Michael_Elliott
Panorama of Machine Co. Aisle (1904) During the early 1900's Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company made a number of industrial films that allowed the public to see what went on inside their buildings. Needless to say, these films didn't contain any sort of plot but some might find them interesting.Billy Bitzer is once again behind the camera and it certainly helps make this a bit more entertaining than some of the other films in the series. This one here features the camera on a moving crane and it goes down a row where we get to see the various machines and people working. This film is actually entertaining because it does more than just keep the camera in place and we look at a machine, which was the problem with so many films in the series. At least this one here gives us a lot of things to look at and it's a fascinating glimpse into a working day in 1904.
Anamon
What holds our interest in late 19th and early 20th century "actuality" footage today is that they allow us to take a glimpse at everyday life as it was 100 years or longer ago. Among the surviving films I find those most interesting that feature city street scenes, or just people going about their daily business, oblivious to the fact that over a century later some bloke in front of a weird electric device would take an interested look at those couple of seconds of their lives. That being said, there are still differences in quality. Especially the Edison shorts often have an awfully composed frame and not much happening at all, making them a pretty boring watch, despite all their historical value.American Mutoscope & Biograph's 1904 series of the Westinghouse factories are a mixed bag in that respect. Many offer an exciting look at the industrialism of the time. Others are 3 minutes of repetition in a static scene that isn't really that interesting to watch, although some of them feature funny little accidents or routines that seem to have been orchestrated especially for the camera. My favourite Westinghouse short however is this "Panorama of Machine Co. Aisle".The interesting fact is that the camera has been mounted to a crane several metres in the air for the shot, and the crane moves along the aisle towards the back wall of the factory hall. The camera was pretty close to the workers in most other films of the series, leading to people reacting to the camera, which is sometimes funny but takes away from the "documentary" value of the shorts. The workers are, however, mostly unaware of the crane-mounted camera in this shot, and go about their business as they would every day, although the light shining down on them from the lamp that gave the necessary illumination for the camera must have been pretty noticeable. One particular lad leans against a machine in a very leisurely pose and does not seem to plan on helping the other workers out anytime soon. A man in a suit rushes around a corner and bumps into another employee, who seems to be taking this pretty personally, as he throws a mean glance back at his hurried co-worker. You can almost hear him mumbling some insult. It is really fascinating to watch and re-watch these few minutes and discover all these little incidents.The scenery adds the last bit of perfection to the film. I watched the copy taken from the Library of Congress print available for download from their American Memory archive, which has been nicely restored and has a very clean picture. It's just what you would imagine an early 20th century industrial plant to look like, as if taken from some Steampunk fantasy. As another commenter already mentioned, you can almost hear the machines working, so lively is the picture. Slowly, the darkness in the back gets illuminated as camera and lamp draw closer, and you approach one of those tall, windowed brick walls that you have seen countless times from the outside, and wondered what is or has been going on on the other side.
