Amateur Movie Makers (Dec 1926-Dec 1927)

What Makes a Film Interesting? B$M anon D.K err ONE of the shocks of my young life came when I ' put together recently eight hundred feet of film. It recorded an automobile tour through six states which had been very interesting and enjoyable. And yet when this film was projected it was found to be thoroughly uninteresting. I have shown it several times to various kinds of people and it uniformly fails to arouse anything more than polite remarks. It was such a great disappointment that I fell to analyzing the film in detail, in the hopes that I might locate where the weakness lay. I wanted to avoid such things in the future, since film costs money and one is always in need of interesting pictures. Some one suggested that it was lack of continuity that was my trouble. I considered this for some time, and then I was forced to discount it, because there was a very real continuity. As we progressed in our automobile tour through various states and showed the scenes in each and especially as we compared the roads and road signs in the states, there was distinctly that thing we term "continuity." Then somebody said it was lack of people, and that pictures in order to be interesting must show people. Mine had shown places. After giving this careful consideration I was also forced to discount this, because my best film, one which never fails to evoke enthusiastic admiration, is almost wholly of places and almost nothing of people. Then somebody else said that the film lacked a "compelling idea." I am not quite certain that I know a "compelling idea" when I see one, and anyway I have no confidence in my ability to find a compelling idea for every film I make. I know I have made several interesting films, and I seriously question whether they have compelling ideas. Twenty-six One thing I do know, and that is that most of this film was overexposed and in consequence almost none of the pictures are sharp and snappy photographs. Instead, they are soft and inclined toward the grey and hazy. This in itself is enough to dampen enthusiasm. No matter how interesting an action may be, if it is dim and grey it is not inspiring. Another thing I noticed was that I had taken a great many scenes in which there was little or no motion or action. In the cases of those in which there was action, I noticed more interest was manifested by my audience. Still another thing I noticed in studying the reason for the lack of interest in the picture was the unfortunate selection of views that somehow I had been led to make. I recall passing many real picture opportunities which I let go, because it is so hard to stop a smoothly running car and go back and take a picture. When I did shoot a scene it was not frequently enough an interesting one. For example, I found myself taking ordinary street scenes in various towns, just because they showed these towns. All towns look very much alike as far as street scenes are concerned, I, therefore, came to the conclusion that the reason that this particular eight hundred feet of film was uninteresting was because I had taken too many scenes that did not inherently APPEAL. My appeal was lost for various reasons. One was because I had bought a new camera and not being familiar with it, I had used too large stops and overexposed. I had several beautiful views of which, if I had gotten a bright snappy picture, I would have appealed to anyone's sense of the beautiful. I lost several of these around Princeton University, for example. I had some wonderful possibilities there, but I lost them all because of overexposure. I had simply a series of leaden grey pictures, which by stretching the imagination one might have discerned were beautiful in the original. I have in mind another sort of scene. It consisted of a little girl, a dog and a puppy. The little puppy gambols about the little girl and plays awkwardly with the latter. The picture is only fair, being overexposed, but every time it flashes on the screen there is a murmur from the audience and remarks such as — "Isn't that too cunning. If all the film were of scenes like this, overexposed or not, the film would probably have a different reputation. And yet, what is there about an ordinary puppy jumping about that is interesting? There is something interesting, however, and I call it "appeal." The clumsy, enthusiastic, silly actions of a little puppy dog appeals to us and we say it is interesting. On the other hand, gasoline filling stations, ferry houses, and street scenes, that are ordinary, do not appeal. Continuity, of course, must exist in some form, but continuity is almost always present in spite • of us. Beauty exists in many of them, extraordinary beauty in some, good cinematography in all, but only that thread of continuity suggested by the title. So I say, continuity is not the whole thing. One thing is always of absorbing interest, regardless of continuitv. cinematography, steadiness, illumination, or anything else. It is pictures of the people in the audience. Thev will look at them over and over again, 'hour on end, sitting bolt upright in their chairs with their eyes glistening. There need be no special action. Just the normal motions of ordinary life are enough to set an audience into spasms, if the pictures are of themselves. (continued on page 29)