The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

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July 1956 CINE TECHNICIAN 103 Dynamic Frame Technique (continued) "The advent of the wide screen," he said, "marks one further stage of enormous progress in the development of montage, which once more will have to undergo a critical review of its laws; laws mightily affected by the change of absolute screen dimension, making impossible or unsuitable quite a number of the montage processes of the days of the olden screen, but on the other hand, providing us with such a gigantic new agent of impression as the rhythmic assemblage of varied screen shapes, the attack upon our perceptive field of the affective impulses associated with the geometric and dimensional variation of the successive various possible dimensions, proportions and design." And now twenty-six years later Mr. Glenn Alvey Jnr. gives us a practical improved realisation of this concept in his splendid illustrative film, The Door in the Wall. My conclusions are that the Dynamic Frame should be adopted whole heartedly by our industry. For in the hands of real artists and good craftsmen it will offer new realms of human psychology for the director and scriptwriter to explore, wonderful new compositions for cameramen and art directors, and probably headaches for the editor. POLE IN LONDON The Observer Film Exhibition SIXTY years covers a span of achievement in film history which no exhibition on earth could do full justice to; but the exhibition in Trafalgar Square sponsored by The Observer, in association with the British Film Institute and La Cinematheque Frangaise is a brave endeavour. In fact nothing like it has ever appeared before in this country, and film technicians who miss the opportunity may have to wait many years before its like appears again. Under the direction of Richard Buckle, and with designers of the calibre of Jean Hugo, Osbert Lancaster, Alan Withy, Leonard Rosomon, Lotte Reiniger and John Gow, this exhibition is one of fine taste, much imagination and considerable research. " Prehistoric " Fancies The scientific progression from the theories of Leonardo da Vinci to VistaVision is admirably opened with working reconstructions of the Thaumotrope, the Phenakistiscope, the Stroboscope, and J. E. Marey's Zoetrope with its flight of birds. From these fascinating, almost now, it seems, prehistoric, inventors' fancies it is an easy transition to the works of Melies, the magician and first artist of the cinema. In adjacent alcoves hidden projectors endlessly screen The Great Train Robbery and early films from the Lumiere programme of 1895. The next several rooms are largely given over to stills — stills of all sizes, stills that overwhelm by their vastness, stills that make you peer closely for a detail, stills that bring back fragrant memories of William S. Hart, Mary Pickford, Theda Bara, Chrissie White, the Gish girls and Nazimova, the comics and Clara Bow. Picture shows Stanislavv Wohl, cameraman and director, who was a member of the ten-man delegation of Polish film technicians to Britain. He is seen putting air into the cylinders of the veteran newsreel camera, the Aeroscope, described in our June issue, designed by the Polish inventor Proszynski and made by A. S. Newman before the First World War. The camera was used to shoot a few scenes for Polish newsreel and, appropriately, the occasion was a visit by Mr. Wohl and Mr. Jerzy Brzozowski, engineer, to the Newman & Sinclair factory, London. With Mr. Wohl, in the picture, are Mr. Brzozowski and Mrs. Elizabeth Orna, who has been concerned with research into Proszynski's work in England. In pursuit of more stills we find a room devoted to the greatest name of them all, D. W. Griffiths; and then rooms representing the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Russia, China, Japan. A splendid display of French stills illuminating the artistic triumphs of Clair, Carne, Feyder, Renoir, Vigo, and many others, and a woefully inadequate British section, quite unrepresentative. Something Wrong Hollywood fares better and more largely, but something has gone wrong and it is not with reluctance that we move on to the contribution of the Rank Organisation, setting out with painstaking care the whole process of modern film production from script to release print. A complete studio in miniature, with prop department, plasterers' shop, art department and wardrobe, make-up, hairdressing and cutting rooms, production charts, schedules, call sheets and publicity lay-outs. This is a fine tribute to our craftsmanship and equipment, but somehow it seems too static and lifeless to enthrall the uninitiated. By Ralph Bond So out through the door marked "Exit" — (do you remember the Barnum and Bailey story? When the crowds got too dense in their Museum they put up a sign " To the Exit ", and the suckers, anticipating another fabulous exhibit, duly followed). Perhaps a little more of the B. and B. touch would have done this exhibition good. Of course, we are dignified now, and full of good thoughts and high missions, and Friese-Greene helps us when we cease to have high missions in our business. But . . . the big drum still has to be whacked, the crowds must be told we are alive, the vitality and the bravura must always be with us. Maybe that is what is lacking in Trafalgar Square, but many thanks to The Observer just the same.