Panoramic View of Newport

While I understand Mr. Lipton's impatience with the work of James White (and there is no question that the US lagged woefully behind the French as far as the technical quality of their composition and cinematography was concerned), White did make a determined effort to initiate series of films (in the manner of the Lumières) on a wide variety of subjects and in a wide variety of different places.

White was not, I think, himself, ever a cameraman even though he doubtless dabbled as he dabbled in so many things and the cameramen he worked with at Edison's were really not very wonderful - the hopeless Heise whom he inherited from Dickson and replaced by the Englishman Fred Blechynden. But Blechynden had sadly died the year before. Heise was now retired (and not before time) which meant that White was left on his own for a while as effectively a director without a cameraman. William Paley still sent in films but essentially worked as a freelance. It wasn't until a more competent crew were put together - Blair Smith, Abadie and Porter - that things began to improve and White could work on coordinating the various projects, which was his forte.

However do not be fooled by the extremely misleading title that this film goes under. White made two trips to the Newport Naval Training School in 1900, the first (this one) in April-May and a second later in the year (September-November). The purpose of this first visit was to film the school's nifty flagship torpedo boat, "Morris" and the firing of a Whitehead torpedo (four views altogether including this one). So this is not really intended to be a panorama as the title implied. It is actually just a trip round the bay in the torpedo-boat either prior to or subsequent to the firing of the torpedo, probably the former since it effectively sets the seen for the subsequent explosion.

Which said, one has only to compare White's two film-series at Newport with Alexandre Promio's superb series shot aboard the "Formidable" (for Lumière) in 1898 to see how much the US cameramen wtill had to learn.

This is not a panoramic view of Newport. This is actually what happens when you put a camera at the back of a small, black-smoke-belching boat, point the camera at the prow right past the smoke stack, and race the boat parallel to the shore.

Newport? Why not? You might as well claim it is Newport.

For those with a passion for the study of bad movies, it should come as no surprise that the credited producer of this movie was James White, the man who singlehandedly invented bad movies. Lumiere and Pathe were producing beautifully composed pictures based on more than fifty years of camera work. In England, they were doing the experimental movies that evolved into modern film grammar. Mr. White, however, was busy clipping the interesting portion of the frame to no more than ten percent of the picture so that he could show us the back of the hats of people watching things.