Home Movies (1954)

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IDEAS Editing School I have yet to find a good editing "school" at any college or night school but I did find one recently and it was in my own home. I mean, that I found the best guide to good editing by reading the fiction to be found in any of the better magazines: such as, "Collier's", "Saturday Evening Post", "Atlantic", and many others. The authors in these books are all trained men. They know how to advance a story line and they do it with great finesse. I found that by reading the story over several times I could see new ways of applying their techniques to movies. And it's necessary to read these stories over many times. First reading should be just for enjoyment, for you must "get over the emotion" of the story before you can tear it apart. Then, the story should be read over for style, that it, the way in which the author told his story. In other words, why did he tell the basic story in this way? Then, why did he use these scenes? When you have answered these questions you can have a pretty good idea of what a movie can do. You can see why certain scenes were handled in the way they were handled and why these scenes were long or short. All of this is vital information which can be applied to any editing job which might come up in the production of your home movies. Try it. See if I'm not right. — Sybil St. John Toronto, Canada. The Orchestra Oh, how I like Spike Jones. That boy sends me further and faster than any crooner ever could. I think I have every record he ever made and I've been dying to do something with them filmwise. Recently I found a way. I did it this way: I played the records over several times till I had a good idea of just what the record had in it then I prepared a visual script of the "music". This gave me a basic shooting script. Once the basic script was more or less set, I lined up some of my neighbors and let them hear the records. Then, I read them my script and asked them for ideas. They had plenty and soon they were excited about acting in a film which would run hand in hand with the record. They added little actions and gimmicks and soon we were ready to film. I filmed the sequence with the record playing. This gave my actors a method of timing their actions. I redid the filming four times, each time shooting from a different angle, then I moved in for closeups and played the record through again. When I was finished I edited my four reels together into one good film and projected it with the record. It was amazing how close the action followed the music. It was, pardon the expression, just like television. ■ — Robt. E. Lemon, Alexandria, Virginia. Hot Rodder The high school kids in our neighborhood are no different from those elsewhere. They are car-crazy. They spend every waking hour driving in them or working on them. Many of the kids are so interested in their cars they go beoynd the "stock" apperance and rebuild the design of their cars. This work, laborious and exacting, is called "customizing" . . . building a car of your own design. This was so interesting to me I decided to join a group tinkering around a 1932 Ford at my neighbor's house. I asked if I might film a few sequences of the work and the kids were immediately interested. They offered suggestions as to angles and they held up their building to let me reshoot scenes for editing. In fact they were so interested in my filming they suggested that I do a whole film on the story of a boy, his car, and the boy's girl friend. This made a good story, because in high school these days, a boy's popularity is almost dictated by his car. The more "jazzy" the car is, the more girls clamoring for rides, and obviously, the more girls clamoring, the more popularity. My film was really a satire on this social evaluation scale. ' I used the story of a boy who was unpopular in school. He purchased a 1932 Ford, rebuilt, (with troubles along the way) and when the car was completed he found himself so popular that he could not keep the girl he really wanted . . . she was too jealous of the other girls. To regain the admiration of the girl he wanted, the boy had to re-build his car into something not quite so glamorous. The film was actually a "two-story" film, the story of the romance and the story of the building of the car. I livened up or made funny sequences of the scene. Obviously, the actual building of the car was not of great interest to the story but I pepped it up by showing the boy welding on new fenders . . . only to find that he'd put them on backward. The romance was also taken out of the stright film by funny closeups oT the girls flocking around the car as the girl he really wanted, was forced further and further back. — George Oder, Providence, R. I. Cooking School Dad wants to "help" around the house. The only jobs mother will let him do are menial tasks such as carrying out the washing and mopping the floors. That is hardly enough to satisfy dad. He decided to do something about it, so he signed up for a local newspaper cooking school. As school Dad feels ill at ease. There are nothing but women in the school. They give Dad the fish eye, as much as to ask "Well? Aren't you a bit out of place?" Dad almost feels that he is until he remembers his desire to "help". • See IDEAS on Page 60 55