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ADVENTURE PIC^SI
THE BLACK RID
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HOME MOVIES FOR MARCH
Action Backgrounds For Your Titles...
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LCTION backgrounds for main titles give pictures a sophisticated touch and serve to couple theme of story with title to amplify its meaning. Such titles are easy to make with almost any cine camera. There is no mystery or trick in their execution. What is an "action background?" Well, you've undoubtedly seen main titles in which the title text is superimposed over an action scene, often a scene from the picture itself. Frequently the background is part of the opening scene — the title text fading out and revealing the background as the initial scene of the story. Many amateurs have employed this effect in titling their travel, vacation and scenarized pictures.
How is it done? Simply by double-exposure — which means you must be able to wind back the film in your camera, the same as in making a lap dissolve. For the amateur with camera equipped with a backwinding device, this is no problem. Those not so fortunate can also backwind film in their camera with some inconvenience — that of having to retire to a darkroom to open camera and windback the film by hand in darkness. But it's not as difficult as it may seem. Just like many things, it's a little hard to get the hang of it at first, but with a little practice — and this is recommended — one can wind back film in this manner with complete success.
The darkroom need not be an elaborate, especially constructed affair. Any room in the house, preferably a clothes closet, bathroom, etc., that can be closed and made light-tight, will suffice. Here the camera may be opened, and the film removed and wound back the distance desired.
How far must the film be wound back? How can one tell exactly when the beginning of the title has been reached? There are several ways of doing this. Probably the easiest method calls for shooting the double-exposed title at the beginning of the roll of film. After the title has been shot, the film can be removed from the camera in the darkroom and wound back on the supply spool. Returning it to the camera, the film is rethreaded and the leader run off to the starting point. Then the action background is photographed or double exposed over the same film area previously exposed to the title text. This method eliminates the guess work and the notching of film that invariably must follow where double exposure must be given a section of film elsewhere in the roll.
In the notching method, the camera is taken to the darkroom before shooting the title, opened, and a notch made in the film just below the film gate. This notch may be cut with a pair of manicure scissors. It may be a small slit, instead of a notch, extending not more than 1/32 of an inch into the film margin. This notch indicates the start of the title. The camera is closed and removed to the titler where the title card is photographed.
Camera is then returned to the dark room, opened, and a
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• Note the lively interest created by action backgrounds in the titles illustrated here. They're intriguing but not difficult to make. The background scene is shot first, then the title text double-exposed over it.