Movie Makers (Jun-Dec 1928)

mmmmmmxmmmmiijmmmimmiimmmmrmMwsmmmmmmKmmmm^mmmmmmamB ■I FOG FILTERED Photographs by George Scheibe. IRONING OUT the JERKS How Fades, Dissolves and Filters are Bringing Smoothness A THREE letter word— art. Divide by three and reduce it to cinematic terms — the eye, the mind and the emotions. Add one — smoothness — and the answer is cineart. None of the senses likes to be jarred, least of all the eye. The beginning of better professional movies came with the adoption of fades, which are such an important factor in making dissolves. Their smoothness affected our three component parts in this manner : took all thejumpinessout of pictures, put apparent continuity where continuity wasn't and increased the pleasure of watching a movie about a thousand-fold. And now, through recent invention of an automatic device, securing these same professional effects has been made far more easy and practicable for the amateur. Is that all? No, that's just the beginning! Allow me another sage word about professional movies and then I'll tell you. "Effects" are useless if they are noticeably apparent. You cannot jump from a clear-cut picture of the heroine receiving the letter of dread tidings, to a soft backlighted diffused iris effect simply because she weeps! It's too apparent. But by fading out on the clear cut to Amateur Films By A. W. Kammerer and fading in again no change is noticed. What does that mean? It means that all the professional effects and tricks, obtained by filters and screens, have also become easy for the amateur, if these filters are used in conjunction with the fading apparatus. Next you'll want to know about filters. First and most important, they do not alter the focus, speed or correction of your lens. Attacking these magic workers promiscuously, let's take the diffusing screen. Think of Lillian Gish (cinematically) as she sits by the fire-side thinking of her loved one who is far, far away. You visualize a soft, hazy scene with her face framed in a corona of golden hair. The scene in reality is brilliantly highlighted and backlighted but a diffusing screen tempers it to just the right emotional intensity. With its use the amateur may achieve "softness" — which is not just a first cousin but one of the "smoothness" family. The diffused iris is similar but has a clear-glass circle or oval in the center thus bringing the main object into clear perception with the balance of the picture in "soft-focus". Herewith we gain smoothness by subtracting the lesser parts from a picture, and we also reduce the eyestrain of following a moving object or a person in a crowd by keeping our main subject within this clear, focused area. The white iris is the same idea but with the picture fading into absolute white at the edges leaving the object "spot-lighted". This intensifies and adds smoothness to the theme and therewith to the emotions. The graduated iris differs only in that it vignettes to black at the edges, intensifying to a greater extent. You have seen the title which appears on a hazy moving background. The picture has been fog filtered and the title inserted by double printing. Consequently the jar produced by having to read a dead-still title immediately after a swift bit of action is greatly reduced, and smoothness is again enhanced tremendously. The real use of this filter is of course to produce fog and rain effects under ordinary clear-day light conditions. Irinettes are a series of screens having oval, diamond, heart, panel and {Continued on page 408) 379