Movie Makers (Jan-May 1928)

ance and action of the human figure. In the following examples, the head occupies one space, the body another and the legs the other two. The arms are a little shorter than the legs. It is often desirable to combine big heads with little bodies, or vice versa. Long arms or long legs, etc., sometimes come in handy to carry out a bit of novelty. When sketching action be sure that when the figures are walking or running each arm swings backward and forward with the opposite leg, thus preserving the equilibrium of the body. The head is about the shape of an egg and in drawing both normal and foreshortened views this fact must be kept in mind. An actual egg with cartoon expressions drawn upon it will be found helpful as a model in sketching various positions. The practice and experience gained from drawing skeleton cartoons always gives a good foundation for more complicated styles. In fact, you can take almost any of these line characters and dress them up in a number of different ways. Incidentally, if these cartoons are to be drawn with black ink on white card the lines should be a little stronger to allow for the "bleeding" of the white light. If you care to try your hand at arranging and timing a comic song, or any other for that matter, the following will give you a basis for your work. Most modern songs divide up nicely into about seven title cards, the main title bringing the total up to eight. The usual division is two cards for the first verse, two for the second and three for the chorus. There is no fast rule for this division because songs differ greatly in length and character, and good judgment is your best guide. If possible, have someone play the piece of music for you and with watch in hand note the number of Ohe Pal that stole the Gal I loved— \ou oupht to see him now ILLUSTRATED COMIC SONG. seconds required for each division of your song. Allow at least fifteen seconds (which will approximate four feet of film) for each division of twenty words or less. When the rhythm moves faster than this it is difficult for some in the audience to read. At least three feet should be allowed for a lap dissolve between each of the divisions to secure an artistic blending from one scene to another. To lengthen the song, the first verse and chorus may be repeated. A few examples of pastel and opaque water color backgrounds which are beautifully adapted to sentimental songs will be shown in the next lesson. There are many simple photographic tricks for animating art titles. One of the easiest is that of flashing in one letter or word at a time. When a few large letters are used, such as the name of a picture in the main title, the letters may be cut out of white card board and shot against a dead black background one at a time, using the stop camera method, exposing only the necessary few inches of film for each letter. The letters can be made to perform any number of interesting stunts before finding their proper places in the line. A little practice will soon tell you how long to expose each movement. The camera should be mounted directly over the title board and black velvet used for the background. SHOWING THE CONSTRUCTION OF CARTOON FIGURES One of the cleverest tricks for securing humorous animation is to make up a company of dummy cartoon characters. These dummies can be cut from dull white celluloid on black card and painted as desired. The limbs, neck, jaw and eyes can be jointed with fine rivets to secure various postures and freak expressions. They can be made to parade one of the large letters or juggle several of them with the ease of giants. Or they can be arranged as though they were doing daredevil stunts on and between the letters themselves. In fact, their ability is only limited by the imagination of the maker. Another way that requires no special material and takes very little more time to shoot than the ordinary title card is to paint only one letter at a time, stopping the camera between each one. When you can handle the pen with the speed and ease of a pencil it may be practical to letter the title without stopping the camera, Using as slow an exposure as possible. Still another way is to cover the letters with a black card, exposing one line at a time. This is done by moving the mask downward as each line is shot. All the edges of the mask should be painted black so that they will not show as a grey streak on the film. You will learn also that unless the descending and ascending letters clear each oth~r by a fraction of the space, the masking card will cut off their tips. There are numerous ways of accomplishing this flashing idea if you have a stop camera equipped with a vignetting attachment. Nearly all animated titles and cartoons as now seen on the screen are made by exposing a few frames at a time for each bit of action. (Continued on page 199) One-hundred-fiitv-seven