Movie Makers (Jun-Dec 1928)

ARROW PORTABLE Motion Picture Screens (Patent Pending) Screen Ready for Use Screen /tolled in Case for Carrying Composed of millions of tiny round glass beads, firmly embedded on a strong fabric in a pure white composition. Has a wonderful reflective surface and will not glare like the silver metallic surface. Can be easily cleaned with soap and water. Complete with dustproof mahogany finished case into which it is drawn by a metal spring. PRICES Ho. 0 — Size 1 6x3x2 '/i — picture surface 9Vix ll3/4 in. Weight 3 lbs $10.00 Ho. 1 — Size 331/2x31/tx4 — picture surface 22x30 in. Weight 6 lbs $15.00 Ho. 2 — Size 45!/2x4!/2x5 — picture surface 30x40 in. Weight 15 ibs $25.00 Ho. 3 — Size 57x4%x5 — picture surface 39x52 in. Weight 18 lbs $35.00 Ho. 4 — Size 72x5!/4x5'/2 — picture surface 51x68 in. Weight 40 lb* $75.00 At Your Dealer MANUFACTURED BY Arrow Screen Company 6725-55 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, California Ah . . . ! Mr. J. Potter Pancake is in a dilemma. For now he must buy the "watch thin" Filmo 75 . . . for Mrs. Pancake. Sophisticated and keen buyers will obtain their "75" from Bass where motion picture apparatus has been sold for over eighteen years. Interesting sixty-page catalog is yours for the asking. May we send you a copy? Bass Camera Company 179 West Madison Street Chicago, Illinois "Yes tVe Swap Cameras" ket. The combination of camera and distance meter, the whole compact enough to go easily in the ordinary coat pocket, gives to the amateur movie maker a universal and an automatic notebook in which magic pencils of light record a sketch or a complete story to which he can refer at any time for expansion into a movie. There has always been a latent interest on the part of the amateur movie maker in the use of stills, but that interest has usually been dulled by the assumption that bulky equipment was needed, and it is for the purpose of overcoming such an assumption that these random notes are offered. A coat pocket of normal capacity is ample room for all the equipment needed to make stills of professional quality, and if one wishes to try the subsequent steps of development and enlarging, he can easily do them in the limited space of an ordinary bathroom. The time required for such work is small and the results secured usually justify the time, not only for the results themselves, but for the more complete understanding and "feeling" of the subject which is certain to eventually show itself in better movies. PHOTOGRAPHICALLY SPEAKING (Continued from page 507) another type of picture a little more difficult than the others. I composed a scene that included on the left the trunk and lower branches of one of the trees, in the center and left foreground the shadow cast by its foliage, and in the middle distance and beyond a beautiful landscape in brilliant sunlight, with those fluffy white clouds against a sky of azure blue. It was a scene to delight the heart of any camera enthusiast. Here was a problem. The deep shadow and the detail in the tree called for one exposure, and the sunlit scene beyond for another. What should I do? I could do one of two things. I could disregard the foreground and expose for the rest. But this would give me a silhouette effect of the foreground objects, and the mass of the tree seemed to be too heavy for this. If I exposed only for the foreground the distance beyond would be so burnt up, as it were, that I would get terrible over-exposure and nothing but whitewash on the screen. So for this shot, the solution lay in a compromise. Calculating the full exposure for the deep shadow at /-4, and the middle distance and beyond at /-ll, I set the diaphragm at a point half way between /-5.6 and /-8, and fired away. I had wandered away from the stream for this last shot and my path now brought me to it again. Here it was much wider than before, with no foliage on the bank. On the far side of the stream was a tiny sail boat, in full sunlight, skimming its way over the brilliant sheen on the water. Here was an opportunity to use my twotimes color filter, because the white of the sail, in a picture, would not show up with enough contrast against the blue sky. Blue is a very active color photographically, and shows up so light on the film that it can hardly be distinguished from white. I calculated the exposure without a filter to be /-16, plus, because the water reflected the light so strongly. The filter cut down the light entering the lens two times, so I set the diaphragm at a point between /-ll and /-16, one stop wider than without the filter. I found out before I started to take any pictures that one stop larger increases the exposure twice. After the last shot I decided to call it a day, reserving a bit of film for a sunset that evening. I was rather puzzled about what exposure to give, for a sunset has predominant rays of red and yellow, which are weak photographically, and the scene still came in the class of distant landscapes, with nothing but clouds and perhaps objects in silhouette in the foreground. 1 was fortunately rewarded with a sky that evening that seemed to be made for a picture. Red, yellow and violet intermingled like a huge pastel painting. If I were using panchromatic film, I knew that I would not have to worry about the colors, for it is strongly sensitized to the red and yellow. But I was using the ordinary emulsion film and had to take a chance. I decided not to use a filter because the contrast seemed to be strong enough and there was not enough blue and violet to have any effect. I set the diaphragm at /Tl, for I figured that /-8 would over-expose my film and /-16 not be enough time to give me a well exposed film. Clicking off the last few feet, and running the motor to take up the protective black and red paper covering on the end of the film, I opened the camera and quickly slipped the protective metal cover over the spool so as to allow no light to strike the edges of the film. When the film was returned from the processing station, it was with fear and trepidation that I threaded my projecter. But my fears were short lived. I really got some things with excellent photographic quality. I had kept an exposure record of the scenes shot, and now checked up with the results as they were screened. This would be of great help when I shot my next roll, for I could profit by these first experiences. On my next photographic (and cinematic) walk, 544