Home Movies (1954)

1 Quiz Film By ARTHUR MARBLE DO \ 01 have, hidden somewhere in the recesses of your storeroom or closets, some miscellaneous film footage that you haven't had the heart to destroy? Chances are, if you are like the average amateur filmer. you have any number of stock shots that have been cut in the editing of your regular movies. Like the thrifty Yankee farmer who saves all odd nails, nuts and bolts because "they might come in handy sometime." you may have kept this footage with the hope that someday you would find a worthwhile use for it. You are lucky if you haven't scuttled the odd lengths of film for they do have many practical uses. One of these is to serve as the raw material for quiz films that can provide an interesting challenge for the viewers. And just what is a quiz film? Briefly, a quiz film is a short motion picture that intrigues, arouses thought, and amuses an audience by asking questions based on the subject matter of the pictures. Perhaps the best known commercial quiz movies are those made by Pete Smith. All his films are made with sound, but the basic idea of the quiz film can be developed with silent motion pictures, too. Actuallv. there have been so few quiz films made in the past that the possiblities of this type of film are largelv unexplored, so the field of opportunitv is practically unlimited. \^ e have had the pleasure of observing viewers as thev watched quiz films and the interest has always been uniformly high. Contrary to popular opinion, most audiences do like to indulge in a certain amount of thinking. Remember that mental curiosity is one of the basic traits of human beings. Consequently, if you can arouse this interest in your films and amuse at the ?ame time, you will create entertainment of the highest order. All the quiz game films follow a more or less definite format. To get better acquainted with one type, let s discuss briefly a popular ten-minute sports quiz motion picture. It begins with some general sports scenes during which the narrator explains that the purpose of the movies is to test our knowledge of some of the major sport-. The audience will be given 5 seconds to answer each question. At the end of this time the narrator gives the correct answer. For each of the different sports used the following • S«e "QUIZ" on Page 205 5-; HK MOST valuable tool in filmBj A ing is the tripod. Although we Bj have heard many arguments from newill comers who believe that a movie camIE era should be a "'moving" camera, and Bi pesisted in panning furiously at first. SJ they admitted later that their movies BJ were below par. Today most of these pS friends are ardent tripod users themIH selves and. like me. always thinking BJ of improving the usefulness of their BJ tripods even further. Bj To dress up a tripod, start improv|§§ ing it at the top and work down. \S e BJ are assuming of course that before we Camera base plate than can be made in a few hours. Advantage of the unit: Quick release and provision for spirit level for accurate panning. UJj start we have a good and solid tripod Ufj and pan-head to begin with. BJ Fig. 1 shows the new camera base 3| plate that I constructed in use: it fea SJ tures mainly two things. A quick-re Bl lease mount and a set of sipirt levels. B Levels are often necessary in interior BJ shots to make sure that vertical lines SI reallv appear vertical and that the UJ camera is absolutelv level. The quick HI release is often extremely useful when BH dismounting the camera when a split Bj second tells the tale for that particu lar shot . . . This gadget was purchased commercially from the A. & L. Mfg. Co. in Los Angeles and is called a "SnapLok". One push of the button and the camera is off the tripod . . . The two spirit levels came from a tool purchased from Sears & Roebuck and called a "Dunlap Solid Brass 3-Way Plumb & Level". Price is low and the level just the thing. Two of the three levels are dismounted and mounted on the base plate as shown in No. 1. I purchased a piece of aluminum, measuring 6x4 inches by 3/16" thick. Six holes are drilled to mount the two spirit levels as shown, using 8-32 Binder-head screws, 3/16 inch long. A hole is drilled and tapped for 14 inch as shown to hold the plate on the tripod pan-head. A second hole appears further back and is drilled to clear a I4 inch screw. This one is used to mount the camera on the base. Notice in Fig. 1 that the camera is -eated far back on the plate; this was done to achieve a better result when panning. The pivoting point on all cameras is of course the tapped hole in the camera bottom that takes the tripod screw. Since this is usually way behind the lens, the result of any pan is that vour lens describes a wide arc. whereas vour eye and viewfinder almost stand still. That would be like reading a newspaper with a fixed stare, just moving your head from side to side instead of pivoting your eyeballs and keeping your head rigid. The set-up as described put the piv ot point exactly in the center of the lens which now practically stands still during a pan while the eye and viewfinder describe the arc. Panning is auto • See "TRIPOD" on Page 192