American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

filtering to produce overcorrected effects which would at lower altitudes call for much heavier filtering'. By all means be conservative in your filtering, or you'll find your scenes consistently overcorrected. "There's one thing, though, in which filtering can be a definite help in blackand-white filming in Glacier Park. That is in shooting the Indians. As I have already mentioned, they have pretty dark coloring. If you use a filter like a G, or even a fairly heavy yellow filter, you can lighten up the rendition of those dark skins amazingly. "And speaking of the Indians, they are very cooperative to camera-using visitors. Several tribes live right in the park, and put on regular ceremonials at frequent intervals. The most important of these is the annual Sun Dance, for which the entire Blackfoot nation assembles during July. Sometimes there are several thousand Indians gathered together for this important ceremony, which they enact exactly as their forefathers have done it for generations uncounted. The Sun is one of the principal Blackfoot deities, and invoking his blessing, they raise a sacred Sun lodge, and then with dances and barbaric songs, invoke his aid through the coming season. "But lesser dances and ceremonials are held almost daily, in places near the many hotels and camping-places. Most of these dances, too, are staged in spots where a wise camerist can select angles that will conceal all traces of modernity and tourists, and obtain striking pic EVERYTHING PHOTOGRAPHIC AND CINEMATIC FOR PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR The World's Largest Variety of Cameras and Projectors. Studio and Laboratory Equipment with Latest Improvements as Used in the Hollywood Studios. New and Used. BARGAINS. 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Unlike some of their fellows in other parts of the country, the Glacier Park Blackfeet have no objection to posing for stills and movies, and a few ' cartons of cigarettes strategically distributed among the braves will assure their complete cooperation in re-enacting i any action you may want for close-ups, etc. As a matter of fact, if they like : you (and the cigarettes hold out) they can be persuaded to adopt you ceremoniously into the tribe, painting the i medicine-signs of earth, sky and water on your face, and giving you a sonorous Indian name. This ceremony, by the way, makes a most interesting picture — especially if one of the adoptees is (as is often the case) a pretty girl! "Photographically, you'll find it is best to plan things so you can film any scenes of the Indians in either the early morning or late afternoon. At these hours, the sun's light strikes more obliquely, and you can avoid the inky-black faceshadows you'd get at others times under the imposing feathered war-bonnets of the chiefs and braves. "For that matter, morning and evening are the best times for filming most of Glacier Park's scenes, due to atmospheric conditions, and at noon it's a very good idea to lay the camera aside and indulge in a good meal at one the inns. Not only is the noon sunlight — as it is everywhere — from such a high angle that it gives an unpleasant top-light, but the thinner air of the high altitude tends to make noon shadows go an impenetrable, inky black. "Oddly enough, Glacier Park's scenery seems to have been laid out with photographic requirements in mind. The park, as you know, straddles the backbone of the Rockies. And practically all of the scenes on the east side are shots for which the lighting is naturally most favorable in the mornings, while on the west side you get the best lighting in the afternoons. "Most 16mm. and 8mm. filmers — especially when they are shooting in Kodachrome — like to include at least one spectacular sunset in each vacation reel. I don't know another spot in America which offers sunsets so spectacular It" you have a tripod, I'd recommend setting the camera up on it some evening: and trying a stop-motion shot of a sunset. If your camera has a single-frame release, use it to shoot the sunset, exposing a frame every minute or so. If it hasn't this fitment, you can often get pretty much the same effect by giving the release only a very quick, light touch so that at each touch only a frame or so is exposed, In either case, the result on the screen will be shot in which the sun moves quickly to the horizon and then drops out of sight, while the sunset colorings shift and change magically on th<^ clouds until the afterglow dies out. It makes a perfect ending for your Glacier Park film." END. 146 March, l'.Ml AMKRICAN ClNEMATOC.RAI'HKR