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.
IMPROVEMENTS IN MOTION PICTURE FILM 95
resulted. Now, with the new film, while absolute perfection has not been reached, perhaps never will be, the improvement in color and tonal rendition is improved to a marked degree and cinematography has benefited thereby.
Blues no longer reach the screen as muddy whites; nor do reds and greens photograph between a dark gray and a black. Intermediate colors reproduce in a respectable range of half-tones. With the new fast film the camera can now see objects as do the cameramen's eyes. When the Art department hands the cameraman a set to photograph the cameraman knows that he can place that set on the screen with its tonal qualities practically intact, though in monochrome. The time and ingenuity of the cinematographer is no longer spent in effort to prevent the distortion of the tonal contrasts achieved by the art directors and costumers. The new film takes care of that.
However, to secure these advantages of tonal quality and color separation the cinematographer must make sure that they are first in the set and that the sets are then lighted in a manner that will enhance these tonal contrasts. Some cinematographers when first trying out the new film overlooked the importance of these details and were naturally disappointed with their results. Too many cinematographers confuse the improved speed with exaggerated contrast — a serious mistake. The aim of the cinematographer should be for natural tonal contrast with an artistic softness — and this softness cannot be attained with flat lighting. Soft lighting should be used — but it should be normally balanced, sacrificing none of the tonal and physical contrasts which the cameraman wishes to preserve. As a rule the cameraman should take pains to enhance the contrasts he wishes to preserve, trusting to the new film not only for better color separation but for desired softness as well.
As no two cinematographers work in exactly the same manner, the less said about lighting the better. However, one bit of excellent advice is to always remember that just because the new film is forty or fifty per cent faster than the old is no reason the cameraman should be deluded into altering the balance of his light.
Mr. Marsh adds some excellent advice in that line when he says: "If you can make a forty per cent decrease in the total amount of current consumed on your set, well and good; you can save a lot of money that way. But if you try to make this reduction in light at the expense of your natural balance, it will seriously affect the quality of the picture. Don't be deluded into trying to make this reduction in the number of units you use, for you must have a certain number of light sources to preserve the balance of your lighting. Use smaller globes in your present equipment and arrange things as you always have. In that way you will be able to secure all the advantages of the new film without running the risk of the inevitable disappointments which attend its unintelligent use. You will find that the tonal quality, color separation and general gradation of your picture will