American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

Freedom of the Seas (Continued from Page 165) ground must somehow be treated to give an effective, natural result — and this with the backing less than twenty feet away from the principal characters who leaned against the ship's rail! Necessity, always the mother of invention, became the parent of another offspring — the Water Ripple and Wave Illusion Machine. A series of these machines were set up on the Marine stage behind a muslin backdrop sixty feet high and six hundred feet in length — a tremendous piece of fabric. The upper, or sky portion, is dyed gray muslin — the clouds being effected by using bleaching fluid on the photographed surface, and opaqueing the reverse side around the clouds, softly, for day or night light-effects. The lower fifteen and a half feet of the drop is reserved for the sea, and this portion is not touched with paint or dye of any sort. The sea effects appearing there are entirely the result of illumination provided behind the Ripple machines, which, projected through the opaque wave patterns printed on three vertically actuated transparent screens of cellulose acetate, provide an amazing illusion of an unlimited expanse of sparkling, undulating, salty sea. The distances a cinematographer can pan with his camera are limited only by the length of the stage and the number of machines. The machines carry their own light platforms, adjustable to any height, so that the horizon may be set as required. Electrically motivated, the series of machines work as a unit. The screen wave-patterns are designed to join each other perfectly, the screens moving silently up and down as result of the action of a system of shafts and cams. The design of the wave-patterns was an exacting task, as each curve of the pattern had to be designed by hand. At the top of the screens, the pattern is a thin, long, stretched-out, wavy line, overlapped by each successive line on the way down, so that little light is allowed to come through near the top of the screen. As the waves go down the screen, the pattern becomes a more vigorous, active, undulating line, thicker in width. The successive patterns overlap in such a fashion that more light is allowed to come through as the bottom of the screen is reached. These screens are fabricated from stock-sized sheets, the patterns being printed on them by means of a rubber stencil, cut direct from the original design. They measure approximately sixteen feet by sixteen feet and are all of exactly the same design, secured to the machine by means of metal battens top and bottom. The machine-frames are all of stocksized iron pipe, mounted on heavy steel casters for portability and ease of setting up. The "break" of the machine, which ad joins the muslin backing at the horizon line, is provided with a nigger to keep the light off the sky-areas above, thus eliminating objectionable shadows. Etched cellulose acetate patches are provided to be attached to the screens to kill hot spots caused by direct rays of the sun-arcs utilized for illumination. Each machine occupies an area fifteen feet long by ten feet deep, including space for the sun arcs. By shifting these lights about many interesting effects can be obtained upon the "water." Thus has freedom of the seas for director and cinematographer come to Hollywood sound stages. END Distant Locations (Continued from Page 162) minutes or 3.1 times longer. So I think it well to copy down this table. Temp. TimeofDev. Factor 50 28 min. 3.1 55 17 1.9 60 11.8 1.3 65 9.0 1.0 70 6.s 0.75 75 5.4 D.6II 80 4.0 0.45 S5 2.8 0.30 I have noticed many place ice directly in the developer. This will help you show your director a good test and what he wanted to see: but it will only mislead you as to the final developing back at the laboratory where your negative will — on the strength of your tests — be given normal development. For the ice will not only cool your developer — it will at the same time melt and dilute the solution so the result of shooting according to such a test would be overexposed negative, as you would be exposing for a weak solution, while the lab would actually use normal time and strength in their development. I have found two excellent ways. Where we have all the ice we want and can carry glass bottles without being broken, I favor the Nepera Solution, which can be diluted to any strength of developer you wish. For example, not to hold your director and company up very long, the developer can be mixed in a strong solution and will thus develop the tests a shorter time. If for instance the studio laboratory is developing their negative on machines at nine minutes, then we would mix one part of my Nepera solution to seven parts water, and develop only four minutes and then fix. This would give us the same full negative as that back at the laboratory, yet without wasting so much time. Not only did we have the advantage of knowing all conditions of the negative at the time exposed, but we had a few frames when dry to make enlargements with my Leica enlarger which I always carry. These enlargements are valuable in matching other scenes, to check on clothes and props, and for trick work to be made later on. When we have had to travel under bad conditions, where bottles would not last or added too much weight, or were liable to freeze, I have carried a good supply of "Tabloid" Rytol tablets. These little pills can always be mixed up easily and used even if you have to get inside an oven or under a truck and cover yourself up while doing it. There are also times when a cameraman has but ten small fingers and can carry only so much. Then it means one thing; that some things will have to be condensed down to lighter loads. I remember one time while flying and turing the arctic in bipack color with Donald B. MacMillan, the noted plorer. We had been up north and were on our way south again and were in Hamilton Inlet, Labrador. The Lockheed taxied a good long mile from the Htitrtltiin, the mother ship, but with dq success. We could not lift off the water. Going back to the Birtnlolt) the pilot shook his head. He knew we were going on a very dangei-ous trip over the snow covered mountains with pontoons on the plane and with but a single motor. Should we have to sit down somewhere in a deep canyon or on a snow peak, we would have to have our rations, tents, blankets, etc., so wre could try : get back afoot. Something had to be done. Gasoline we had to have, cameras and films for pictures were the purpose of the hazardous trip. We looked at each other. All looked at my extra camera equipment. To compromise I took only two silver drinking cups, my Rytol tablets, a sockful of hypo crystals and a loading bag. I changed the negative in the double magazines under several rolls of blankets and got a couple good t into the bargain regardless of the sudden bumps and bounding around. During that long flight under such terrible flying weather of snow and hail. MacMillan and I made the first motion pictures ever made of the Grand Falls of Labrador. And I might add before I close, by using the hand tests and box the entire 40,000 feet of bipack exposed was printed on a normal light. Photography of the Month (Continued from Page 169) to finish the production is filled with aerial scenes. Many of them are si ingly spectacular from both the viewpoint of pictorial effectiveness and of spectacular action. The shots of the four-motored "flying fortress" bombers flying in formation in the mock raid on Los Angeles, skirting cloud-banks and plunging through them, are outstat So, too, are the shots of the trainingplanes at Randolph Field, both straight flying and stunting against typical Dyer cumulus-cloud background. The many aerial follow-shots of airplanes taking off and landing, both singly and in squadrons, are another outstanding feature of the picture, while Dyer's work in the hedge-hopping quence plays a big part in creating the 186 April, 1 1*4 1 Amkhii w Cinema pock vi'hkr