Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1929)

1%10'%'EIWi^EMC 1929 aNjk .^^JlB^ ^fi^X'4, 1 J f ^"^ rliolograth By Wide World I'hotcs FLOWERS OF THE SEA The Huge Propellers of the S. S. Majestic, In Drydock, Suggest The Beauty To Be Fo Machinery The MAGIC Of MACHINE FILMS The JJ^orld Of Movi?ig MetaJ Invites Your Camera By Harry Alan Potamkin THERE is no more insistent experience in our lives than contact with the machine. It is with us from waking until sleeping, and, while we sleep, it is still at work. Of all the things that move, none is more assertive than the machine. It is most logical, therefore, that the machine should force itself upon the eye of another machine, whose function it is to record, construct and present motion. The machine is, for this reason, a basic subject-matter I recommend to the serious movie maker, whether he choose a press, derrick, steam shovel or locomotive. One of the first films to be made was of the locomotive. The earliest serials were of the speed and force of locomotives and trains. Abel Gance, the French pioneer, made a film. The W heel, whose interest was not only in the sentimental human tale but in the observation, analytical and synthetic, of the movements of a locomotive and its parts. From this film stemmed those made by other experimenting artists of the camera, films of the speed, structure and power of machines — machines that stand fixed while their arms move furiously, machines that rush through space. Among them have been the film. Ballet Mecanique, made by the French artist, Fernand Leger, aided by the American, Dudley Murphy; the film by Henri Chomette, 0/ What are the Young Films Dreaming? (called in France Reflections and Speed) and the film by the young Ukrainian, Eu 722 gene Deslav, The March of the Machines, all of which have been presented in America. In filming a machine or machines, there are several things to aim for — the relation of the entire machine to its parts, the relation of the machine at rest to the machine in motion, the relations of the moving parts, the increase and decrease in speed, the texture or lustre, the sense of volume and sense of power. A machine film can be very dramatic! The amateur movie maker will best know, by trial and error, or intuitively, how to arrange the continuity and where to place his camera, in order to attain the qualities mentioned above. But may I not describe a very elementary procedure, which may be made more intricate and fascinating after the movie maker has learned a few things about absolute composition? Let us take a not too elaborate machine— one that possesses two movements, a horizontal piston arm and a vertical movement — like that of a simple steel-puncher used in shipyards. This is the sort of machine also seen in establishments where bottles are capped. The body of the machine, if I may call it that, is fixed. The movement is of the two parts. If I were beginning to film the machine, I would minutely examine it first. I would study it, both in motion and at rest, and again, in reverse order. I might begin by filming it at total rest and then follow as it worked into speed. That is the most obvious way, yet it has its difficulty. If you follow this procedure, you will have reached the liighest pitch of movement before the film is long on its way. Perhaps you will prefer to wait a moment before diving into the motion of the machine. You may follow its parts at rest. That is, the camera will move, instead of the machine, which is the actor. The camera will examine the machine in one direction, then in another, or may alternate the examination in bits. The machine itself, its pattern, may decide for the movie maker the design upon which he will build the continuity of the film. A very simple machine with few parts and few contrasts in their forms may ask for nothing more than a sketching. Another machine, by its very volume, may ask for a slower, more observant and studious attention. A clever worker may be able to create, in his movement of the camera about the machine at rest, a sense of the machine growing from its parts into a whole. Rene Clair, the young French director, in his film. The Eiffel Tower, gave the sense of the tower's construction in actual progress by filming photographs of the Tower in successive stages of development. I am aware that this is not the same thing as filming a constructed machine — it belongs, rather, to the category of the animated