Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1952)

74 A SIMPLE SYSTEM FOR CENTERING TITLES How a set of masks, outlining your title areas, can assure easy and accurate alignments LEO CALOIA THERE'S no question about it! One of the most irritating accidents in amateur filming is for a bunch of titles to be off-center. After this happened to me a few times too many, I sat down with myself to figure out a way of c©rrecting it. And here's how I figured it. To begin with, I built a simple version of a basic titler. No matter how you design it, this is comprised of a fixed and unvarying mount for the camera ( see Fig. 1), a track along which this mount can be moved forward and backward, and at the far end of this track a titling easel to carry the title cards. The position of this easel in relation to the camera also must be fixed. All right. My next move was to find out exactly what area of a given title card my camera was going to record at a given distance — say 18 inches. To do this I tore out of the paper a page of market advertising (because of its large, bold type), pasted this on a piece of cardboard the full size of the easel (Fig. 2) and then thumbtacked this cardboard in place over the easel (Fig. 3). I then shot the last three feet of film in my camera on this target and sent it in for processing. (For the impatient, a short length of positive film which can be developed at home would do as well — Ed.). With the developed film image at hand, we now begin to find out what we want to know. Set up your projector for still-picture projection and shoot the image on the wall (Fig. 4). If you have no still-picture gimmick, make a loop of the film and run it continuously. Distance from the projector to the wall is really not important, since we are not going to measure in inches the actual width and height of the projected image. What is important is to gauge exactly where the edge lines (top, sides and bottom) of the projected image fall in relation to the type matter of the ad which we have filmed. For these edge lines (as far as projection is concerned) indicate exactly the area which the camera lens put on the film. So take a pencil in hand, study the left edge of the image carefully and then draw a line down through the type of the advertisement which exactly corresponds with the image edge. After doing the same for the three other edge lines, you will have inscribed on the ad a rectangle exactly outlining the image on the film (Fig. 5) . Okay. The next move is to make a cutout mask exactly duplicating the area outlined on the ad. So take a fresh piece of cardboard, shape its outside dimensions to match those of the ad cardboard and then trace on its center portion the area outlined on the ad. It is crucially important, of course, that this tracing be positioned on the new card exactly where it is on the ad card, reading from side to side and from top to bottom. Now cut out the tracing to create a mask (Fig. 6). Finally, before using this mask, draw horizontal and vertical center lines on it for reference and mark it 18" for all future shooting at that title distance. And now for the actual title shooting. First insert the mask in position on the titling easel, where it will cover the entire area. Now slip in behind it the title card you intend shooting and maneuver it around until just the area you'd like to film is outlined in the mask ( Fig. 7 ) . Thumbtack the title card to the wooden backboard of the easel, being careful not to move the card in this operation, remove the mask and shoot (Fig. 8). Later, using some spare film, make similar masks for other camera-to-card distances and your titles will be easily and accurately centered forever more. FIG. 1: The camera end of the author's simple titling setup (see also Figs. 7 and 8) shows the camera in its fixed position, faced by a holder for accessory lenses. FIG. 2: A portion of market advertising from the newspaper, selected for the size and strength of its typography, is pasted on cardboard the size of Ijitle easel.