American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1942)

Spadework and spraying are important — to ttie garden and to the picture! Filming Your "Victory Garden'' Bv WILLIAM F. KRUSE THOUSANDS of amateur moviemakers employ their No. 1 hobby to keep a permanent record of the joys of their other pastimes. Hunters become wildlife photographers, yachtsmen go in for marines — and then they and their kind give advertising managers good reason to write a whole series of camera ads around the theme of "Movie Making Opportunity No. 1492," showing lovely ladies and other hobby highlights, as lure for more and better film exposures. Other movie-makers use their hobby in the service of their jobs, — engineers, doctors, teachers, explorers, and many more. Maybe it should cloud their strictly amateur standing, in the manner of de-emphasized collegiate football amateurs— but not always is their photography good enough to warrant such a ruling. Maybe the whole amateur idea is a dodo, anyway, and everybody should be judged by the quality of his work, whether or no he collects his reward in pay-checks, expense vouchers or pretty ribbons! Some of these semi-pro amateurs are really (jood cameramen, and good at telling a story with film, too, because they really know their story, and they know why it needs telling. A case in point is James H. Burdett, his avocation — movie-maker. That should always come first. His vocation for many years has been to direct the work of the National Garden Bureau, which is dedicated to the noble aim of making ten useful plants grow where only one halfhearted seed sprouted last year. And his avocation has always tied in beautifully with his job which, maybe, makes him a semi-amateur. But not his films. Nothing "semi" about those lovely Kodachromes of flowers and vegetables, and their human worshippers! The pictures are really good. Came the war. Vocation, avocation. all had to be tied into the national need, by friend Burdett as by all other Americans. To his other jobs he had added the editorship of a daily garden column in Chicago's brand-new "Daily Sun," a fine column, by no means the least of the fine features of a fine new journal. And of course the column soon beat the tomtoms for Victory Gardens, and lots of them. Burdett and some of his neighbors had been gardening for victory for many a year. It's the kind of people they are. And they had been making motion pictures of the process, interesting, human, beautiful films, that showed every step in the process of making a good garden grow good vegetables and flowers. They had taken their movie-making no less seriously than their gardening. Each shot was a story-telling picture. Composition was good, exposure likewise, and lighting sometimes something to write home about. The accompanying pictures tell why, to some extent. "Flat lighting only for Kodachrome" may be a good rule for average amateurs, but not for crack photographers with a message! Anyway there is no rule against reflectors, even in Hollywood. So Burdett used reflectors — to light up a pretty gardener's latest crop of sunburn into colortemperature harmony with her first crop of tomatoes. Or something. Conversely, too, where there was too much color, too many centers of interest, he introduced the complementary-colored neutral background. In plain language, he was ruthless enough to make a pretty model block herself out of a picture intended to emphasize the mere flowers she had just picked, by holding a background cloth that gives a pleasant colorcontrast. Such determination is the mark of a real photographer. Most cameramen I know would have blocked out the flowers! Note use of reflector in making closer shots. Below: Kodachrome climax — the harvest of colorful flowers and equally colorful vegetables. All kidding aside, this is an important, well-made film. And timely! In days of old, when wars were fought by professional armies and the rest of the nation tried to follow the line of "business as usual," one of the greatest generals said bluntly that "an army travels on its stomach." Nowadays, wars involve whole peoples, and the national breadbasket looms equal in importance to the munitions chest. To be sure, it takes more than food to win a war, but it is equally certain that any nation that (Continued on Pag3 224) American Cinematographer May, 1942 215