American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

using a telcphoto, whereas the natural depth of field in a short focal length lens would embrace the subject. When using your telephoto lenses always measure your distances to the subject unless you are filming distant objects or using small apertures. Do not estimate these distances as you may miscalculate and get an unsatisfactory result. If you can't measure the distance with a tape-measure, use a rangefinder! It is well to memorize the angle of acceptance of each lens you use, because exposure meters have various field angles, depending upon the model you are using. As an example, you would get an incorrect reading on a meter which is registering light from an angle of 60 degrees from the camera, for example, and filming with a lens having an angle of acceptance of only 20 degrees. In this case, the meter is registering three times the amount of light that is penetrating the camera lens, and would result in underexposure. When using a combination such as this, take the reading about two-thirds the distance to your subject. END. 16mm. Commercials (Continued from Page 433) Wifey wasn't too much of a photographic success in that cute little colorful outfit she had bought specially for the occasion. She was outclassed by the scenery and you didn't know she was in the picture unless she moved; which she seldom did. But then somebody would yell, "There's Helen" and the others would chorus politely, "Oh yes. Isn't she cute." But by that time Helen would be replaced on the beaded surface by a sunset or something. It was funny about Helen. She would just stand and grin at the lens. She never wanted to move when she was having her picture taken. Our patient thought it was a throwback to the old still picture days when she would always move and blur the picture. All the time this preview was going on our patient was listening to the Oh's and the Ah's, the generous praise of the audience he would afterwards feed. Their happy laughter and their genuine delight acted upon him like a heady wine. These people appreciated him. They appreciated this work that he did in his spare time because he liked, nay loved to do it. Their praise, their enthusiasm acted on him like an insidious drug. It stiffened his resolve. Why not? In the crowd that he and his wife went around in there were always others to carry off the honors in tennis or badminton or any of the other mild relaxations they indulged in. He never shone. He didn't even dance well, Helen told him. But when it came to home movies though, he was the only one to shine. In that field he had no competition. Standing beside his projector in his darkened living-room, with the enthusiastic praise of his friends mingling with the reflected glow from the screen our patient became a new man. Really he became "the patient." After the showing, when the lights had been turned on again, the conversation continued around the movies that had just been shown; and the idea that had been germinating in our patient's brain began to take form. "Do you really like them?" he asks earnestly. They pause to swallow the current mouthful of cake. "Like them ? Why they're marvellous." They reply in a burst of confidence. "I think they're just too darling" sums up a girl friend of Helen's who, to everyone's disgust, affects a southern accent. AUTOMATIC DEVELOPING MACHINE COMPLETE IN EVERY DETAIL Immediate Delivery HOLLYWOOD USERS CAN ATTEST MACHINE'S SUPERIORITY USERS ALL OVER THE WORLD CAN RECOMMEND THIS DEVELOPING MACHINE THIS PRACTICAL MACHINE CAN BE USED IN ANY CLIMATE • SENSITESTER — For Light Tests and Sensitometric Strips © SOUND RECORDING SYSTEMS ART REEVES MOTION PICTURE EQUIPMENT Studio and Laboratory Tested Since 1920 Cable address: AHTREEVES 1515 Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood, California, U. S. A. "And that color was just gorgeous," someone says. They all agree and the significance of the photography of "Gone With The Wind" pales. Our hero, remembering that that epic cost around 3 million and that his two rolls of Kodachrome had cost him 16 bucks, plus tax, decided then and there that a hell of a lot of money was being wasted in the motion picture business. His mind went back to the movies he had seen from time to time at the luncheon-club to which he belonged. Dull, uninteresting things most of them, of trips through this factory or that bottling works. But people got paid for making them! Actually got paid, by the people whose factory or bottling works he saw pictured, for shooting a camera. A delightful, shiny camera. And it wasn't as good as his stuff. His friends said so. Some people have all the luck. Then he thought of the job he had been going to steadily day after day, year after year. He had always liked it; but now it seemed to pall. How had he stood it? Auditor! Auditor indeed! He wasn't cut out for such work. He wag an artist. Hadn't he proof of it? Hadn't he seen people held spellbound by the beauty of his pictures ? Heard them laugh at the humor that, he admitted to himself, hadn't always been intentional but which some inner genius, he reasoned, must have guided him to take? Hadn't he seen them respond to his human-interest bits of his children and the neighbor's dog? Let others win approval at bridge or crossword puzzles! Movies were his work! Thank God he had found himself in time! He was still a young man. But there's no time to lose. He wouldn't waste his time trying to get into the Hollywood studios . . . yet. He was too smart. Too much nepotism there. He'd heard all about it from people who knew. You had to be related to somebody. But he'd force them to recognize him. He'd form his own company. But did he really need a company? He could do all the work himself. It would be easy to sell people on the idea of making a movie of their factory or whatever they had. Then he'd shoot it and splice the scenes together. Sound ? He'd heard that there were people to do that sort of thing for him. And he had all the equipment. Well, anyway, he had a camera. Why, all he needed was a name. A name and some letterheads to put it on. Let's see, a name . . . hmmm . . . Ah, Apex! That would do. Apex motion picture company. Our hero, president. He'd need some cards, too. Those he could order on his way to work in the morning. But he wasn't going to work in the morning. He would have to stop in though and tell the old man that he was through; that he had found himself in time to prevent being a wage slave. A wage slave for the rest of his life! But we have carried our factual fancy too far already. Even as a narrative I cannot carry on the story farther without bursting into tears as tht. story de ! is September, l'.tll American Cinematogkaphek