American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

BEING an actor in professional movies can be a big asset to anyone whose hobby is amateur still or movie camerawork. Day in and day out you're working with the world's top masters of the camera — men to whom all the little tricks of composition, lighting, filtering and so on have become second nature. If you keep your eyes open, you'll learn more things of real, practical value from the things a studio cinematographer does instinctively than you can from any formal instruction. Take my own case, for example. My hobby is making stills and 16mm. movies portraits, pictorial landscapes, scenar ized vacation-films and an occasional little back-yard scenario picture. In my daily work at the studio I'm teamed up with director of photography Harry Wild, A.S.C. Harry is one of the younger generation of cinematographers, but he's a real veteran of "western" camerawork. Right now, we're doing our eleventh picture together, and before that he photographed all the "westerns" George O'Brien (himself a former assistant cameraman) made for RKO. Harry has spent a lot of time teaching me how to make better pictures — and watching him work, I've learned many little tricks that are so instinctive to him he never realizes how clever and helpful they are. For example, all of us know that one of the best ways to make an effective composition in an exterior shot is to shoot it through a natural "frame" of tree-branches. But — as most of us have also learned when making vacation stills and movies — nature doesn't always cooperate. All too often we'll find a perfectly swell shot, but no sign of a tree or shrubbery to complete the foreground composition. That happens even oftener when a professional troupe goes out on location. But with a resourceful professional like Harry at the camera, it doesn't matter much whether or not nature cooperates. If the "frame" isn't there naturally — he makes one! He always carries with him three or four tree-branches of different sizes and shapes, and when he spots a composition that needs a framing branch at top or side, he simply nails one of his branches to a wooden stand and puts it where he wants it! This same idea can be used just as well for amateur movies or stills. Your branch doesn't have to be particularly big, either. A simple, wooden stand will hold it well enough, or you can use a clamp on top of your old, second-string tripod. In a pinch, even friend wife can hold it in place long enough to let you get your shot. Another trick I've learned is using graduated filters. You can get them in several varieties — shading from clear at the bottom to a fairly heavy yellow or red at the top, or from yellow to red, and so on. They're great for use when you have people in the shot, and want to filter your sky without at the same time filtering your foreground and the My Cameraman Gave Me Professional Tips for Better Movies By TIM HOLT people's faces. Place the filter a few inches out from the lens for the best results; and then if you have a stillcamera like my Speed Graphic, or a movie camera like a Cine-Special, you can study the results on the groundglass until you've adjusted things for just the right effect. With other cameras, if you have a focusing alignment guage so you can swing the finder into the lens' photographing position, you can often do the same. And — these filters are reversable, too. If you've an overly "hot" foreground, you can balance it up nicely using a graduate with its denser portion down instead of up. After a few pictures with Harry, seeing how he used graduated filters and watching the effects on the screen, I've come to use them extensively in my own stills and movies. You can learn many practical tricks about interior lighting, watching a fellow like Harry Wild work. For example. I've found in my own portraits and 16mm. close-ups I can adapt Harry's basic lighting technique excellently. So I generally use a rather strong, 3i -front cross-light for my key light, a reasonably diffused "filler" light on the oth°r side to lighten my shadows, and a rim back-lighting to outline the shadow-side of the subject. It makes a very effective lighting — pleasantly different from either the usual flat portrait lighting or a full back-lighting — and it's convenient to work with. Another thing I've learned from watching Harry work in the studio is to set up a good basic lighting to illuminate the room or set, and do most of the work of lighting the people, and leave only two or three floor units to be moved and adjusted as you change set-ups. Harry finds that's the most < fficient way to work in the studio, where he often has to shoot 50 or 60 set-ups a day. For my part, I find it saves me time, trouble and lots of mistakes when I'm shooting pictures at home. Something else I've learned is that so long as there are accurate exposuremeters available, neither professional or amateur can ever know enough to guess at exposure. Harry is good — no mistake about that! — and he can "read" light and exposure by eye with incredible accuracy. But at every change of set-up, in the studio or out on location, I notice that the last minute before (Continued on Page 400) American Cinematographer August, 11)41 381