Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1952)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

274 Fra«V E. Gunn J u.j I AROUND HOME GREETING CARD sketches, simple and appealing, THE BACKGROUND of this title by the author is provide effective decor in homemade titling, a dresser scarf, letters shoestring potatoes. TAKE YOUR TITLING EASY! THE AUTHOR acts out his simplified titling system as outlined. JOHN HAUTZINGER FAR be it from me to deprecate the designs or the designers of these super-duper titlers we have been seeing in Movie Makers. I have no doubt there have been dozens, perhaps tens of dozens, of readers who have threaded their way through these blueprints — and actually built one of these awesome things. But I am not among them. For I believe in taking my titles easy. I hold that if you have a camera in one hand and a roll of film in the other, you have all the essentials for making effective captions. Well, perhaps a tripod makes it easier; but it's not a must. And if you want to see what I mean, let's take a few examples . . . For instance, let's say that you have just come home from your vacation trip in the Rocky Mountains. You have some beautiful mountain scenes, but now you're at a loss as to how to title them. Well, look around the house. See that big box of pretzels on the shelf in the kitchen? The thin ones with the straight stems? You can do your lettering with them. The brown pretzel sticks will give that rustic effect. They'll look just like logs in your movies. For a background, how about that piece of knotty pine wallpaper that was left over when you papered your playroom? That will make a swell background for your pretzel-stick titles. Just lay the paper down on the floor, space out the pretzel-stick letters — and shoot! There are dozens of other titling aids around the house, just waiting for your questing eye to discover them. Alphabet noodles work nicely for lettering, especially where the background card is small in area. In the same class with the pretzel sticks are matches, toothpicks, twigs, pine needles and the like. And speaking of pine needles reminds me of an impressive idea for titling that hunting or fishing film. Tack a sheet of cardboard against a suitable safe backstop, borrow Buster's .22 rifle and a box of shorts — and shoot the lettering of your lead title in the cardboard. The trick is to expose a few frames after each new shot so that on projection your marksmanship looks as if it were done at rapid fire. For decoration of your more elaborate titling efforts you also will find the home a mine of movie making ideas. Magazine illustrations, both editorial and from advertising, are often effective as backgrounds or as spots, and many amateurs keep a file of them against future needs. Perhaps even easier to use because of their relative simplicity are the line drawings and colorful sketches generally employed on greeting cards. Our illustration should give you an idea of how pleasantly this works out. For a marine picture or a record of an ocean cruise, how about lettering out your lead title with a piece of light rope? You could probably get the same kind of tie-in for your dude ranch vacation film. And for that day at the beach your film certainly should have its main title spelled out in the sand. There are several ways of executing this effect. Probably the easiest is to film someone's hand actually incising the title letters with a sharp stick into an expanse of wet and hard-packed sand. This will give an engraved effect, with the letters below the surface of the sandy background. Then there is the opposite method, in which you form letters in advance with moistened sand so that they stand out above the background in bas relief. Use side lighting in both cases. Any talk of sand-written titles, of course, always brings up the dramatic effect of having a breaking wave seem to wash up on the empty beach and then, as it recedes, reveal the title lettering in the gleaming sand. This trick is accomplished through the use of reverse motion, as follows: begin by lettering your title in a wet strip of beach just after a wave has receded. Then, as succeeding waves break over this lettering, film the action with your camera upside down in relation to the title. When this strip of film is reversed end for end in your editing, the shot will commence with an empty patch of sand and conclude with your wave-written title. One amateur we know even simulated these conditions at home — and it might have been easier that way than working with real waves. He be [Continued on page 278] From pretzels to pictures, urges this amateur, you will find the makings of attractive titles around the house