Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Nov 1927
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000482
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Switzerland, Early Cinema, and Global Cinema
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Library of Congress, MBRS, Moving Image Section
Sponsor:
Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
As an active film magazine, CLOSE UP lasted only a short time, from 1927 to 1933. Yet the legacy of this English-language periodical, which was published in Switzerland, continues to matter. Edited by Bryher and her husband Kenneth Macpherson, CLOSE UP became THE magazine for energetic debates about the nature of cinema and manifestos imagining new forms of filmmaking and spectatorship. The magazine published articles by filmmakers, such as Sergei Eisenstein, and female literary modernists, such as H.D. and Gertrude Stein. As film scholar Anne Friedberg explains in the anthology CLOSE-UP, 1927-1933: CINEMA & MODERNISM, 'CLOSE UP became the model for a certain type of writing about film -- writing that was theoretically astute, politically incisive, critical of films that were simply 'entertainment.' For six and a half years, CLOSE UP maintained a forum for a broad variety of ideas about the cinema; it never advocated a single direction of development, but rather posed alternatives to existing modes of production, consumption, and film style.' Like Friedberg's own writing, CLOSE UP continues to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of film and media theory. -- Eric Hoyt, 2014
Date Added:
August 29, 2022
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CLOSE UP When I came to this chapter on Ughts I went round to all the camera men that I knew and asked them if they could give me some practical information about hghting for a beginner. When you are filming a title you can work out how many feet of film to give it by allowing two feet of film for the first three words and one foot of film for every other two Avords. I thought that there might be some such formula for lights, w^hich I had never heard of, allowing so many lights per square foot of floor. The camera men were indignant. How could they commit themselves to a definite statement when it depended on the way the lamps were burning (how much current, whether diffused or not, etc.) and the make of the lamp itself ? So I w^as thrown back on my own resources. Personally I think lighting is a matter of temperament and, that no one will ever be able to light a set to auA^body's, except possibly their own, satisfaction unless they find it comes naturally to them. However, I started to think of the 'whys' of many things that are part of one's second nature. It is very difficult, but perhaps some of the following hints may help. Before proceeding I should hke to record the fact that one camera man answered me very rudely. He said, "Tell them what an arc light is, I am sure they don't know.'' Just to please him, plainly it has nothing to do with the reader, I am going to devote a paragraph to the Arc light ; for a knowledge of arcs is necessar}^ both on the floor and in the projection room. 40