here. Yeah.
Jerry Siakel: (00:14)
And that, that last picture that, I think I showed you that picture. He's on a photograph on the front of this device, that developing machine in 1917. And man next to him, his birth clear up that later become president of SVE.
William Grisham: (00:36)
Now you're, you know—you talked about this processor and the fact that Selig wanted wooden not wheels, but spindles in there instead of rubber. What was the problem with Selig, that he would interfere?
Jerry Siakel: (00:55)
They for so many years, Selig, like all the other motion picture labs, were using the reels that they want to film on and those were made out of wood, hardwood, and they were saturated in paraffin, I think, if I remember correctly. So they were more or less waterproof. And I think that's where the argument came. He thought that if you use them in a tank, why shouldn't you use them in a developing? I don't know if this is true, sir, but I just imagined that was the reason and then said, no, we have so many of them side by side and continuously in chemicals, that you continuously, some are, but those that are drying didn't make any difference.
William Grisham: (01:42)
So what was this called? This was portable to be used in the army, correct?
Jerry Siakel: (01:46)
Yes, there was supposed to be a lorry built by government where they would put this thing in there.
William Grisham: (01:52)
And it'll be used on the field.
Jerry Siakel: (01:53)
On the field, yeah.
William Grisham: (01:54)
And can you describe—it was a continuous processor—but what was it—what was involved in the processor? Drying, you said.
Jerry Siakel: (02:01)
That was all in one.
William Grisham: (02:03)
Developing.
Jerry Siakel: (02:04)
Developing and washing and fixing and drying.
William Grisham: (02:07)
Right. And did it, was it ever delivered on time or not? Or was it delayed?
Jerry Siakel: (02:13)
I don't think they ever finished that.
William Grisham: (02:15)
But it had been ordered by the government.
Jerry Siakel: (02:12)
Yes.
William Grisham: (02:19)
Okay. Is there anything that you would really like to say about this because you're really among the pioneers, the film pioneers. And was it a fascinating industry or was it something that people did not really care for until a certain time? In other words, there were a lot of people who saw it, but where they audiences who perhaps went to the theater too or not? What were the audiences like?
Jerry Siakel: (02:49)
Well for us it was very fascinating thing. To us, especially those that were born in Europe, living pictures that we heard about but only reading about them in the newspaper. That's not enough. No one was able to explain to us what that is. It's awfully hard to understand. We saw a picture. We can’t imagine how the picture can live. But that was a very good that [inaudible] to many of our townspeople that came in to see the club. We projected film about that size. They looked at it, they marveled at it, but I don't think they understood it anyhow. There was a lot of things involved. The interest in movies were quite great everywhere. I attended, I went to movies a lot and the interest was so great that, um, people started to think about using motion, pictures for education.
And I think Victor's was one of them. The only man that I remember besides changing films from thirty-five to twenty-eight millimeters, which were stock place. And then he came in to Essanay and said, “Mr. Victor, send me that. You will take this negative of mine and make me a film from a twenty-eight millimeter film.” His name was Stephan Haboush. And for many years I read that name, Stephan Haboush in Chicago. But I can't, I was going to, now that you brought this up, I was going to look him up, see if it’s the same Haboush that called himself shepherd of Galilee. He brought in negatives from there and we turned that into a—
William Grisham: (04:48)
Lecture.
Jerry Siakel: (04:49)
A lecture, yes, that was intended for churches. And he was one of those people that had a set mind about doing something. And when I was making titles for him, he had been written, “This is at three and so on.” So I tried to tell him, “Mr. Haboush, you don't have to say, this is a three.” All right. But he didn't like that. He wanted to show it on a screen. But then it didn't make any difference to me. And I left him and I left one story of Moses that somebody brought in unfinished. I left it there in, at Essanay. I just wrote Mr. Victor, “Mr. Victor, I'm going to Europe to make a movie.” And he wrote a letter and said, “Well, I'm sorry you're going. And I wish you the best of luck.” And when we got back from Europe, I didn't hear anything about twenty-eight millimeter film anymore.
William Grisham: (05:57)
Right?
Jerry Siakel: (05:58)
Phased out. But sixteen millimeter appeared at Pathé, they had a one that was another.
William Grisham: (06:06)
Pathé had another size and they also, Pathé Film, also had a safety film long before Eastman did—
Jerry Siakel: (06:15)
Eastman.
William Grisham: (06:15)
But they couldn't market it for some reason or other, you know. Whether Eastman was a monopoly or not that, I don’t know.
Jerry Siakel: (06:22)
Well, about that sixteen millimeter film. While we were at Rothacker Film company, First National bought so many positive prints from their negatives. Two-hundred, three-hundred. And with this machine they had four Depew printers already, which were better than, well not any better than Shoestack. They had Bell and Howell, and they had Depew. No, they didn't have any Shoestack.
William Grisham: (06:52)
Alright those printers then could handle a thousand feet.
Jerry Siakel: (06:54)
Yes, no, but the film was always printed at Rothacker, four-hundred [inaudible].
William Grisham: (07:00)
It was—
Jerry Siakel: (07:01)
Always—
William Grisham: (07:02)
Even though the others had a thousand?
