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Photographs by Whitney Darrell
Don't pity poor Pop, engulfed in the
dishpan, diaper and formula circuit. Feature him in your next family film, instead
button pushing? Well, Hollywood takes the BoyMeets-Girl theme and does pretty well with it, year in and year out. It's all a matter of dressing it up and being a little different.
So let's take our Day-in-the-Life story and shoot it from a different angle. Besides being a lot of fun, babies are a lot of work. Maybe Mother actually does most of the work, but Father would have you believe that he carries the load. Poor Father, nothing but a drudge. Washing, formula making, diapers, spinach — all keep him very busy. But even this part need not call for much acting from Father. In fact, the less that amateurs act and the more the camera tells the story by suggestion, the better will be the film. Mother's part in the story can be oalm and competent, her natural self doing for baby whatever has to be done. Having settled our actors and the basic story idea — the trials of poor Father — the next problem is one of putting movement into comparatively static scenes. It isn't easy to take pictures of people moving around much in a house or, even worse, a small apartment. The first difficulty is that of lighting large areas. It just takes more Photofloods than most of us have. Even if you have them, it is dangerous to load the average 15 ampere house circuit with more than three No. 2's each.
Apartments particularly hamper the taking of large areas because there is no place to set the camera. You can overcome this to a certain extent with a wide angle lens, but the lighting troubles remain. What to do? Quite easy; just hold to the original idea of simplicity. Take the picture in medium shots and closeups and put in the motion by cross cutting. This will also
develop contrast which is an essential part of this — or any — movie.
Show a scene of Baby being prepared for his bath, then follow with Father in the kitchen up to [Contd. on page 127]
THE FAMILY FILM