American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

PLAIN WALL \ / / *'' ■'' -• 1 '.'\ I ,-' "/ i * '/ PAINTED GLASS t \ \ \ / / / CLEAR GLASS \ / BACK WALL PLAIN WALL / FRONT SURFACE MIRROR vR GLASS SMALL MINIATURE HUNG ON FRAME A CAMERA \ / J§L CAMERA B C BACKGROUND PHOTO MINIATURE OR PAINTIN< CAMERA Camera Tricks That Build Production Value" B> MACK STENCLER, A.S.C. EVERY director of photography gets plenty of letters from 16mm. and 8mm. cinefilmers asking, in substance, "How can I, with my homemovie camera, get such-and-such an effect I saw in your last picture?" When these questions are about such things as filtering, lighting, composition, diffusion, and so on, we're glad to come through with the answer; most of us use sixteens or eights ourselves, and are glad to pass along anything that can honestly be applied to the betterment of substandard filming. But every now and then these letters ask us about effects that can't very well be obtained with substandard equipment. Usually they're effects that have been secured by either optical printing or the projected-background process. And both of these are for all practical purposes out of reach for the average amateur. True, you can build an optical printer for 16mm. or 8mm. use — but building it is a real job of precision cinemechanics if you want a printer that will do the things you desire and be accurate enough so it won't give your trick away. In the same way, you can make back-projection shots with substandard cameras: but doing it on anything much bigger than title backgrounds calls for interlocked synchronous electric-motor drives for camera and projector plus a lot more projector il lumination than is found in most substandard projectors today. There are, however, some cameratricks which can be adapted to 16mm. and 8mm. use, which will help add "production value" to your scenario films and maybe eliminate some of your setbuilding troubles. I won't insult you by saying they're simple. They aren't. They call for real precision in cameraoperation, and some construction that isn't exactly easy. But the point is — they can be done with some of the better 16mm. and 8mm. equipment now available, if you're willing to work patiently and painstakingly. They are processes which have been more or less extensively used in 35mm. professional work in the past, but which have to a great extent been crowded out by the newer and handier methods of optical printing and back-projection. Let's have it understood from the start that they all require a camera which can let you focus the full-frame image on a ground-glass focusing screen. The 16mm. Cine-Special is ideal for it; the various magazine 16mm. and 8mm. cameras, with the groundglass focusing attachments with which they can be fitted, can also be used, as can, I believe, the Filmo turret 8 with its full-frame focusing arrangement. It is just possible, too, that some other cameras, not titled with ground-glass through-the-lens focusing, but with real i ly accurate finders which, by means of a focusing alignment guage, can b swung into the exact position occupied by the lens in filming, might be usable, too. That's just a possibility; I wouldn't guarantee it. The first and probably the oldest and most familiar of these tricks is the "glass shot." In it, a good-sized pane of glass is placed in front of the lens. On it is painted whatever you may want to add to your scene — say a ceiling in an interior shot, or a background of sky, clouds, mountains, city skyline, or the like, in an exterior. The actual scene and live action are filmed through unpainted areas on the glass. The important point is this: the glass painting must be matched, looking through the lens, to whatever actual set or scene is to be photographed, so that the two blend smoothly into one. And of course the live action of the scene must be so directed that it keeps strictly within the bounds of the unpainted part of the glass. Otherwise, as your actor stepped "out of bounds" and crossed the matte-painting line, part of him would suddenly — and for no apparent reason on the screen — vanish. Another vitally important thing is that camera and matte-painting shouldn't be moved between the time the painting is made and the time the shot is photographed. If either moves even the smallest fraction of an inch, they're not likely to match up properly when the scene is made. Back in the old days when we used this process in the studios, it was a common sight to see a tripod carefully anchored to the si floor by tie-down chains, etc., in its proper position behind a glass, with signs all around saying "Do Not Touch!" When the camera was placed on the tripod, it would be perfectly aligned for the shot. While these glass shots are generally (Continued on Page 401) 380 August, I '.Ml American Cinematographer