Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER No. 3 1944 35 THE GREENPARK UNIT 1942-44 Films of the ENGLISH LAND THE [FARMING YEAR Series Winter on the Farm Spring on the Farm Summer on the Farm The Crown of the Year THE PATTERN OF BRITAIN Series The Grassy Shires Crofters Cornish Valley Also: THE NEW CROP POWER ON THE LAND (Technicolor) CROP ROTATION (Technicolor) In preparation: WEST RIDING FARMER'S BOY and further subjects in the PATTERN OF BRITAIN Series RALPH KEENE PETER HENNESSY KEN ANNAKIN PETER PRICE VERITY FILMS LTD. 2-6 WEST STREET, W.C.2 TEM: 5420 speaking a well-exposed negative will give the most consistent and most pleasant effect. I think it is right to say that technicolor exteriors are lovely, and not a little of this loveliness is due to good, bright daylight and its accompanying strong and healthy negative. The amount of "control" that Technicolor have to exercise in order to give you a good result on the screen is something to be marvelled at, and it is not fair to make their problems greater by giving them a negative that because of thinness, or contrast, has little or no latitude. Effect Lighting Now to pass on to effect lighting. This is so much a matter for the individual that I do not intend to deal with it at length. "Night Exterior" in the studio is, perhaps, the most generally used effect. I have already mentioned the necessity of dropping the Y.l filter, which will result in a colder more realistic night light. Hollywood obtain their romantic moonlight shots with the aid of light blue gelatine filters placed over their lamps, and these in conjunction with Y.l filters covering lamps lighting the interior of windows, etc., can be very effective indeed. As a rough guide, a key light reading of about 300 foot candles to 350 foot candles will give a good rendering of moonlight strength, but this is naturally dependent on the amount of shadow light which accompanies it. Firelight effects, as I have already mentioned, are best obtained with the use of incandescent light, or by putting panchromatic carbons in arcs. When shooting the seance scene for Blithe Spirit in flickering firelight, r used a key light from the floor of about 500 foot candles, but the effective light was reduced to about 400 foot candles by the use of paraffin torches held in front of the lamp to create flicker. Technicolor is great fun, but it is spoilt for me at the moment by one great handicap, the fact that all rushes are viewed in black and white, printed from the blue record. The result is hardly pleasant to the eye and one never enjoys seeing them, they give little or no indication as to what the colour will be like and are as often as not misleading. The short sections of colour that one does see (very often many days after the scenes are shot) are on an'd off the screen so quickly, and are so very often out of balance from the colour point of view, that they are only just worth while. These short sections are known as "pilots", and after viewing a few one begins to understand very quickly just what problems Technicolor technicians have to cope with. A "pilot" can be too red, too blue, too green or too yellow; too flat, too contrasty, too light or too dark, and at least half a dozen other things besides, small wonder that Mr. Kay Harrison is putting up a strong fight to prevent all his experts from going to the Forces; and experts they truly are. Yes, of course, colour has its handicaps, but colour has been born, and this healthy and sometimes unruly child is growing rapidly every day. r think it is true to say that at the moment it is suited best to costume and colourful subjects, but as each new production is added to the now long Technicolor list the colours will improve and become more subtle, until one day colour won't be a child any more. It will become, just as "Sound" has, an integral part of every film, and the hackneyed phrase "Glorious Technicolor" will die a natural death in the same way as "100",; All Talking, Singing and Dancing" did ten years ago.