The film daily year book of motion pictures (1930)

of Berlin will take 5000 pictures per second. (41) Beck (42) has described a time-lapse camera which may be set for automatic exposures at intervals of from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. Patent protection has been granted on an automatic electrical device for actuating motion picture cameras which operate at timed intervals. (43) Studio Light Sources. — Incandescent lighting continues to be employed quite extensively in the production of many sound pictures, although arc lighting has by no means been discontinued as Sebring has shown in a recent article. (44) The problem with arcs has been to reduce motor noises and this has been accomplished by using choke coils and toggle switches to cut out the motors during actual shooting. The use of tungsten powder inside lamp bulbs is claimed to increase their life about 30 per cent as the efficiency may be, kept at a maximum during an entire run. (45) Lamp manufacturers continue to improve the efficiency of the higher wattage lamps, (46) as well as that of the smaller lamps used in conjunction with sound recording and reproducing equipment. Several new models of Klieglights designed for sound recording work have been described. (46a) Silvered glass has been shown to be superior to aluminum as a reflector. (47) A large spotlight of German design contains three rows of reflectors around the side and to the front of the housing which reflect the light back to a series of mirrors set at slight angles immediately behind the source. (48) Light which would otherwise be lost is thus used to increase the brightness of the spot. In photographing the color sequences of "Rio Rita" 386 lamps were required having a total wattage of nearly a million. (49) For the picture "Sally," it is reported that over 5 million watts were renuired and for "Broadway," nearly 4 million watts. Incandescent illumination is being used quite extensively in Europe. Lighting methods in the English studios are reported to be very similar to those used in this country except that there is a marked tendency to avoid strong highlights and backlighting. French studios are making tests on the use of incandescent lighting but are hampered by lack of the best lighting equipment. German studios are reported to be using incandescent lamps to a considerable extent. Data have been published on several new types of incandescent lamps developed in Germany, (50) including semi-portable lamps rated as high as 5000 watts using either facetted or polished parabolic reflectors. Make-up. — Actors have found an orange make-up without eye-shading most successful for use in an all-color motion picture. (51) Two leading professional actresses have described their methods for using make-up in some detail for the benefit of cine amateurs. (52) Exposure Meters. — Naumann (53) has described a photo-electric cell which has been mounted in a housing on a motion picture camera so that an image of the object may fall on the cell, and an illumination reading be taken on a milliammeter. Neutral gray niters are finding considerable use on cameras to enable a full aperture to be used in order to secure preferential focusing. (54) Patent protection has been given on an exposure meter of the fade-out type wherewith the shutter is automatically set when the indicator on the meter is just discernable. (55) Trick Work and Special Process Photography.— Dunning (56) has pointed out that the original patents will shortly expire controlling trick printing and composite negative making and that future inventors can therefore claim only improvements on basic principles. The largest stage entirely devoted to special process work is in a studio at Burbank, California, where a room 150 by 300 feet was used recently. (57) In the sound picture "Masquerade" an actor played a dual roll and double printing on the sound track was accomplished successfully. (58) Methods of making "matte shots" have been described by Sersen. (59) These consist in double printing a painted section of a scene onto photographed action. Several improvements in special process photography (60) have been patented one of which utilizes lenticulated film for making stereo and trick pictures and another employs variously colored backgrounds and lights to secure composite effects. Direction Technic. — A great deal more care in rehearsal has been found necessary in directing talking pictures as retakes are expensive. (61) Absolute silence is imperative whereas with silent pictures, a working studio was usually a very noisy place. In a recent sound picture "Lummox," one set of a concert hall took up the entire space in the largest sound studio (225 feet long by 132 feet wide by 73 feet high). The action was directed entirely from a glass enclosed cupola that surveyed the whole scene, connection being made by telephone with cameramen, directorial assistants and sound engineers. . Playback-* enabled the orchestra and the players to hear at any time the record of the previous action. (62) A director at the Paramount Studios in 856