Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1947)

65 TWIN CLUB PRODUCTIONS 8mm. and 16mm. versions made of same scenario IS interest in your movie club lagging? Try a twin club production for stimulation. We of the Amateur Movie Society of Milwaukee did, and it worked out so successfully that we have now started work on our second. It all came about after reading the 100-scene scenario, Redouble Trouble, by Walter Bergmann in the October, 1945, number of Movie Makers. The war was over, film was beginning to come back and we needed something novel to bring us out of the hibernation of the war years. Our past experience in writing a scenario for a club production was that it took several months before the scenario committee could produce a finished script. We were looking for something that would allow us to get in production quickly; so, the Redouble Trouble scenario was just the thing that we needed, and, better still, it was not too long nor complicated, a fact that would let us get the productions finished in a short time, and thereby maintain a high level of interest. A twin production in 8mm. and 16mm. has the further advantage that both 8mm. and 16mm. workers will have something to screen when the productions are finished. MARCELLA C. SCHIELD If a club spends a great deal of time and money in making a production on one sized film only, members who use the other size will be unable to screen the production. There will also be less wrangling over small details between the "eights"' and the "sixteens." Two thirds of our membership consists of 8mm. filmers and one third, of 16mm. users. We chose one person from each group to act as director, and the director chose his actors and staff from his respective group. Members were chosen who had not had the same job in previous productions, in order to give everybody in the club an opportunity to become acquainted with all phases of movie making. Members had to be chosen who were free to spend the several evenings required for shooting; so, when all these limitations were put in, the 16mm. workers especially had a harder time in getting the cast and staff together. Before anything was done, it was explained to the membership that these twin productions were definitely not a contest, to see which group could put out the best film, but rather workshop productions, where a greater number of members could en [Continued on page 74] 16mm. scenes by the Amateur Movie Society of Milwaukee • From left to right, Henry Schmidt, the host in Redouble Trouble, prepares a drink for the "card shark" (center) neatly played by Ray Fahrenberg; at right, the "expert's" wife, Peggy Klug, cautions the others to be quiet about her switch of the decks of cards. Harold F. Sonnemann Ray Fahrenberg * The 8mm. group of the club prepares the set for their version of one of the main scenes in Redouble Trouble. • The 16mm. crew gets its chance; bedroom scene showing Patricia Leuthner, who played the part of the "card shark's" wife.