Home Movies (1943)

HOME MOVIES FOR SEPTEMBER PACE 299 his place of employment with an eye tcward what an instructional film could do for his employer. Then, if he has several good home movie films already produced to back up his filming ability, he can suggest the plan of producing a training film with a reasonable chance of success. The instances are many where this very thing has been done. The chief of a company training film production staff in one west coast aircraft factory was only a year ago an average amateur. In another, three former amateur movie makers are regularly producing training films in sound that demonstrate to new employees every technique from how to rivet to flying the newest bomber creation. There's greater potentialities in your amateur movie making experience than you may realize. Your initiative and foresight may enable you to put it to pactical test. Look aound. You may already be rubbing shoulders with a long cherished opportunity! ^bollytooni — new animation idea... • Continued from Page 28/ demonstration of super-strength, prys the bars apart to release the princess. Andy returns to Ann who kisses him for his gallantry and a fadeout ends the picture. Mlost of this action was staged on sets erected upon a card table and great care was taken to insure that backgrounds, props, etc., were built to proper proportions and with adequate detail. The secret of successful Dollytoons is to have the dolls act as nearly like real people as possible. In other words, more than one part of the body must be animated at a time. If the doll is walking, then the head and arms must move in a natural manner, otherwise the appearance will be too stiff. The filming of a single step, I found, requires four separate positions of the feet and four separate single-frame exposures— one for each position — for most natural results. This technique is demonstrated in the five frame illustration of the mounting-of-the-stair action illustrated on page 287. I choose the Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls because their flexible bodies made possible setting them in a greater number of and more natural positions in an action cycle. Those who adopt wooden or plastic jointed dolls will find some limitation in the movement of the body and of the legs and arms, although not enough to discourage their use. Balancing the wooden or plastic dolls sometimes becomes a problem making it necessary to provide some means for holding the doll securely to the floor of the set. In many instances, rubber cement, easily rubbed away afterward, may be applied to soles of doll's feet or footwear, or a method similar to that used by George Pal may be employed. This consists of fitting short, sharp pins to soles of the dolls which may be stuck into the floor of the set. A panel of celotex makes an ideal floor. The tacks or pins easily pierce the celotex and are readily removed from this material. With soft, "Raggedy Ann" type of doll, I often found best results were obtained where doll was hand held before the camera and the shot made in closeup, the hand, of course, being out of lens range. At other times, the dolls were supported by invisible threads. The smoothest animated action, of course, results from the most natural movement of your characters. A four oposure step action will be more natural than one filmed in two exposures and two movements. A little study of the action desired will aid in determining how many positions to allow the cycle. If a doll is to be filmed in the action of getting out of bed, for example, the doll should be put through the motion r^eral times to determine how many positions in the action should be filmed in single frame to achieve the desired result. Slow movements should be allowed two or more frames exposure while rapid action requires but a single exposure to a position, with the positions within the action cycle spaced farther apart. While the cine camera especially equipped for single frame exposure is the ideal one to use for this type of animated photography, it is possible to obtain single exposures with other cameras by allowing the spring to unwind about two-thirds and then merely "flick" the starting button. Several tests are necessary, of course, in order to determine the intensity of the "flick" touch and the exposure thus obtained. I use a 16 mm. Simplex Pockette cine camera which uses film cartridges or magazines. The lens is f/3.5 in focusing mount. Two No. 2 Photofloods in reflectors were used in lighting the sets and these were placed at about 3 ]/2 feet from subjects which allowed me a lens setting of f/4-j when using DuPont film with a Weston rating of 12. 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