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November, 1926
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER
Ele
I presume you have the gift to visualize in your minds something that is described to you in words.
Now, visualize in front of you a blank screen. Suppose we project upon it any sort of still picture; be it a street, an interior, an insert or a close-up.
Only With Eyes
Look at the screen only optically, regardless of what the picture represents. If you look at it optically only, that is, with your eyes alone, and not with your minds, what will you see — different grades of light and darkness, spread over the surface of the screen.
Now, what would make this differently shaded surface beautiful — a perfect arrangement of these different patterns of white, gray and black, into a harmonious whole.
But can you realize such an arrangement on the screen just the way you would want to? No. An artist can do this on his canvas, because he can touch every square inch of it directly with his brush, pencil or hand. He can change, improve, correct, rearrange at will, until he obtains a satisfactory result.
But a camera has no feeling for selection. It cruelly registers everything it sees. You cannot put yourself between the lens and the
film in order to eliminate or to soften only certain rays and to emphasize the others.
To a certain extent you are able to dominate the arrangement of light and shade before taking the picture, but to a certain extent only. Artist Has Advantage
An artist is a hundred times more the master of his manipulations. He is free to select, to modify, to emphasize according to his feelings and inspiration. That is why his final result is satisfying. It vibrates with life, it almost moves.
But a photograph, at its best, is still lifeless, compared to, let us say, a painting by Rembrandt.
Now let us return to our mental screen. We had projected on it, a while ago, a still picture— optically speaking, an immobile arrangement of light and darkness, in different degrees and in different shapes and patterns. Begin to Move
Suppose now that these patterns begin to move. Our eyes will welcome the change. The shapes, the patches of light and shade, are traveling across the screen, they are growing or dimishing, they are melting into each other, they are disappearing and new ones appearing.
(Coniinued on P:ige 19)
One of the largest cinematographic staffs in the industry on the field of action on a Western location. Left to right: Dan Clark, A.S.C., chief cinematographer on Tom Mix features for Fox, and the other members of his staff — (third from left) Curtis Fetters, Roland Piatt, Clay Crapnel, Griffith Thomas and Normal Duval. Clark was caught instructing his aides in the details of a scene that zvas just about to be taken.