We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Making Miniatures
by DON JAHRAUS
Head of Miniature Department, RKO Studios.
• %.
MINIATURES have a twofold purpose in motion picture production. They are used primarily to accomplish certain action which would be impossible or impractical in actuality. They are also used to establish backgrounds, and to provide settings which would otherwise be too elaborate for normal reproduction. In neither case are they intended, as some laymen mistakenly claim, to fool or defraud the public. On the contrary, they are intended to benefit the public by giving them better, more convincing pictures at lower cost in money and frequently in human life. Miniatures, in fact, are quite as legitimate a part of production as are fullscale sets.
The making of these miniature sets has become a highly specialized art. It is usually carried on by a separate and entirely self-contained department, the head of which works in extremely close contact with the supervising artdirector of the studio and with the special photography or trick-camera department whose personnel do the work of photographing the completed miniature sets. Miniature making demands a unique combination of technical and artistic attainments. Success depends upon a happy combination of photographic, artistic, and mechanical effects, and since all of these factors enter into the desgn of every miniature, the miniature technician must have an intensive
An excellent example of a modern miniature — hills, streams, train — believe it or not.
first-hand understanding of ail three. He must be sufficiently an artist to make his miniatures harmonize with the full-scale settings of the picture, sufficiently a photographer to be able to design his miniatures for the camera, and sufficiently an engineer to be able to design efficient, workable miniature properties.
Each individual miniature setting is a separate problem.
There can be no blanket rules laid down for their construction. Even the size and scale must vary: one cannot merely say, "all miniatures should be made to such and such a scale". Instead, size and scale must be determined individually, to give the exact effect desired together with the most workable size. Cost is by no means relative to size; in fact, larger sizes will prove more economical as a rule„ since they are more efficientlyconstructed. Incidentally, they give the cameraman more latitude in photography, which is a very important factor. The designer must, in determining the scale and size used, consider the optical possibilities of the equipment used, particularly lens-angles and depth of focus, which latter becomes especially important in such short-range work.
In the execution of the design, exactness of detail is of vital importance, especially in the foreground, or in prominent elements of the setting elsewhere. This unusual detail is re
Another example of what is done in the Miniature Department.