Home Movies (1953)

CONSUMER REPORT By JAMES RANDOLPH 1 Corner of His Own By CARL KOHLER An outstanding moviemaking problem delineated itself, the other day, in bold colors of rage, frustration and general despair. Precariously standing tippy-toe on an old chair. I was intensely grubbing through the upstairs hall closet in search of a reel or two to edit in some spare hours. Suddenly, the chair gave up the ghost. It and I collapsed together amid a welter of clothing, cleaning paraphernalia and clothes-hangers. A shower of odds and ends, including a box of Christmas tree ornaments crashed emphatically over my head. I was slowly and painstakingly counting to ten when my wife appeared in the doorway. She viewed the mess with mingled derision and disgust. "What, in the holy name of kodachrome, are you trying to do now?" she demanded. "I though the roof was caving in! Just look at that mess! It'll take you an hour to clean it up!" She gave me a fleeting glance. "And all those lovely Christmas ornaments — ruined ! " I sat up and manfully checked for broken bones. "Will it make you feel a bit better if I bleed a little or something?" I murmured bitterly. "What were you trying to do?" she insisted. Removing a tennis shoe from my face. I opened the pent up floodgates of smoldering outrage. The lady asked a question — a dandy question. I proposed to tell her. "I was," I said breathing deeply so as not to mar the biting quality of my retort, "going through this closet in a • See CORNER on Page 202 Something new has been added. It's a vertical titled for making home-movie titles called the Universal Titler, and has just been put on the market by the company of the same nam;e in Rochester, New York. And what's more, it isn't a strain on anyone's pocket-book, for it costs only twenty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents. It's easy to operate, too, because I just finished testing it. You can take my word for it, a lot of shutterbugs are going to be very happy about the whole thing. Actually, it's a miniature of the kind of titler that's used by professional title companies, operating on exactly the same principle on a smaller scale. It's sturdily constructed of metal, with a gray pebbled finish, and it won't rust or tarnish. It s precision built for accuracy with a money-back guarantee, but I doubt if anyone ever takes them up on this and asks for a refund, because the apparatus has been so cleverly contrived by expert engineers, with a specially patented construction, that there's absolutelv no guess-work about it. It does exactly what it claims it can do, so what more could anyone ask? This new apparatus really makes titling a lot of fun because it's so simple to use and you won't wind up with a lot of off-center titles that have to be thrown away. And there's no limit to the different ways you can make titles. But the best part of the Universal Titler is that it can be used with any size, type or kind of 8mm or 16mm camera, with a two-foot focusing field or with a portrait lens. At the top, there's a perpendicular screw deal that regulates the level of you;r ;camera. so that it can be raised or lowered, as the case may be. And at each side of this top piece, there's a button that can be adjusted so that your camera may be moved to right or left to enable your lens to fit the aperture that looks down on the title at the bottom baseboard. Inside the top of the structure, at either side of the lens aperture, are two General Electric Number Two Floodlights, directly beamed on the title card at the bottom. The title cards themselves are easily slid in and out at the bottom of the structure, making it a simple matter to change cards and rearrange lettering. The Universal Titler can be used for black-andwhite or color. There • See REPORT on Page 199 181