Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1930)

«/«.I%]Cjy%MO^ 1930 NIGHT MOVIES 2 Mi7i. Flare, showing Detachable Handle Light a Meteor Flare (Powerful Firework Torch) and take a movie of the party — no equipment necessary. The same flare the professionals use. Five sizes, '/2> 1' 2, 3 and 4 minutes of light. Especially for outdoors. Also electrical flares fired by a flash-light battery, for special work. Several flares may be fired simultaneously. John G. Marshall Meteor Photo Chemicals 1752 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y. FISCHER'S CAMERA SERVICE, Inc. A?Tiateur Motion Picture Equipment 154 EAST ERIE STREET CHICAGO /syj]^^^^ Stationery. Cards, Bookplatei., J-fi rlrAl Wa^^ advertising, greeting cards etc. ^WW W^V^O?^ Easy rules furnished. Complete ll;i^«^SV--®^» Outfits $8.85 up. Job Presses SU up Print for Others, Big Profits. Sold direct from factory only. Write foi' catalog anfl all details. The Kelsey Company, W-48, Meriden, Conn. I czAlotion picture films aeteyioraie! zzAldke tlieir existence PERIVI/VNENT bij using teitel's 'newufe'nethod prevents films from becomIncj brittle -shrinkingcurlingand ^iues greater clantLj of image. TElTCtS'SCRATCH PROOF'METHOD renders fit rn emjlsionso toujh that ordtnaru usecannoi scratch or mortice film during its life, Injuring better permanent transparencyOd or otiier foreign matter cannot penetrate the emulsion of a treated film ALBERT TEITEL CO. FILM EXPCHTi 105 WEST 40 ST. NEW YORt< Hjour dioief ivi it tell ijoit the bentfits of lire TCIT^B. M&ETHODS cold in the movies. Hal Roach and Mack Sennett will murder each other for her. "I'm taking the girl but I'm leaving you the movies of her. It's safer, you know. Take good care of them and Nola will be with you always. "I hate to leave your ale but Nola insists that I stop drinking and reform. "Be good, and we'll see you in Heaven. "Regards, "Perk." SLOW, FAST AND STOP MOTION (Continued from page 40) aside in Strange Interlude, a throwback to the Elizabethan Theatre, is abortive and has no real place in the general scheme. The films can do it much better, with more fluidity, ease and in a more legitimate manner. On the stage it becomes little more than a make-shift. A number of advanced French producers of the modern school, Jean Ep FAST MOTION HEIGHTENS THE COMIC SPEED WITH WHICH THE MOURNERS RETURN FROM THE FUNERAL IN RENE CLAIR'S ENTR'ACTE Stein, Germaine Dulac, Rene Clair, Alberto Cavalcanti and others, have employed slow and fast motion effects with striking originality. Rene Clair's Entr'acte contains a grotesque funeral cortege wherein the mourners, in nowise anxious to arrive at the cemetery, jaunt along with unnatural slowness and, once the departed is disposed of, rush off the scene with an equally unnatural speed. Here Clair is able to make these effects serve his purpose of mockery and grim humor. Many of you are doubtless familiar with the more mundane uses to which slow and fast motion have been put in comedies. A cat or dog, photographed with a high-speed camera, appears to have drunk more than its fill of alcohol and glides along in the most unreal fashion. Dancers and divers become marvels of flexibility and grace, as do athletes, acrobats and so on. Quite another use of variable cranking speed has been its peculiar application to miniature sets. Of course, extreme care must be taken with the erection of miniatures as to the relation of the various objects employed, both regarding size and movement. A miniature train wreck scene, if taken with a high speed camera, can give the impression that the train really weighs many tons. The taking speed must be increased so that the motion of the toy or miniature object will appear, when projected, as slow and ponderous as it would be if the object were as big as what it represents. Stop motion or time lapse, that is, condensation of time photography, started with the French. Like many other camera discoveries, it was an accident. It was first used to show the growth of a flower — from the seed, through the long poem of its gradual development to its final blossoming forth into a thing of incredible and amazing loveliness. (An account of the A. C. Pillsbury flower films and the mechanism of his invention for their photography is contained in the Educational Films Department of the September, 1928, issue of Movie Makers.) This trick has since been repeated scores of times and is always marvelous to watch. Charles Urban, an Englishman, commercialized the process of stop-motion, applying it to machinery and all sorts of things. One of the most remarkable instances of stop-motion ever made was achieved in the Scottish Highlands some years ago by Robert Bruce, noted for his charming camera studies of nature. He set his camera on the pinnacle of a high crag for the purpose of recording the passage of a steamer as it moved slowly on a river which wound up through the hills. He wanted to get the effect of the steamer skimming along at about ten or twenty times the rate it was actually going. One of his main problems was to achieve an even density of light on his negative, which might seem almost impossible in view of the fact that as time went on the sun began to sink or a cloud would darken the sun, resulting in variable densities. The miracle of it all was that he achieved a perfect single density on his negative. The same process was applied to the gradual growth of the Wrigley Building in Chicago. There are many valuable uses to which time condensation filming can be put and it should be another interesting experimental field for amateurs. All examples set forth here are possible not only to the cameraman with a 35 mm. instrument and sufficient imagination and inventiveness but also to the owners of several types of 16 mm. cameras. Both can duplicate anything and everything and set out on new paths of their own, if they but have the courage of their convictions, the patience to experiment and the intelligence to back up their enthusiasms. 50