Evening star., 1953-03-22
comero Angles


disappear behind q two-inch
bean pole? Sounds impossible.
doesn't 1t? But you can per-
form this seeming miracle if
you own an elephant, a bean
pole and . modern movie
camera. AS a matter of fact
there are many trick effects
in cinematography that any
amateur can perform with the
facility formerly restricted to
professional cameramen.
If your home movies are
dying on the vine" because OF
sameness or just seem to lack
appeal. try your hand with
trick effects and see the dit-
ference. For instance, you can
have an unsuspected Cby the
audience) sequence pop up on
the screen showing people
walking backward onto a bus
or streetcar and the vehicle
backing out Of sight. Or with
stop-motion technique you can
have a magician produce arti-
Gle after article out of thin air.
Ghosts can be made to wan
der at will throughout your
Screenplay, q race can be
slowed down to a crawl, or a
tortoise made to race with the
speed Of a jet-propelled missile.
If you are the patient type,
you can show a flower bud
opening into full bloom. These
and many other special effects
are easily within reach Of the
home movie maker.
Use Of Dividing Mark
Let's get back to the ele-
phant for q moment or, to
make it more feasible, you can
substitute your fat Aunt Ella.
The problem we face is to
make her apparently vanish
behind some very narrow OBJ
ject such as a young sapling.
On film we can do it. although
even a shoehorn wouldn't help
much if we tried it in actual
ity. To work this one we neede
either q camera that is built
to accept dividing masks or a
matte box which accomplisheS
the same effect-that of ex-
posing one side of the film at
one time and the other side
later.
This effect, by the way. must
be made with the aid Of the
tripod. First, place the cam
era on its tripod, so that the
sapling splits the exact CEN
ter of the viewfinder. Now
insert a vertical mask so that
the right side of the film is
covered. With this done, ask
Aunt Ella to walk in from the
left up to and past the tree
while the camera is in opera
ton. After this has been
filmed and she has passed the
tree stop the camera, cover it
with a changing bag and re-
wind the film to the point
where the first action took
place. At this point move the
mask over to cover the left
side of the film and run off
the same amount of footage as
before with Aunt Ella out of
the scene.
Now have her move over to
the left Of the tree (hidden by
the mask) and after starting
the camera have her move
out past it and continue on to
the right out of the scene. Re
wind once more and, after
transferring the mask to the
right side, reshoot the same
footage, exposing the left side
with your subject out Of the pic
ture. If you have been care
full not to move your camera
during these operations the
finished film will show your
subject approach the tree, ap-
parently vanish behind it, and
then suddenly emerge from the
other side, producing the illu-
sion that the subject was ac-
tually out of sight behind the
tree. A simpler version Of the
procedure outlined above Gre
winding only once) will allow
the same individual to appear
twice in the same scene (con-
versing with himself, for ex-
ample).
The Magician Technique
Stop-motion technique can
provide very startling effects
with a minimum of effort.
Let's assume you wish to pro-
duce q little movie showing
q magician at work. You can