Picturegoer (1921)

AUGUST 1921 THE PI CTU RE-GOE-R 19 consigned to the celluloid scrap-heap. One emotional actress, whose name is known the world over, consistently bursts into tears when she sees herself on the film in the private projecting theatre, and insists on certain portions of her film being cut out. And because beneath her hysteria she has a sound judgment of the value of picture presentations, she generally gets her wav, for she can recognise the bad patches for which she is responsible. For two years I was an editor of a topical film, and those days rank amongst the most strenuous of my career. For the editor of an animated screen newspaper is continually working against time. When aeroplanes, racing cars, and express trains hustle topical films back to the developing-rooms, where men and machines wait to hurl them into completion, it is the film editor who has the most anxious time. He has to cut, graft, and condense hundreds of feet of film, extract the essence of the thrills, and produce crisp sub-titles with lightning rapidity of thought. Outside cars await to speed the finished film to picture theatres throughout the kingdom, for the competition amongst news films is as keen as that which exists between newspapers striving to out-scoop each other. I recall the anxiety of one hot summer's evening, when an aeroplane was bringing back five thousand feet of film showing a great national steeplechase. The machine was lost in the mist, and hour after hour we waited for the irrival of the undeveloped celluloid, whilst the picture :heatres rang furiously on the telephone for news of the film which they had promised their patrons that night. The aeroplane eventually crashed down into a ploughed ield ten miles outside of London, the film was salved, and rustled to Wardour Street by car. The lengths of legativc were rushed from the drying cabinets into he projecting-room, and I had the race scenes nn through at record speed. A negative, when )rojected, shows faces black, and black suits is white, and vice-versa. Royalty black in he face, and with white suits, flickered icross the screen, and mystical white lorses dashed down the course on vhite grass. That night I saw ten housand feet of film, and cut it down to ifteen hundred, and inserted ten sub-titles u fifty minutes. Films of big fights are nother thorn in the flesh of the topical ilm editor. Every round of such con ests has to be filmed, for the essence of lie thrill of the picture — the knock-out — lay occur at any moment On one ^ ■> , occasion two big fights went twenty rounds each. Twelve thousand feet of film came to me, which showed roui d after round of uninteresting and abortive scrapping 1 slashed it down to eight hundred feet. For concentrated hustle there is no atmosphere like t h. t of the developing, printing, and projecting rooms of 1 : offices of a topical film company when scoops are in pro cess of being sped to the screen. Figures flit silently about the great dark rooms beneath the sombre glow of the ruby lamps, whilst cog-wheels, dials, and dynamos play their part in hurling great lengths of film into a finished condition. And the film editor, on whose judgment the success of the film largely depends, has to keep as cool as a cucumber, although thousands of feet of film race before his eyes in the theatre, which approximates to the sanctum of a newspaper editor. There are occasions on which the topical camera-men secure real life thrills which are as exciting as those of the film-serial variety. These I make a note of, for on some future occasion it may be possible to blend them into a screen drama. In the ordinary course of reflecting the world's news in animation, a camera-man once obtained for me a particularly sensational picture of a motor race in France. Two high-speed racing cars accidentally collided, and, as luck would have it, the lens was directed on to the scene. Resultantly we secured a dramatic excerpt from life. The two racing monsters crashed together and somersaulted across the track, exuding smoke and flames in a manner which a serial producer could never have equalled. The unfortunate drivers were thrown from the mutilated cars. The cameras caught them as they were struggling to rise to their feet, bleeding and battered. Not long after, that thrill was introduced into a feature-drama revolving around a race-track story. The plot included an attempt by the villain to kill the hero by tampering with the steering gear of his racing car. Thus the real life motor smash provided just the type of thrilling material which was recpiired to show the disaster that followed in the wake of the villain's plottings. Close finishes on race-courses, aeroplane smashes, wrecks at sea, troops on manoeuvres, or train * ■ 1 I When aeroplanes, racing cars, and express trains hustle topical fihns back to the developing rooms, where men and machines wait to hurl them into completion, it is the film editor who has the most anxious time.