FILM “FAKES”

Evening Star, Issue 18048, 16 August 1922, Page 8

FILM “FAKES”

Some may say “ Don’t spoil the show hy giving away the trick ; but film “faking" has become so ingenious that it is near to art, and 1 it may be tnat the next time you go to a kinema. theatre an idea for a new “ fake may occur to you and prove profitable financially (sajs a ‘Daily Mail ’ correspondent). At any rate, your interest in the screen play will be increased if you learn to look for flaws or “fakes” and try to unravel them. , . In New York there is a Frenchman who makes a large income by devising “ fakes for the big producers. I. wag in his office one day, when this proposal was put to him by a producer : “My leading man is no horseman, bub I want him to take a fence Bft highhigher if possible. Can you make 50ft of film for insertion in the reel.'" He made it the next day. The fence ho erected was Ift high, but when tho picture was complete it looked 10ft. high, and horse and rider performed a feat that made an audience gasp. How did he do it? By digging a pit 6ft deep and pointing his camera upward 1 . When next yon go to the kinema theatre, try to get the angle of the camera that is, 'place yourself where you think, the camera man was standing when l.a took the “shot,” A waterfall as high as Niagara may be only a few feet high a» reality. ~ . You frequently wo a distance shot of a man or woman Jumping overboard from a ship. A moment, and there is o. “ dosa-up ’’ of the swimmer in the water. Mark the "condition of the sea—rough or otherwise—in the first cases and compare it with the condition in the seconds Tiie first urns really the sea j tlm second was probably a tank, with whion most up-to-date studios arc equipped. A naval battle has been done with small cardboard models of ships fitted with ordinary st]mbs. A ” shot was taken of a lone ten and the battle was nupeiimposed. The picture was most realistic, with the guns flashing and the ships

sinking. Youuray be surprised to learn that real tears in the heroine's oyea are not desirable—they run too fast; to get a “ closeup " of those fine, fat tears sliding slowly down the cheeks you must place a little glycerine and water on the lids and in the corners of the lady's eyes. If sne is an artist she produces real tears, but, ae I say', they are not always desirable. A film a-otor scaling a- tall chimney, hanging on by his eyebrows,” aa they &ay, is the simplest tiling in the world, because the chimney is laid flat in the studio, and the camera is poimed downward iKnn aoovc as he crawls over it.