Amateur Cine World (June 1934)

Technical Features of the JUNE | Straker ! PROFESSIONAL film is one of the most A eeetiv products of commercial art; close inspection of a painting will reveal the thumb marks and other tricks the artist has used to gain effect ; there is rarely any mystery as to how a still photograph is taken, while touching-up is hardly ever so unnoticeable as to be completely deceptive. Don’t Always Believe Your Eyes ! But a film is different; a scene is flashed past one’s eyes with only time to record an impression. It is cut about, mixed and dissolved, leaving the viewer only to grasp the message it conveys, with the means of conveying scarcely defined. Even the quickest eyesight cannot keep pace; so when you see a film with splendid settings, battle scenes with smoke and lights, sinking battleships, tumbling houses, crowds of people, or any other shot that would require a mint of money to create, just don’t believe your eyes. It is all part of the ‘‘kidding”’ that has made films what they are, while in many cases the actual cost of production of the impressive scenes has been fart less than a day’s pay-cheque of the star. Wander along and see Meet the Baron if you wish to learn how a little clever montage and some library shots can deceive a nation! The occasion in the film is the arrival of Baron Munchausen, America’s ace storyteller, in New York from a jungle expedition. For this sequence the editors have Production still from Lubitsch’s amassed shots of soldiers “Design for Living” (based marching, civic ‘pageantry, on the play by Noel Coward) political processions, air‘leased this month. It stars plane squadrons, airships and Miriam « Hopkis Gas 9 every other topical film showing crowds of people into one gigantic whole, cutting in, here and there, the Baron himself, and other people necessary to the story. ‘“‘ Pure Hooey.”’ The whole thing, naturally, is pure hooey, but it is honestly one of the most remarkable welcomes I have ever seen on the screen, and it must have cost the producers less than any other sequence in the film. So then, if your amateur production can do with a little snap, some crowds or other scenes impossible to produce, do not get over it with a dialogue or sub-title reference. Just run around to some of the people who sell library film, do a little clever editing and you will have a picture which can be as impressive as any studio made production. Released with Meet the Baron is Emperor Jones, a film no amateur should miss. It is a one man film— Cooper, who are seen in this photograph. 127 Jean RELEASES B. James Whale, famous for his production of “ Frankenstein,” is represented in this month’s releases by a film in a very different vein, " By Candlelight.” like the Mae West product—a vehicle for Paul Robeson alone and gives one an entirely new conception of what the screen can do. For nearly a third of the film Robeson is alone, talking to no one but himself ; it shows soliloquy need not be foreign to cinematic art; it shows how the most difficult of the emotions to portray with conviction—fear—can make motion picture material of the first quality. If you are planning to make a picture while on holiday this summer, see For Love of You and Girl Without a_ Room. Both are nice pleasant comedies, the former made by an English unit on location out in Venice, the latter a Hollywood production with the scene supposed to be set in Paris. It is well to notice how the social customs of the two towns, Venice and Paris, have been seen in a humorous light by the director, and so, how around apparently nothing, a film has been built. The amateur cinematographer can follow suit. His unit can go off on holiday together to Wales, or Scotland, or even abroad, and shoot the exterior sequences for a similar film, returning to do the interior stuff in the (Continued on next page)