Movie Makers (Jan-May 1928)

MAKING your own ART TITLES HAND lettering the sub-titles for a professional feature picture is quite an undertaking. They average twenty or twentyfive to a reel and as the feature picture usually has six reels. This makes about one hundred and forty or more titles to letter. Titles for an amateur film involve the same problems in a modified degree. Titles are sometimes the last thing added to complete a production and as a result are often demanded in such a rush that it means burning the midnight oil to get them out on time or else turning the job over to the printer to set up in type. Printed titles always look "printed" because they lack that interesting individuality which the trained craftsman injects into his work. Price is another factor that must be considered. Where the hand lettered sub-title sells for fifty cents or a dollar, a printed card will probably cost about half that much. In recent years big improvements have been made in the methods of printing titles, thus solving to some extent the problem of delivering a large number of sub-titles on schedule time so as to make good on early release dates. But while the substitution of printing for hand lettering means an increase in speed and uniformity, the results thus far have shown a sacrifice of variety, novelty, beauty and individuality, and it is doubtful if the press will *In the heart of the virgin pine* Out Where the big trees are big giants ever be satisfactorily adapted to secure these. Methods of printing and photography vary considerably. Large studios in New York and Los Angeles now specialize in printing art titles. They use an opaque white ink on a special black card called title board. Their type faces are cast after some of the most beautiful styles of present day hand lettering. These studios are designed to produce any By Ross F. George Illustrated by the Author I~JPH1S is the second of a series of ■* articles containing a few suggestions from a professional standpoint which will make titling more interesting for the amateur. Copyright by Ross F. George. Titled by Ralph R. Eno A MAIN TITLE FOR PET FILMS The Art Title Background on the Facing Page Can Be Lettered According to Individual Wish-. thing from a slide to a motion picture, specializing in trailer service and feature advertising. They have spared no money in equipment. News reel companies keep their sub-titles universally uniform by supplying their local laboratories, scattered throughout the country, WALL PAPERS of soft ridb. ton.es iix> trowns and grqys ate best suited! for letfcefoie marry Art Titles upon Left: 1. TITLE WITH WALLPAPER MAT. Above: 2. TITLE ON TAPESTRY PAPER. Below: 3. USE OF OUTLINE INITIAL. Right: 4. THE PANEL INITIAL. ;he simplest form of 'sub-title decoration is the illuminated capital two or three lines in heiehtoutlined in light frayj with a hand press and their standard type face. The difficulty of printing with white ink is avoided by using aluminum ink and dusting the letters while still wet with silver bronze powder. After drying, the loose bronze is all dusted off with a piece of cotton. This method produces fairly good titles but they lack the brilliance, on the screen, of titles lettered or printed with pure white ink. However, the amateur who possesses a hand press may successfully employ this system until he has learned how to use a pen. Five by seven black railroad card has been standardized for the printed news reel service. At times, when a local release is to be rushed out on a few hours' notice, white cards with black letters are used. The negatives, being a reverse of the original card, is spliced on to the news picture. Using the negative in this way saves the time necessary to print and develop and dry a positive. This photographic "short cut" of shooting white cards lettered in black has never produced entirely satisfactory results, due to the whiteness of the title cards and the reflection from the film. For a shot of this kind the film must be reversed and the exposure made through its shiny back in order to have the lettering read from left to right when spliced on to the regular positive film. This shiny side acts like a mirror and the abundance of reflected light illumi ij^jecorative panels or fc±3 similar design can be copied Irom examples in. Type Specimen Books and from books on Decoration, and Theory of Design^ nates the inside of the camera box during the exposure producing what is technically termed "halation" or a fogging of the film. Reversing prisms are now employed that make possible the exposure on the emulsion side of the film, giving somewhat better results. However, the most successful way to make these "direct shots," as they are called, is to print or letter with black or opaque ink on a transparent Ninety-one