Amateur Cine World (June 1934)

THE EDITOR tohis READERS HERE never were such times! New apparatus, remarkable developments in colour and sound films, attractive competitions sponsored by eminent firms and institutions . There must be a reason for these activities. In the following pages we tell you something about these new aids and inducements to better movie-making, but here we should like to indulge in the sentimental and now rather obsolete practice of pointing the moral to this tale of a golden harvest. Do not let us take these new developments for granted as signs of inevitable growth. The growth of anything is seldom other than a slow and unspectacular business. But in the space of a few years amateur cinematography has grown from an infant (admittedly it was never a puling one) to a vigorous adolescence. It has exhibited the usual manifestations common to adolescence, the re-organisation of ideas, the discarding of old formulas for new, the acceptance of responsibilities. Now there are definite signs that it is leaving its adolescence behind. No longer is it the amusing hobby of the few; it is acquiring the dignity of creative art. For cinematography, whether professional or amateur, is an art form. There is an abundance of technical aids to its efficient practice, but while it is not difficult for the amateur, whether he be mechanically minded or no, to acquire proficiency in the use of them, it should always be borne in mind that they are the mechanics of the art, the means to the end. They cut down the margin of human error, they insure that with the exercise of care the user can produce pictures of technical perfection, but not even the most elaborate fool proof camera with a battery of refinements and _ supplemented with all the accessories that the ingenuity of manufacturers has devised can produce a good picture if it is used without imagination. The camera can create as well as reproduce; to use it in the same haphazard way aS many use the snapshot camera is to confess to a lack of appreciation of the possibilities of the moving picture as an art form. You should have a very good reason for exposing every single foot of film and one of the best reasons is that each foot of film you take has, or can be made to have, some relation to the next. It is a truism that good films are made on the editor’s bench, but much wastage can be prevented by editing in the mind’s eye as you film. Prepare a scenario for what may seem to be even the most trivial scenes. It need not be a detailed list of shots so long as it serves its purpose, which is to jog the memory and stimulate the imagination. A novelist does not sit down straight away at his book. The majority of the most successful spend as much time in planning as writing it. The writer of the short article does not begin to tap the typewriter until he has marshalled his ideas, decided which to elaborate, which to reject. Only the hack writer scribbles away. That is why he remains a hack. Don’t be a cinematic hack. You are your own editor and your standards should be as exacting as those of an editor of a periodical who has to study the tastes of thousands. That way lies success. At the same time, although cinematography has just claims to be considered an art form, do not fall into the error of thinking that it should be ‘‘arty.’”’ A simple family subject can be a little masterpiece; the danger is that because a subject isa simple, unpretentious one there is often a tendency to be unmethodical in filming it. The remarkable apparatus now being put on the market makes filming easier than ever. It leaves you free for excursions into the esthetic side of cinematography without being bothered too much with the technicalities. The manufacturers are doing their job well, Evening shots, taken against the light, demand.a reasonable knowledge of the use of filters.and a certain amount of care but with practice -some beautiful results may. be obtained.» sui’: 101 a