Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1953)

26 JANUARY 1953 THEY COULD TAKE IT! WE are, frankly, both amused and not a little amazed at an early paragraph in the Lawlers' story on their production of Duck Soup, Maxim Award winner for 195 2. Although many of you may already have read it, we shall risk its repetition here for the sake of coherent coverage. Mr. Lawler, it seems, had been citing the reasons behind their joint determination to do a good family film. Coming to point three, he wrote forthrightly: "Probably the most basic reason of all was a thorn I'd been carrying for about six years, courtesy of the League's Continuity and Club Consultant. For, in the course of these duties, he had reviewed a film by the writer carrying the intriguing title of Our Timmy. And of it, on August 24, 1945, he had written in part: " 'To date, where your film-making suffers is in the continuity or camera treatment aspects. These, especially the latter, are routine, dull and unimaginative. . . . What you need is variety — variety of camera distance, camera angle and scene length. Your scenes are invariably too long, an understandable weakness on the part of proud-father movie makers. But if you wish your films to have pace and interest for others too, they must be shortened.' What brutal words for such an outstanding (in my opinion) filming accomplishment!" Well . . .! Mr. Lawler was kidding, of course, in his use of the word "brutal" to describe our comments. But they had been, certainly, blunt and unshielded in a sugar coating — and we like to think that our current Consultant does these things more gracefully. But the important aspect was this. Not only had our words stuck in the Lawlers' craw; they also had stuck in their minds and hearts. Where many a member would have (and has!) submitted his resignation forthwith, the Lawlers got up off the floor and fought back with renewed, stubborn and creative resolution. "I resolved," he writes, for them both, "that someday I would make a family film which could be enjoyed by others besides the proud father." As a long-term program, such tough-minded resolution would seem to have its advantages over pique and the pettiness of resignation. For the Lawlers, anyway, the result has been Duck Soup — Maxim Memorial Award winner for 1952. THE AMATEUR CINEMA LEAGUE, Inc. Founded in 1926 by Hiram Percy Maxim DIRECTORS Joseph J. Harley, President Frank E. Gunnell, Vicepresident Walter Bergmann, Treasurer James W. Moore, Managing Director Arthur H. Elliott George Merz Fred Evans Stephen F. Voorhees John V. Hansen Roy C. Wilcox The Amateur Cinema League, Inc., sole owner and publisher of MOVIE MAKERS, is an international organization of filmers. The League offers its members help in planning and making movies. It aids movie clubs and maintains for them a film exchange. It has various special services and publications for members. Your membership is invited. Eight dollars a year. AMATEUR CINEMA LEAGUE. Inc.. 420 LEXINGTON AVE., NEW YORK 17. N. Y.. U. S. A. pares a cue sheet, I work from the tape directly. Here is how I do it. Suppose I am recording sound for the car-and-train sequence above. 1 switch the recorder to playback and run through until I hear (tap) "Car in distance." Then I switch off the recorder with one hand, holding the feed reel with the other to prevent overrunning. Next I put a hand on each reel and inch the tape back until I hear the "tap" passing the record-playback head. On many machines this is easy, since switching off also opens the pinch roller and the tape is no longer held in close contact with the capstan. Immediately the tape has been inched past the R/P head, I mark the tape with a Chinagraph pencil. This is a specially soft kind of crayon made for writing on china and glass. It is equally suitable for writing on film and tape: and. provided you use it on the shiny ~ide only, you can rub it off again with your thumb. If necessary, you can use a ball-pen instead, but it is not nearly so convenient. On my recorder, I can conveniently make the mark opposite the R/P head. On machines using "drop-in" threading, this is not usually possible. However, you can mark the tape wherever it happens to be visible and accessible. All that matters is that you shall be able to run the tape through, later on. and know, without playing back, when you arrive at the beginning of the shot. When I have marked the tape at the beginning of Scene 101, I mark the end in a similar way. Then I wind back to a point several inches before the first mark, adjust the volume and tone controls ready for recording, but leave the record-playback switch in the playback position. Now we are all ready to go. I start the recorder and watch for the first mark on the tape. As it comes into position. I switch to record and get the car noise taped. Immediately the second mark is past. I switch to playback once more. This leaves me with sound correctly recorded on the tape for Scene 101. I can, in fact, play back the whole tape and hear if the sound fits exactly in with the pilot commentary to the other shots which will follow it. When I am satisfied with the sound for the first shot, I mark the end of the second shot on the tape. Then I wipe off the first mark, so that there are still only two marks on the tape and therefore no risk of confusion. After this, I record sound for Scene 102 in the same way as before. Proceeding on these lines, I replace my pilot commentary bit by bit. The timing for each shot need be accurate only in starting, for if it overruns, the surplus will be erased when I record for the next shot. There is only one difficulty which you may discover in the method. Each shot may be prefaced by a click where you switched to record. Judging from Warren A. Levett's experiments (More on Magnetic Recording, Movie Makers, May, 1951), this will not happen with the Webster wire recorders and possibly some other machines. But if it does, you can use Levett's method of erasing the clicks afterward. Alternatively, you can avoid them altogether by using a technique I shall describe in my next article.