Jerry Siakel: (07:03)
It was developed and [inaudible]. Rothacker never had an automatic developing [inaudible].
William Grisham: (07:12)
All right, prior to the four-hundred foot printer, and you went to work in about 1916, am I correct? That, all right. Prior to that, how were films assembled? There were not the four-hundred-foot printers then. When did the four-hundred foot printers come in? Probably the time you arrived, is that correct? Because the others were put together, women at spools would put one scene together and splice it, another scene together and splice it. And this was not a— these were not the negative cutters. These were the positive assemblers.
Jerry Siakel: (07:45)
That I don't know. Where did you get that story? Now that, at Selig, we already had a long roll, not any longer than four-hundred feet, but something between a hundred and one-hundred and fifty.
William Grisham: (07:56)
That’s what I’m trying to track down, when that came in because prior to that there were positive assemblers.
Jerry Siakel: (08:02)
Yes. But we still had to have positive assemblers—
William Grisham: (08:06)
Because of the what?
Jerry Siakel: (08:07)
Because they were only one-hundred and fifty foot scene or even in the First National—
William Grisham: (08:12)
So here's what I'm trying to say is there would be one-hundred and fifty foot scene. Then there would be a title that would have to be spliced in.
Jerry Siakel: (08:20)
It already was printed in and inserted in the negative.
William Grisham: (08:25)
All right. Now, you know—
Jerry Siakel: (08:27)
The only titles that were inserted in the story, as far as I remember at Selig, are in the news reel that had a future showing, and that was printed along with negative. The only title that reinserted was like the one that I mentioned when we—
William Grisham: (08:49)
Well, the scenes were then still positively assembled where they knock. In other words, there would be a scene that in a positive, that's what these women were doing with their little white gloves and so on, they were not negative cutters. They would, they would, see, I have quotes from Hazel Buddemeyer who worked as a cutter, a positive assembler over at Essanay.
Jerry Siakel: (09:12)
Well.
William Grisham: (09:13)
In 1908, and ‘9, and ‘10. And then she said that those scenes— there would be a whole lot of them in the positives.
Jerry Siakel: (09:18)
It’d be 1910—
William Grisham: (09:20)
Ten, eleven.
Jerry Siakel: (09:21)
And I came in in ’12 [inaudible].
William Grisham: (09:22)
So the four-hundred foot printers came in, maybe, you know, ‘13 or ’14, up to ‘16 because they were there then. And then the thousand footers came in the late part of the teens.
Jerry Siakel: (09:33)
When the processing machine were started.
William Grisham: (09:36)
Right.
Jerry Siakel: (09:37)
Now it's kinda hard for me to answer that question because I have never seen that done that way. The only time that we inserted titles were with—
William Grisham: (09:49)
How many scenes, let’s put it this way, we're in a positive? How many scenes had splices in them in a positive one-thousand foot reel? Let's put it that way. How many splices in a thousand foot reel? Since you had to run them off, how many splices were there?
Jerry Siakel: (10:07)
There were only splices that being a hundred, hundred and fifty, or twenty-five or five feet, or something—
William Grisham: (10:14)
But there were splices. There were maybe a score of splices that—
Jerry Siakel: (10:17)
Yes.
William Grisham: (10:17)
That ended up in a positive film. I'm not talking about a negative, I'm talking about a positive.
Jerry Siakel: (10:22)
Well, that depended on a special scene. Now I'll have to explain it to you this way. Even as late as 1920, ’21, ‘22, ‘23, when I come back to Rothacker again after we got back from, even then we had to insert five foot scenes sometimes. When we were cutting in a night scene into a day scene or sunlight or recalling something. So once in a while we had those inserts in positive, but usually not. They were runoff and the same tint. You don't need a black and white or yellow or whatever. And if there was a insert, there was a space for it. And that, that was put into a reel. That wasn't done very much [inaudible].
William Grisham: (11:15)
Well still the normal one-thousand foot reel would have a number of splices in it.
Jerry Siakel: (11:19)
Oh yes.
William Grisham: (11:20)
All right. That's what, that's what I wanted to know because in the continuous one-thousand foot print, printer, they could take a negative that had been properly cut and there would be no splices in it. That's what I'm trying to say.
Jerry Siakel: (11:51)
That’s right.
William Grisham: (11:52)
But when you had the four-hundred foot printer, you were still assembling your positives with splices?
Jerry Siakel: (11:40)
Not all the way through, depending on what the scenes were like.
William Grisham: (11:45)
Uh-huh. Well, that's what I was trying to determine, yeah.
Jerry Siakel: (11:47)
When we started to tone and dye films, we had to do more assembly of positives than we did when we had only black and white film.
William Grisham: (11:58)
Alright The Landing of Columbus, The Coming of Columbus was in most versions was completely colored, not just tinted; it was colored.
Jerry Siakel: (12:05)
Hand colored.
William Grisham: (12:06)
Hand colored. And according to what I have learned, it was done in Europe. And they did it perhaps with a stencil process. Have you ever heard of a stencil?
Jerry Siakel: (12:16)
Yes.
