Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1940)

WHEN, slightly more than a year ago, the Dallas Cine Club announced to its members the idea of a group contest between the 8mm. and the 16mm. filmers, the latter group promptly (and pretty pompously) dubbed its production Out To Win! I know, because I was in it. We thought then that our cocky little title had quite a bit to do with what modest success came to the film later. But I'm beginning to feel now that its subject matter was the selection of real importance. For, you see, after hours and nights of discussion and counter discussion, we decided, desperately, to make a film of filming — not just a teaching film, but a simple story in which we should try to catch some of the heartaches and the happiness of the beginning movie maker. Working out the plot of the film seemed to be the hardest job we did in the whole production. A young fellow goes out for a week end stroll; he sees cine fans all around him and he talks to one and gets interested. What then? Well, let's have his wife object — she wants a new coat, not a new camera. But, quietly, he '"hocks" his trombone and saves money on the side, till, at last, he has the funds for the outfit his heart is set on. . . . But, so what? So he shoots a film of the baby, and his wife is won over? Nix! This couple didn't have a baby — and we didn't want one in the cast anyway. For a time, it looked as if we were stuck right there, with no climax and no happy ending. Then, like the flash of the accident itself, there came back to me the true story of an amateur who had been filming a stunting airplane, which suddenly crashed — and an eager newsreel company STAN EVERMAN, ACL the other width workers as we could drag in. Thus, where our hero goes shopping for his long sought camera, the clerk in the camera store was first to show him an 8mm. model; immediately, our script said, the prospective movie maker was to recoil with displeasure, hold his nose and generally to indicate that he wanted no part of 8mm. filming. The clerk, of course, then turns to the showcase, pulls out a fine 16mm. outfit, and our hero hails it with delight. Well, our difficulty lay in getting our kindhearted hero to act out these insults to Eight, since he rather disliked hurting the feelings of his many friends on that side of the club. Another amusing sequence, in which the difficulties were more on the technical side, was that in which we executed, and our hero filmed, the crash of the airplane. First off, we had to have a model airplane and, since it was going to be destroyed, it had to be one that didn't cost too much. We solved the problem with an airplane model kit, purchased at the five and ten cent store. After some of the boys had worked away at the matter, finally to produce a fine big ship with four motors, we discovered, to our dismay, that there were no such ships flying into Dallas. After all, you just h^ 469 grabbed his unique twenty feet of film for four hundred dollars. We decided then and there to use a similar ending for Out To Win. From there on, things moved more swiftly. At our next meeting, we broke this plot down into a scene by scene scenario, worked out the exact sets to be used and the casting, and we noted along the margins of the script the places for such effects as fades and dissolves. In casting the two main roles, we decided to look outside of our filming group, for a young man and woman to play the parts; we felt that persons genuinely unfamiliar with amateur movies would do a better job of seeming to get acquainted with them. All other important roles in the story — the pawnbroker, the car salesman, the newsboy and the camera store clerk — were played by volunteers who took direction like old timers. But. by and large, directing the film was one of the easiest jobs in shooting Out To Win. We had one rehearsal on each set and then went right at the shooting, since we found that, in this way, our players tended less toward self consciousness or overacting. Since the script called for no subtitles, there were no lines for the cast to learn, except a few noncommittal remarks which they would mouth over where the action obviously called for moving lips. The sequence that was perhaps the most difficult to direct was the one in the camera shop. The young man playing the lead, although not a member of the club, had visited with us at a few meetings and thus came to know all of us — both Eights and Sixteens. But, in our film, he was playing for the latter group, and our script called for as much "razzing" of can't cut from an air shot of a real airplane with two motors right into a crash shot of a model airplane with four, and expect anybody to believe it! Off came two of the engines, the tail structure was redesigned to conform to the Dallas transports, and we were ready for shooting. The finished model was about twenty four inches from wing tip to wing tip, and it was filmed with a six inch telephoto, to aid the perspective. For our location, we needed a view with little, if any, sky and a terrain so indistinguishable that it might be anywhere. We found such a spot along the river levee in the negro district and set to work on a number of different angle shots of the descending and crashing airplane. In no time at all, we were surrounded by eager and curious little negro boys, intent on this new and thrilling game. Satisfied at last with a good crash shot, we planted a small powder bomb under the broken ship, took up a closer position for the fatal explosion — and let 'er go. In less than no time after that, there wasn't a colored boy in sight! No shooting was done under adverse conditions. Working outdoors, we waited purposely until three o'clock or later, in the afternoon, to avoid the harsh light of midday and to benefit by the interesting shadows of side lighting. When it was cloudy, we turned indoors to our few interiors, where we used never more than three flood bulbs in reflectors and sometimes two. In the brief pawnshop scene, we supplemented these with an unshaded 200 watt lamp, burning directly over the showcase, which added not only dressing to the set, but a slight "pawnshop [Continued on page 483] The outcome was a really humorous club production