American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

for that filter. The same thing works, too, for camera-speeds: you divide by the number of times above normal, or multiply by the number of times below normal — and your exposures come out right on the dot! There's another exposure-compensating trick a professional like Harry uses that can solve a serious problem for amateurs. Did you ever try to make a panning shot where your actors walked from the shade into bright sunlight, or the reverse ? If you have, you know that if you set your exposure for the sunlit end, the shaded part will be badly underexposed, while if your exposure is right for the shadowed part, the sunlit end of the move will be badly "burned up." A professional simply "follows focus" on his exposure, by increasing or decreasing the shutter-opening to give him more or less exposure, as may be needed. You can do that with a CineSpecial and some few other cine-cameras that have adjustable shutters. With others, like my Bell & Howell 70-D, you can get much the same effect by opening or closing the lens' diaphragm — closing it as the subject walks into the sunlight, or opening it as he moves into the shade. You can't do it if you insist on holding the camera in your hand, but if you use a tripod you'll find it can be done easily and accurately after a little practice. Theoretically, changing the stop during a shot should make some difference in depth and definition, but in practice, with the shortfocus lenses used on 16mm. and 8mm. cameras, this isn't so important — any way, it isn't nearly as noticeable as a blacked-out underexposure or a washedout overexposure ! All told, any actor who makes a hobby of photography can pick up a lot of practical pointers if he'll only keep his eyes open while his director of photography is arranging the next set-up. And cinematographers being the grand fellows they are, it can develop into a friendly rivalry that's lots of fun. Harry, for example, ruthlessly criticizes my favorite prints, and finds faults with all my pet 16mm. shots — and for my part of the game, I keep my eyes open to see if I can find fault with the way he's lighting me and my fellow-players. Once in a while I catch him, but taken as a whole the advantage is all with him, for after all, he's a seasoned professional while I'm still a photographicamateur. But we have lots of fun at it, anyway! END. Camera Tricks (Continued from Page 380) used to put something in at the top of the frame, it doesn't by any means follow that that's the only way they can be used. Obviously, if your real scene and the painting are carefully blended, you can use the painting to add, say, a gully in the foreground, or something at one side of the frame or the other. Sometimes you can use photographs instead of paintings for such shots. A.S.C. President Fred Jackman still has a reel of tests he made with the process about twenty-five years ago, when he did just that. One of his associates at the old Sennett studio had been around the world, and sent back a lot of picture postcards of various famous scenic spots. Fred simply took a couple of the famed Sennett Bathing Beauties and stood them up in front of a stucco fence a bit taller than the girls were. Then by very carefully using the glass-shot technique with the postcards, placed in front of his lens, he successively placed the Acropolis, the Taj Mahal, Mt. Everest, the pyramids, and several similar scenes in the background, showing up quite naturally above the top of the fence ! A three-dimensional development of this idea is still used now and then today. It is called the "front miniature." The basic principle is much the same as that of the glass shot, except that a three-dimensional miniature of the desired addition to the scene is placed in front of the lens instead of a painting. Like the glass-shot painting, this miniature must be very precisely coordinated in design and perspective with the actual part of the scene. Since it is much closer to the lens than the real set, it can of course be made comparatively small. Sometimes, once you know how to manage the design and construction of such miniatures, you can use what the artists call "forced perspective" — that is, have the part of the miniature closest to the lens built to a slightly larger scale than the more distant part. This, if properly coordinated, can add a surprising illusion of depth. Of course the lighting of the miniature must be carefully matched to that of the real part of the scene. Otherwise — to cite an obviously extreme example — you might get a shot in which the sun shone from the left on the lower half of the scene, and from the right in the upper part! Ten or fifteen years ago an ingenious European cinematographer devised a process which, while a modification of the two methods just outlined, had vastly greater possibilities. This was the Schuefftan process, named after its inventor, cinematographer Eugen Schuefftan. Unfortunately, it has never been used to any extent in this country, as it appeared just as other and more flexible processes such as the Dunning Process and the projected background process came into use. It is distinctly intricate, but it offers possibilities that could certainly be put to good use by the painstaking filmer of amateur scenario films. I'd hate to recommend it unreservedly to commercial 16mm. Aimers, for while it is workable, I'm not at all sure how it stands as a presumably patented system. In a nutshell, here's how it works. The actors work in front of a small set — just big enough to furnish the minimum essential background for their ac tual movements. This set is placed as usual, directly in front of the camera. Also in front of the camera, and comparatively close to the lens, is placed a reflecting surface — a partially-silvered mirror or an intricate system of prisms — with the reflecting surface at a 45degree angle to the lens' axis. At right angles to the camera's main lens-axis, and at the proper distance, is a painting, a photograph or a miniature set, the reflected image of which, blended with the small actual set, completes the scene. In its simplest form, this system can make use of a front-surface mirror; 8Enlarqed I /C TO lO Reduced TO 8 Geo. W. Colburn Laboratory Special Motion Picture Printing 1197 MERCHANDISE MART CHICAGO S$F on SOUND PROJECTORS ~]lu> Hiuf of) a /Ifretiww! 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