Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1944)

MOVIE MAKERS 247 There is other "faking" in Land Of My Dreams, more complicated in its execution but no less effective. As the friends gather around the campfire for a final evening of song, the sequence of melodies is climaxed by a rendition of There's A Long, Long Trail, the theme song of the entire film. Here again Mr. Harley set himself the task of working out an accurate synchrony of total picture footage and the playing time of those sections of his theme song which are used. A certain number of general atmosphere scenes (mostly in medium shot) were made actually at the fireside sing fest. Later, both from the dramatic viewpoint and because of the elapsed time demands of his scoring, it seemed necessary to intercut and to elaborate these medium shots with a series of individual portrait closeups. But the summer holiday was over. The friends had scattered, and the Saranac campfire was a heap of ashes pelted by the autumnal rains. What to do? There were, Mr. Harley realized, some few of the camp crowd who lived in the same general suburban area as did he. Could he get them together for an evening, slip plaid woolen shirts over their city garb and come out of the experiment with a few reasonably usable scenes? He could, and did. In fact, all the campfire closeups ■ — and there are a pleasingly adequate number — were made on a single fall evening on the front porch of the Harley home. It was a "cinch," once you had it figured out. Seat your characters one at a time on the porch railing, facing in toward the house so that the night sky could serve as a neutral background. Back the camera up just far enough to get a head and shoulders closeup and then place a pair of flood lights slightly to the left and low, at floor level, to simulate the campfire's position. For the dancing flicker of the flames, set up an electric fan so that it blows a number of strips of cloth across the path of your illumination. For the most effective play of shadows, these fluttering ribbons (one inch wide worked well) should be placed as close to the subject as possible, without getting into camera range. What now about the color values? To get exactly the right ruddy glow of firelight on his subjects' faces, Mr. Harley started out with Type A Kodachrome (since he was shooting under flood lights) and then slipped a filter over the lens. It was, with a shrewd contrariness, the orange filter designed for use with Type A under daylight. Employed herewith, it created a wholly convincing flush of ruddy firelight, the dramatic effect of which was heightened still further by exposing at Weston 12 (instead of 9) to block out the background completely. For a film so essentially sincere in theme and feeling, there is a surprising amount of cinematic skullduggery in Land Of My Dreams! Measuring light for movies [Continued from page 225] sure settings would then be the // stop found opposite l/30th (of a second) on the exposure guide dial. All this procedure assumes that the film speed has been preset on the dial. The cine type meter, on the other hand, is preset to camera type, film speed and frames a second. The correct // stop for these conditions will then be found opposite the light value, read from the meter. The "camera type" refers to the grouping of cameras into Type A, those having shutter speeds one twenty fifth to one thirty fifth of a second at sixteen frames; and Type B, those having shutter speeds one fortieth to one fifty fifth of a second at sixteen frames. Of course movie cameras are used at frames a second other than sixteen. This change is compensated for on the cine type meter by presetting the dial, but, with the universal type of meter, the resultant change in effective shutter speed must be determined. Let us suppose that we have a camera that has a shutter speed of one thirtieth second at sixteen frames a second, and that the camera can be adjusted to eight, twenty four, thirty two and sixty four frames a second. At eight frames, half as many pictures are being made in the same period of time as that in which sixteen pictures were made when the effective shutter speed was one thirtieth. Therefore, each frame will have twice the exposure for a given // stop. The effective shutter speed will then be one fifteenth second. Conversely, at thirty two frames, each picture will have one half the exposure that it would have at sixteen frames, because twice as many are made in the one second interval. Therefore, the effective shutter speed at thirty two frames would be one sixtieth. The ratio follows with twenty four frames and one fortieth second and with sixty four frames and l/120th. In each case, the correct // stop will be found opposite the effective shutter speed on the exposure guide dial. The second method of using the exposure meter is also just what the name implies. In the Closeup method, the meter is held close to the particular object of interest in the scene, and the light value from that object is used in setting the exposure guide dial. To make a closeup reading, the meter should be held close to the object, not farther away than the object's smallest dimension. For an object ten by fifteen inches, the meter should be held ten * • • • • // 60ERZ Qo-ebg, /Imesuctm a ANASTIGMAT PHOTO-LENSES IN THE FRONTLINEIN WAR AS IN PEACE AN AMERICAN PRODUCT SINCE 1899 * • • • • • • * * * * • • * • • • * • • • • • • • • * * * • C. P. GOERZ AMERICAN OPTICAL CO. Office and Factory 317 East 34th Street New York 16, N. Y. t • PRECISION OPTICS Uktce, 1899 When the guns in this war are silenced we shall be ready to continue production of PRECISION PHOTO-LENSES for civilian use — SAVE for that new lens and— at the same time — HELP YOUR COUNTRY by investing in WAR BONDS AND STAMPS • • • ••*••••••••••••• MM6 PHOTOGRAPHY Interested in photography for fun or as a career? Find out how America's largest, best equipped school can qualify you for success. Home study or resident training. Individual instruction. Free book gives details. N. Y. INSTITUTE OF PHOTOGRAPHY, Dept. 105, 10 West 33 St., New York 1, N. Y. ENLARGED TO «# ^ REDUCED A ID TO o Black and White or Kodachrome GEO. W. COLBURN LABORATORY Special Motion Picture Printing 995-M MERCHANDISE MART CHICAGO