Home Movies (1943)

HOME MOVIES FOR SEPTEMBEP • Unstinted editing makes successful pictures. Screen your picture over and over again, making notes of necessary cuts and deletions. Then use your scissors without restraint where necessary. Omit the bad shots, the scratched and damaged frames, and above all the flashed areas from light leaks, and seria1 perforations that usually appear at the beginning and end of a roll of film. HON TO PREPARE VOIR CONTEST FILM w /3MPETITION is the spice of this hobby of making movies. Sooner or later, most every movie amateur succumbs to that impulse to produce and enter a film in a contest. And once a contest film is begun, making movies usually takes on new importance. Movie making values, once vague, now have definition and the filming of movies becomes purposeful. For the first time, perhaps, many filmers begin to understand the importance of objective filming and editing and titling. This being true, ever)' movie maker should undertake contest film production as a means of improving his technique whenever the opportunity presents. But more important, he should first understand what constitutes an acceptable contest picture, one that is reasonably certain to be in the running, and to slant his film production accordingly. Not even* picture entered in a contest, of course, is filmed especially for it. Quite often pictures are submitted which the pmateur filmed and edited before contest was announced. Yet such pictures are and should be accepted as contest entries on an equal basis with specially produced films. A film, to be of contest calibre, should be of wide, general interest. This, at once, excludes the purely personal family record film. It eliminates, too, many vacation and travel films unless such movies are interestingly filmed and cleverly edited. It becomes apparent, therefore, that a contest film succeeds or fails according to its audience appeal. Where a film is produced especially for a contest, the successful entry will emerge from among those films which were carefully planned in advance and produced along lines followed by the professional — a comprehensive shooting script aiding the cameraman and guiding the predetermined editing and titling of the picture. The eligibility of any contest film, of course, depends upon the rules laid down by the contest committee. With amateur cine clubs sponsoring most amateur contests, competition rules are often as varied as they are numerous. VX'hile many clubs conduct open contests in which films are not classified, the mere experienced clubs now classify entries as photoplay, documentary, travel and vacation film, educational, etc. Invariably travel and vacation films make up the greatest number of contest entries for the reason that more amateurs shoot this type of picture than any other. Few amateurs have much opportunity to use their cameras until vacation time when travel to new and interesting places offers occasion for limitless filming. Let us take this type of film and see what must be done to make it interesting, remembering that many such films often feature posed shots of family groups and other similar scenes uninteresting to audiences outside the family circle. First, the posed shots must be eliminated or not photographed at all. It is true that one or more persons in scenic shots can, when properly handled, increase interest in the picture. This can be done by properly introducing them in the opening and having their action throughout the picture serve some logical purpose. A good example is a vacation film recently reviewed in which a husband and wife are pictured on a camping trip. The husband is depicted as lazy and disposed to fishing, while his wife chooses to wander mountain paths with their dog. Thereafter the beautiful scenic • Continued on Pt%e 254 • An editing device that projects the image in motion right side up, as pictured here, is an invaluable aid to good film editing. The task is made easier because the film remains before you at all times. You can make a cut, change a sequence, then view the results immediately without bothering with projector.