William Grisham: (12:17)
How was that done?
Jerry Siakel: (12:18)
I don’t know.
William Grisham: (12:18)
They stayed within stencils, was is it, what was it Pathé or Lumiere or who did it?
Jerry Siakel: (12:22)
Pathé is the one that Dan talked about. And he was interested in that process for a long time, but they couldn't figure out anything practical that would apply for instance, sky, for such a length—
William Grisham: (12:39)
Flesh tones and so on.
Jerry Siakel: (12:42)
And make metrices of some kind to imprint the thing in here. That, that wasn't very practical. So hand-colored film was still cheaper than in the long run. There wasn't as many prints made, but I've seen some of them. We tried some of them at Selig and, and we gave it up. It wasn't, it wasn't profitable.
William Grisham: (13:04)
I saw the hand-colored print of the 1911 Landing of Columbus. And it's absolutely beautiful. But the colors jump around, you know, but it's a beautiful thing.
William Grisham: (13:16)
And that was done on the Indiana side of the lake. Well, is there anything that you would like to add or remember or recall, and then if you have any, if you want to just think about it for a while, I could come back later, of course, and go over this with you [inaudible].
Jerry Siakel: (13:34)
Well after you listen to this tape yourself, if you have something on your notes that you wanted to talk about, why don't you jot it down and I'll do the same thing. I'll send you a tape.
William Grisham: (13:48)
Marvelous. The other thing is, what about a time clock? Did you punch a time clock? At Essanay they had to. I was just wondering if Selig—
Jerry Siakel: (13:56)
At Essanay. At Selig too. I didn't stop punching clock until I stopped. I punched a clock until I started at Rothacker. And that, Dewey was the kind of a manager that told whoever it was in charge that “I don't want Jerry to punch clock.” And I told him, well, “I don't mind.” He says, ”No, I don't want you.” He said, “I want you to remember one thing, an ordinary man gets paid by the hour. The other man gets paid by the week. The better man gets paid by the month. But it takes [inaudible] to get paid by the year, remember that.” And from then on, I never punched a clock.
William Grisham: (14:36)
Good. Even the actors and actresses and the directors punched a clock over at Essanay. Yeah, they did it Essanay. I know that. All right. I don't want to keep you anymore, but I know there's a lot more to add to this. For instance, your wife, she had acted in some of those.
Jerry Siakel: (14:48)
No.
William Grisham: (14:49)
She had not been acting. Did you use her in films?
Jerry Siakel: (14:51)
No.
William Grisham: (14:52)
You did not. Uh-huh.
Jerry Siakel: (14:54)
I, I didn't even use any of the members of our theatrical society in film that I worked at Rothacker.
William Grisham: (15:01)
Uh-huh.
Jerry Siakel: (15:02)
No. It wasn't, it wasn't—
William Grisham: (15:06)
They were commercial. So they were really the first theatrical commercials, weren’t they?
Jerry Siakel: (15:10)
That's right. They were, and they were—they had to tell the story in that short time. Some were clever and some were just an ordinary scenes.
William Grisham: (15:21)
Yeah. Where did you learn composition? Because your film, the Slovakian film is beautiful. Where did you learn your composition? That's what I like to know. Cause it was very, very well done. Well, had you learned that to a certain extent at Selig or how, because—
Jerry Siakel: (15:36)
No. No. You see, the man that I got to know later on, a commercial artist [inaudible], told me what every artist and photographer has to know. His lines, focusing point, and so on. Try to remember to do this and that. Now he himself went to Czechoslovakia in 1920 and made a movie of an athletic event there. I learned a lot from him and I learned a lot from the other members of Arts, Bohemian Art Club.
William Grisham: (16:15)
So you really, because you really have it. It's a beautiful film. And have you been able to get those frames? I'm very concerned about it. Are you getting those frames replaced that were destroyed? You know, when you tried to show it.
Jerry Siakel: (16:29)
Oh that, yeah.
William Grisham: (16:29)
Is it—is there any way you can get the completed thing for yourself?
Jerry Siakel: (16:32)
No that—it’s all right. Our film is good. I fixed the projector. There was nothing wrong with it.
William Grisham: (16:38)
No, but I'm saying that the burnt frames, can you get those replaced? Cause that's too good not to—
Jerry Siakel: (16:43)
No that, one or two frames don’t make much difference.
William Grisham: (16:47)
Well, I don't know about that. You better get, get those frames replaced. That was a beautiful film. What I saw and I’d love to see the whole thing.
Jerry Siakel: (16:53)
You should see, I kind of like it myself.
William Grisham: (16:55)
It’s a beautiful film. It really is. And it should be preserved, preserving it in Europe, but it should also be preserved here, you know. The only other thing that I have to ask you is, and I can turn this off.
Run Time
0:17:11
Language Of Materials
English
Reel/Tape Number
1/1
Has Been Digitized?
Yes
Format/Extent
Cassette Tape ➜ C60
Genre
Form
Subject
Related Places
Participants And Performers
Siakel, Jaroslav "Jerry" (is interviewee)
Grisham, William Franklin (is interviewer)
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