The Film Daily (1935)

THE Monday, June TO, 1935 &&*\ DAILY 17 f^ » TIMELY TOPICS « « « Veird Camera Effects Due o Absence of Tricks "CILMING weird, startling ef■*• fects in a sinister drama does not depend on "camera tricks." In fact, it depends on the absence of any trick whatever, or any attempt to make the lens of the camera deceive the audience or distort what is placed before it. It is done by the creation of illusions such as human forms in mist, by the placing of lights to get hard, mysterious shadows — and then letting the camera "play straight" — in other words, photograph exactly what is on the stage exactly as the eye sees it. If you were photographing a stage magician performing one of his illusions, you would do it exactly this way — photograph exactly what the eye sees. When odd lights and effects are staged for a picture the same thing is true. To attempt to diffuse or do other lens tricks would biue or distort the effect, hence we use the camera simply as a scrutinizing eye, and let it see everything done in the effect. In one scene of "The Vampires of Prague" we had the camera low to the floor, so that when Bela Lugosi approaches there is the effect of . towering height of a great shadow. That was not a camera trick. The camera simply looked from where the person lying on the floor before Lugosi would have looked — hence the camera saw just what that person saw. Most people believe these weird effects are camera tricks but, they aren't. The camera is never tricked. — James Wong Howe. * * * Screen Can't Thrive Under Rigid Rules TT is now 13 years since the motion picture producers organized under the leadership of Will H. Hays and set about trying to find a way to improve screen standards. Inside the industry and outside the industry many of us agreed at that time that legislation or outside censorship could never bring about real improvement of the motion Virginia Valli Dorothy Farnum Leopold Friedman picture. The making of a photoplay is an intense, exciting, high speed operation conducted by creative people. If we hamper these people by trying to administer iron-clad rules under which they must work, we will accomplish nothing except to kill the entertainment value, the artistic value and the great educational power of the motion picture. — Mrs. Leo B. Hedges, Motion Picture Chairman, California Congress of Parents and Teachers. * * * Changes in Tastes Due to Psychology '"THE public's frequent change of fancy in screen stories is not occasioned so much by the tiresomeness of film cycles but by some psychological reason. Two changes are salient today. One, the great desire for action and adventure stories, I believe, reflects the wish to be carried away, by their sheer force, from the current thoughts of business strife and personal financial worries. The other, a great interest in the out-of-doors, indicates the weariness of city folk in battling for a living in the metropolitan centers and a longing to return to the soil. As proof of this, I have discovered that in many instances the George O'Brien out-of-doors pictures have been even more successful in the big cities than in the small towns. When such O'Brien pictures as "The Dude Ranger" and "When a Man's a Man" can run for three weeks in New York and in San Francisco, then I think there can be little doubt that the public is more interested now than ever before in pictures of this type. — Sol Lesser * * * Opposed to Telling Backstage Details 'pRIPS behind the scenes, in theaters or in motion picture studios have disillusioned the public and have detracted greatly from the interest that is felt by the fans, in the opinion of many persons. There has also been too much written regarding what goes on backstage in the theater. The time was when the stage players were mysterious persons who had glamor, regarded as beings who were superior to ordinary humans. But busy press agents have done their best to disillusion the patrons of the theater and audiences do not have the same attitude that they did when I was a youngster. There has been too much parading of private lives, too much exposure of stage technique and too frank discussion of what goes on before the curtain rises. — A. R. Dunlap, St. Petersburg, Independent THE TOWN WILL BE DESERTED ON WED. JUNE 12th ... for everybody who is anybody in pictures will be at the 23rd FILM GOLF TOURNAMENT at the PROGRESS COUNTRY CLUB — ECONOMY NOTE — If you enter now it is Ten frogs, which includes lunch, dinner, green fees and everything. ... if you wait until the day of the tournament it's 12 BUCKS! AND NO FOOLING Enter Now Only 160 Can Play I'll Be There ! The 23rd Film Golf Tournament Here is my entry and $10.00 for the Film Golf Tournament to be held Wednesday, June 12th, at the Progress Country Club, Purchase, near White Plains, N. Y. 'Name . Address THE COMMITTEE: Jack Alicoare, chairman; Don M. Mersereau, secretary; Al Lichtman, United Artists; Bruce Gallup, president, A. M. P. A.; Herbert R. Ebenstein, Stebbins, Leterman & Gates; Felix Feist, president, Motion Picture Club; Louis Nizer, New York Film Board of Trade; Harry Brandt, president, Independent Theater Owners, and Charles A. Rogers, Stebbins, Leterman & Gates. (ENTRY FEE WILL BE $12.00 IF PAID AT TOURNAMENT) Fill In And Mail To THE FILM DAILY, 1650 Broadway, N. Y. C.