HOW IT IS DONE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 72, 18 December 1928, Page 47 (Supplement)

HOW IT IS DONE

People who watch, with fast-boating hearts, a film actor scaling a skyscraper or an actress apparently drowning in a rough sea, are wasting their sympathy, for the skyscraper is often laid Hat in the studio and the camera is pointed downward from above, as the actor crawls over it. and the rough sea was probably a tank, with which most up-to-date studios are equipped. Neither is there need to weep « itn the heroine, for her tears are carefullytrained ones of glycerine and water. Real tears are not desirable; they run too fast. In New York there is a Frenchman who makes a large income by devising

“fakes" for big producers. One morning the following proposal was put to him by a producer: “My leading man is no horseman, but I want him to take a fence eight feet high—higher, if possible. Gan you make fifty feet of film for insert'on in the reel?” He made it the ne day. The fence lie erected was one foot high, but when the picture was completed it. looked ten feet high, and the horse ami rider performed a feat that made an audience gasp. He did it by digging a pit six feet deep, and pointing a camera downward.

Pictures of land and sea scenes are blended with most realistic results-, and a great many fakes are worked with small models.

Salt is frequently used for snow scenes, but it is not very convincing. Interest in the kinema will be increased if the tricks of the camera are looked for and unravelled. Its limitations- are few. • - - ■ = ••••-■’ - .. .