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July 1934 • American Cinematographer 111
A shipboard scene made on the process-stage; the water, hills and sky background being supplied by the process screen.
made, original background, we find that out of 546 process shots made for normal productions, 310 backgrounds came, ready-made, from the library, and only 236 had to be specially made. Many productions required the making of no special backgrounds whatever; the special air story mentioned, for instance, used 72 process shots, and required but seven new backgrounds; the remaining 65 were found in the Deportment's library.
But just how do such shots aid in production economies? It is of course obvious that in films which, like "King Kong" or "Alice in Wonderland," depend for their making upon trick photography, they are invaluable, and that in many types of aerial and thrill stories they enable the making of scenes which would otherwise be impractical, or even dangerous. Photographic technicians will also appreciate that such scenes as moonlit night-effects, made with filters, are most satisfactorily handled by this method. Scenes in moving trains, buses, taxicobs, and the like benefit from the use of projected background shots, as they would in actuality be very difficult to photograph well, and would present almost impossible conditions for soundrecording. Scenes which require the principal players to appear in foreign lands naturally demand process shots if they ore to be made economically. But there are many scenes and sequences which could well be made in the normal manner, yet which are made on the process stage: why is this done?
Either because, by using the background-projection process, the scene can be made more effectively, or because it can be done more economically. Very often, both
factors enter the problem. For example, a recently produced film contained a sequence played on a lakeside, with the characters canoeing. It would be entirely possible to transport the entire company to a suitable lakeside, and film the sequence in the normal manner. But too many economically hazardous factors entered into the problem: the sequence was long enough to require at least a normal day's shooting on the location, with more than two and a half pages of important dialog to be recorded; such a location is always at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather — light and atmospheric conditions hamper the cinematographer, while wind, water-noises, etc. hamper the sound engineer. These factors in themselves might very conceivably so hamper the company as to stretch the single day's work into two days, or even more. There is also the important item of transportation, wasted travellingtime, and very likely of housing the company over one or more nights. At the very least estimate, it would require an unusually long and full day's work to film the sequence on the actual location — and it would be a tedious day's work, starting very early in the morning, and lasting till late at night. It might even prove cheaper to move the company to the location the evening previous, having them spend the night (and possibly the following one) ot some hotel, in order to gain more actual working time on tho location.
Filmed in the studio, by the projected background proContinued on Page 118