American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1942)

reducing 16 to 8, to say nothing of duping 16 to 16 or 8 to 8, or making a black-and-white dupe of a scene photographed in color. To make titles with a moving background by this method, the first step is of course to select the background-shot that fits your need. Then you make your title by double-exposure. Use white letters on a dull-surfaced black card, or better, black velvet, for your first exposui'e. After photographing the lettering, rewind your film to the startingpoint, which of course has been previously marked. If your camera has a wind-back on it, of course you can do it in the camera, with the lens capped. If you haven't a wind-back, you can do it in a darkroom or changing-bag. Either way, the next step is to photograph your background, as already described, by back-pi-ojection. You can fade titles and background in and out with either a diaphragm fade or a fading-glass: and if you have an accurate mechanical wipe there's no reason why you couldn't make the title wipe in and out with the preceeding and following scenes. For that matter, if you •have such a wipe, you could make scenes already photographed and processed wipe in and out by this method. If you have a light-toned backgroundscene, you can get dark letters against this light background by simply putting cut-out letters on a sheet of glass placed in front of your screen. This way, you'll get the moving-background title at one take. If you're skillful in lighting, you might be able to improve the whiteness and clarity of white-lettered titles doubleexposed against a dark background by an extension of the same trick. Use white cut-out letters on a pane of glass in the titler, directly in front of a black background, and lit so that there's no reflection from the glass itself. Then — still keeping the glass with the cut-out letters in the identical position in the titler — rewind, and make your second exposure with no front-light, and only the pi'ojected image on the screen. The cutout letters, remaining in the same position for the second take that they occupied in the first one, and being silhouetted against the screen, will serve as masks, and give an absolutely clear letter in your double-exposed title. Duping 16mm. to 16mm., 8mm. to 8mm., or reducing or enlarging one to the other is simply a matter of straightforward projection and rephotographing, using, if you're enlarging or reducing, a camera of the proper size for the rephotographing. We've had surprisingly good luck "blowing up" 8mm. Kodachrome to 16mm. Kodachrome, in some instances — as in a recent experiment with some of the hula-dancing sequences Junior Past President Midge Caldwell brought home from Hawaii — adding sound to what was originally a silent 8mm. color-film. You'll get the best results in enlarging 8 to 16 if you use color, by the way, for in black-and-white there's quite a possibility that your en larged projection-dupe will be a bit grainy. If you want to enlarge only a portion of the scene, making a long-shot into a closer angle, there are in theory two possible methods. You could bring the camera closer to the screen, so that its field only covers a portion of the projected picture, or you can move the projector closer to the screen while the camera remains stationary, and only that portion of the scene you want enlarged is embraced in the camera's field. This latter method is by far the best, for if you keep the size of the projected picture constant and move the camera in to cover only a small part of it, you'll also enlarge the image of the textui'e of the tracing-paper screen, which will produce a grainy effect. If you mount the projector on a sliding carriage such as many filmers use to mount the camera for making "zoom" titles, you can, with a bit of practice, "dolly" a projected long-shot into a closer angle by sliding the projector in toward the screen, while you (or an assistant) "follow focus" with the projector's lens so that the projected image is constantly in focus. This requires plenty of rehearsal, and nice coordination, but the effect can be very useful, especially in scenario films. To reverse action by this method of projection, all you have to do is run the projector backwards while you rephotograph them with the camera runningforwards in the usual way. In this, it's a good idea to remember that with some projectors you'll have to readjust the speed, as many of them operate slower in reverse than when going forward. To make a scene longer, you've got two possible methods, always presupposing that the action of the scene is such that there won't be a jump if you cut from the end back to the beginning for a footage-stretching repeat. If the original scene is comparatively shoi't, you'll have to shoot its full length, then stop camera and projector while you rewind the projected film to the start of the scene, and shoot again. With this method, unless your camera is one of those that automatically stops with the shutter closed, you'll probably find fogged frames between each take in your dupe, which of course you'll have to cut out. If, on the other hand, your scene is long enough, you can splice the ends together, making a continuous loop which can run through the projector continuously until you've gotten the desired footage in your copy. This idea of back-projection can be used to represent the screen in a theatre, as we did in the Long Beach Cinema Club when filming our production, "Judge Doolittle." The scenario called for a theatre scene showing the proscenium arch and the screen, with a picture being projected on it. The proscenium arch (in miniature) was painted on cardboard and i)laced in the titler. The screen area was cut out, and a backprojection screen of tracing-paper put in its place. A small lamp was used to light the proscenium and the scenes were back-projected as already described. These scenes of the theatre-screen were cut into the film with reverse-angle shots of the audience apparently looking at the screen, and the result was not only thoroughly convincing, but much better than if we had tried to photograph scenes projected on the screen of a real theatre. All told, even though you've got to admit that we amateurs still can't do a lot of the back-projection and optical printer tricks the professionals use, there are certainly plenty that we can do by this back-projection method — tricks that will add a great deal to our home movies and the pleasure of making them! END. Indians Had a Word (Continued from Page 351) "mean" temperature. We never brought the cameras into a heated room. They would then immediately have fogged between the lenses, and it might have been weeks before they were clear again. We kept the film outside because warm film loaded into a cold camera — or vice versa — usually produces static marks. Static marks in Kodachrome are flaring color, like forked lightning, flashing in all directions across the frames. Extreme cold weather makes film brittle, too. I've seen Kodachrome break off like wafers in the cameraman's fingers when he threaded the Cine-Special on a fifty below zero day. Indeed, whenever the temperature was lower than thirty-five below, he had to be particularly careful loading the magazines. Apparently care is the only precaution or remedy — zero weather is beyond human control, even that of a cameraman! A doctor gave us his diagnosis of other film troubles likely to arise in the Arctic. He'd been stationed on Baffin Island, within the Arctic circle, and had used an 8mm. moving picture camera there. Baffin Island's direct communication with the outside world happened once a year, when the S. S^. Nascopie arrived. Only then could the doctor send out his film for processing. When he leceived his first year's shooting back the following year, his expression must momentarily have been as blank as much of his film permanently was. Either by standing in the cold, or in the cold and then the heat, or both, the emulsion had been ruined. We heeded the good doctor's diagnosis and kept our exposed stock in one temperature as much as possible. Only when we knew it would be subject to temperature changes — as when it had to be shipped out on the weekly train— did we bring it progressively into warmer places: from outside shed to unheated room to heated room furthest away from stove, and finally into our living-room's alleged warmth. For interior work we kei)t one camera— a Filmo 70 — at room temperature. Whenever we moved it from our lodgings to any location, we swaddled it like 372 August, 1942 American Cinematographer