American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1942)

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A good director will accomplish this, knowingly or subconsciously, depending on his experience. A "running reel" (mentioned in the first installment of this series) is a sure check on story pacing. The director will try and get one together as soon as possible, shooting the story sketches, and whatever working layouts the layoutman has had time so far to develop. The sketches and layouts are shot to the lengths indicated in the director's timing, and dialog and sound-effects tracks are organized to sync with the picture. This reel represents the full screen timing of the picture. Then, as the animation develops, it is cut into the picture reel in place of the story sketches and still layouts, and so, piece by piece, the completed picture is built. If the picture is a "musical," a piano or organ track is recorded at an early stage of production preparation, to set the musical tempo of the picture, and to establish footages. But where there isn't any predetermined music to set tempos, the director has arbitrarily to choose the musical beats. The choice of a musical tempo to fit the action depends on the character of the action — slow, fast, or indifferent. A table of standardized musical beats has been established for cartoon work, based on the relation of the frequency of the beats to the speed that film travels through the projector (24 frames per second). Thus, an "8 beat" means one beat every eight frames of film, a "12 beat," every twelve frames, and so on. Most action can be laid out on musical beats ranging from a 6-beat, for very fast action, up through a 16-beat. Any of the intermediary beats — 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 — can be doubled or tripled to fit very slow action. For example, a slow sneak action is timed with the main accents every 32 frames. Thusly, each measure of music will be 32 frames long. Where the choice of a beat is purely arbitrary, and not governed particularly by any set action, a "free beat" is chosen. This is usually either patterned at two 12-frame, or two 16-frame beats to each musical measure. Any combinations of either of these beats will fit most any action, slow or fast. 2-12's can become 4-6's, for fast stuff, or 4-12's, for slow actions. Free beat is most generally used in the second type of cartoon de CAMERA SUPPLY COMPANY HOLLYWOOD ART REEVES 1515 Norfh Cahuonga Boulevard Cable Address — Cameras CALIFORNIA Efficient-Courteous Service New and Used Equipment Bought — Sold — Rented Everything Photographic Professional and Amateur scribed above, in which the action is set first, then the music. The standard of measurement in cartoons is film footage. More specifically, time in cartoons is not measured in seconds or minutes, but in terms of the amount of film that passes through the projector at the standard rate of 24 frames per second; 90 feet a minute. For example, directors think of timing an action according to film footage, and not in seconds. An action that takes six seconds to pantomime, will be indicated as a "nine foot" action, as it takes nine feet of film six seconds to be projected. In accordance with this, metronomes and stop-watches are marked off in film footage. The timing of a picture is plotted on paper in the form of bar work sheets, which are ruled off into squares to indicate beats and bars, or measures of music. The length of each measure is marked according to the musical tempo. A record of every technical detail concerning the timing and footage of a picture is kept on these bar sheets. Scene cuts are indicated at the proper places. Dialog and sound-effects tracks are indicated; each 'take' carefully marked down as to its starting and stopping point in relation to the measures. Everything is accurately spotted exactly where it will occur in the course of a picture's footage. The bar sheets are the director's bible; a master-record of the picture's progress. Making out bar sheets generally involves a lot of detail and figure-work, and this job, along with a lot of the other more non-creative tasks concerned with directing, is taken over by the assistant director. He is a humble, earnest individual, somewhat in the same position as a second lieutenant in the army; recipient of all the grief jobs, and none of the glory. He is the trouble-shooter for the director's unit, and must know all the answers for everything concerned with the picture's progress through production. He is in a natural position to be a fallguy, and is quite apt to be blamed for anything that might go wrong that can't be hung on someone else, no matter how far-removed the trouble might be from his own particular sphere of influence. But it really isn't as bad as it all sounds. The assistant director's job is one of great responsibility. He has to coordinate all the many changes that constantly occur during production and see that they're carried out. One of his duties is to see to the recording of sound-effects; all the pops, squeaks, groans, rattles, crashes, gongs, etc., etc., in the picture. Sound-effects play an important part in the humor of a cartoon, particular emphasis being placed on getting sounds that are caricatures of the real thing as much as is the exaggerated action. Most of the sound-effects are single sounds, but some of them follow a pattern of action, and must be recorded at the same tempo of the action. Since the 234 May, 1942 American Cinematookapher L