American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1934)

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July 1934 • American Cinematographer 109 The Part of the Painter by Oliver T. Marsh, A. S. C. A set from "Rip Tide." Note marble walls and stencilled parquet floor. THE most successful motion picture Scenic Artist must not only work in close co-operation with the Cinematographer, but he must have an accurate and extensive knowledge of photography as it affects his work. He must know very accurately the photographic values of color — of different pigments and different materials. The chemical composition of different pigments of the same visual color may often produce vastly different photographic effects, due to different degrees of light-absorption. Similarly, identical pigments opplied to different materials, such as wood, cotton, silk, wool, velvet, plush, compoboard, or foliage, may produce entirely different photographic results. These facts, and many similar ones, must be at the finger-tips of the successful Scenic Artist. Virtually every type of material and paint is used in motion picture work, for he is at one time or another called upon to duplicate every conceivable type of structure. In doing this, he has to apply virtually every type of paint known — including standard oil paints, water-colors and kalsomines, enamels, gold and silver leaf, stains, varnishes, lacquers and plaster-stains — to virtually every conceivable surface: wood, metal, wall-board, plaster and cloth. Moreover, he is as a rule working against time, necessitating the use of the fastest-drying paints possible, often with artificially-accelerated drying. At times, on rush orders, he has had to have a set painted, dried and ready for use within half an hour — and he rarely has more than three hours to allow for drying. The use of quick-drying lacquers, with spray-guns and electric fans and heaters is a great help in this. A vitally important factor in the operation of the Scenic Pointing Department is the fact that all of the stages at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio are supplied with gas, water, electricity and compressed-air lines. With the coming of sound-films, the technique of setconstruction in many studios had to undergo an abrupt change, and the technique of the Scenic Painter had to change with it. Since the early days of crudely-painted canvas drops, motion picture sets hod in most instances teen constructed out of hard materials — usually wood or piaster — treated in much the same way as the rooms they were made to represent. This construction, however, proved unsuited to sound, as the solid walls reflected the sound-waves, giving rise to reverberation and bad sound. Therefore, in many instances, a change was made to acoustically porous construction. At MGM, however, we were fortunate in that we had for some years been using soft sets, which we had found to be highly advantageous from every viewpoint; the construction remains virtually unchanged. With the exception of the relatively few sets representing wood-panelled walls (for which we use grained veneer panels) we use cloth construction over wooden frames. As a rule, the cloth is muslin, stretched tightly over rigid wooden frames. This construction is light and inexpensive, and makes it possible to move the sets around the studio without fear of breakage, cracks, etc., as the construction is resilient. The sound-waves pass directly through the cloth, making the sets so built acoustically ideal. With this construction, we found ourselves faced with the problem of duplicating wallpapers, etc., without sacrificing the desirable qualities of the soft set-construction. Covering the muslin walls with actual wallpaper would not be practical from any viewpoint: accordingly, in place of the plain, unbleached muslin, we use printed fabrics such as calico, chintz, gingham, and the like, sewing the sections together so that the patterns are joined, as they would be in wallpaper, and stretching the fabric over the set-frames in the usual manner. In some spectacular pictures, such as "Rasputin," we utilized expensive brocaded silks, etc., for this same purpose: although the actual cost per yard of these materials is high, we found that — especially since the bolts of such stuffs are unusually wide — the actual cost per foot of such treatment made it the most inexpensive possible method of producing the desired effects. Many sets require marble panels in either the walls or flooring: the cost of real marble would be prohibitive, as would the problem of shaping it to the requirements of the set, and many other problems of a kindred nature. Many years ago, Ernest Tate, head of the MGM Paint Department, originated the use of "morbleized" paper for this Continued on Page 116