Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1934)

MOVIE MAKERS 115 identical for each exposure. It also allows the plant to thrive on sunlight in between pictures, during the weeks necessary for it to blossom. In the last experiment, the machine operated steadily for sixteen days, sixteen nights and sixteen hours, making 1,600 complete operations, photographing the plant from bud to flower, on forty feet of film. Mr. Ritzmann advises movie makers, who have built a similar device for time condensation filming, to start by loading the camera with fifty feet of panchromatic film. Wind the camera half way, or about a dozen turns, as the shutter will jump an extra frame if the spring is wound too tightly. Set the lens exposure at //8, place the plant at a distance of three feet from the camera and focus accordingly. Wind the clock for its first eight days of operation. After the first fifteen minute interval, one of the four major cams on the clock makes a contact, sending an electrical impulse through a relay to the motor, which in a minute's time pulls down the lightproof shade. The spring on the shade should not be too heavy, as the motor will stop if the tension is too great. It must be strong enough, however, to roll the shade back to its original position and also to unwind the cord on the motor's pulley after the power is off. The shade remains down for ten seconds, in which time the clock makes a secondary contact, causing the time limit relay to turn on both the Photoflood lamps for three quarters of a second. During this time, the clock makes a third contact for one third of a second, which sends an electrical impulse to the relay above the camera, causing the plunger to depress the starter button, thereby exposing one frame. After a fifteen minute interval, the instrument repeats the operation unless, for internal or external causes, something has gone amiss. The shade moving slowly up and down has a strange fascination for the feline family. So, as a final word, when you wind the clock, don't forget to put out the cat. If Mr. Ritzmann had heeded this old adage, he would not have found the shade up, the cord chewed off and several frames ruined from overexposure. Titling on the spot [Continued from page 105] letter. A closeup made with a thumb covering the stamp (to avoid illegal photographing of stamps) will reveal the address. Frequent use of titles on location occurs in films of Yellowstone, Yosemite and other national parks where signs identifying each landmark are profuse. When included in scenes to substitute for titles, these signs are bound to be obvi ous. Yet, they are extremely useful. The best advice is to frame the sign in as nice a composition as possible, and particularly to refrain from filming it so that the board almost fills the scene, but not quite, leaving an uneven border of white sky or segments of landscape. An attempt to capture all the descriptive matter below the heading of the sign is rarely successful. The data given is usually too long to make a good title, even if it is pertinent in the film, which it usually is not. It is best to try for the heading of the sign and let the descriptive data go. In photoplays, there are innumerable methods of identification, some symbolical, which need not appear to be "planted." A good example is the vegetable man changing the price tickets on his stand as the racketeering syndicate, which is forcing him to pay extortion, is successful or unsuccessful. Another is the lovers carving their initials on a tree, entwined through a heart, after they have been left alone for a while, instead of a title announcing their engagement. More common and direct methods include the address on a package or a suitcase, a visiting card, the name of a play on a theatre program or in electric lights (often used allegorically as applying to the present situation in which the actors find themselves) , a page being typewritten, a letter written years ago by a child or a friend and a traveling salesman's "inside dope" on an index card which he fingers as he is about to ring a doorbell. Good location titles require a lot of thought, which is perhaps why they are so seldom obvious and why the obvious ones are so seldom good. The principle, however, remains the same in all cases. It works negatively as most principles do; it more often tells us what not to do than what to do, but it enables us to know when we have attained our object — to visualize naturally. A sure system for editing [Continued from page 99] A. This will accomplish two things — ■ in projection it will mark the break between sequences and, when we are ready with the title strips, it will indicate where each is to go without further searching. Thus, swiftly following our plan, sequence after sequence flows on to the reel, and soon the entire film is reassembled. There remains but the pleasant task of screening the now coherent picture with a view to polishing the work, by shortening a scene here or switching a couple of them there, until all is in order. Now we can write titles that will fit, and soon they too will be in their marked places. Such is the method of editing film which has not been made by following a written script. Yet, where we have used No Need to "HOLD IT" This alert "miniature" catches action "stills" even indoors at night IF your "still" camera is a Kodak Pupille, you'll get . . . sharp, clear action snapshots indoors or out. For this masterful "miniature" combines an ultra-fast/. 2 anastigmat lens with a i to %oo Compur shutter. Rigid precision construction assures consistently effective operation. Your Choice of Films Pupille's speed is at its height when loaded with Kodak "SS" Pan Film. The use of the fine-grained Kodak Panatomic Film makes striking enlargements possible. Capacity: sixteen i%e"xi%e" exposures ( i 27 Kodak Film). Cost, with case, periscopic range finder, depth of focus scale, camera foot, cable release and color filters, $90. At your dealer's. Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York. Kodak Pupille If it isn't an Eastman, it isn't a Kodak A ^A -J