Home Movies (1942)

HOME MOVIES FOR JUNE PACE 237 WIty. ^cene^ ^Itould be planned, filmed and edited for £N the words of one famous authority on amateur movies, "one of the principle shortcomings of ambitious amateur films is lack of sequence." Every amateur has heard of sequence before. Some as yet do not understand it. Webster's defines the word sequence as it applies to motion pictures thus: "A section of a film story showing an uninterrupted episode without time lapses, titles, or breaks in the action." In more succinct language, a sequence in motion pictures consists of two or more scenes relating to the same action. When the quoted amateur movie critic complained of lack of sequence in home movies, he had in mind the many films made up of countless unrelated shots even though they be of the same subject or theme. "Post card" movies we term them because actually such reels consist of a series of individual unrelated scenes. Sequence shooting consumes no more W M film than would ordinarily be required, because by cutting sharply from a long or medium shot to a closeup, the initial scene is lessened in footage and the film thus saved used for the succeeding shot. Thus, instead of a single long shot of the baby romping on the lawn, we make the subject doubly interesting by filming him in two or three successive shots, moving in for a closeup in the final shot of the sequence to bring our subject up large and more intimately on the screen. Opposed to this type of filming we have the movie that begins with a shot of the baby, then jumps to a shot of the family dog followed by a street scene, back to the garden showing other members of the family grouped and staring at the camera and so on, ad infinitum. This is "post card" filming. Keeping to the subject of family filming, let's see how an amateur should proceed to film a movie of his threeyear-old son — a picture depicting the events and activities occurring in the boy's everyday life. Following the main and credit titles, the picture opens with a medium long shot of the boy's bedroom. Following this will be a short close-up of a clock indicating time the little fellow arises. From here the camera moves in closer to the crib to pick up the lad, just awakened, twisting, turning, yawning and blinking his eyes. A tight close-up here reveals only the boy's head as he registers a big yawn and chubby fingers gently erase tell-tale traces of the sandman's visit during the night. Such scenes give a more realistic touch and imparts per• Continued on Page 247 • Pictured here is good example of a well-filmed sequence. The series is obviously intended as record of sister and little brother and might have ended with the first shot of sister rocking little brother to sleep. However filmer continued with the action, showing sister putting brother in his crib, and, in the third shot, brought the two into intimate closeup in action showing sister patting brother's head in a good night gesture. — Pictures by Earl Theisen.