Spare-time Film Stars

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 10, 13 January 1936, Page 3

Spare-time Film Stars

Take another look at tnose origlit girls strap-hanging, those * Mreshingly smart secretaries escaping from that vast building, writes H. A. V. Buileid in the “Daily Alail.” Some of them, an hour or so after leaving their work, will be under the eyo of ' the motion-picture camera—m the studio of an amateur cine society. There are some twenty of these societies in London alone, w’hose output is from one to four pictures each year. Last year I directed a play, set in the Welsh mountains, which runs for twenty minutes, and the story is told entirely in pictures; on the other hand (so great are the possibilities), I have just completed a full-length psychological drama with seventy sub-titles. Amateur films are generally made for amusement. The sales-girl or typist, and for that matter the salesman or clerk or electrical engineer, who have the leading parts in a current cine society production, do not want to wear out their already tired brains with the heavy work of a complex film with involved montage and difficult camera-angles. They want to pass a few evenings and week-ends < joying straightforward acting in a moderately simple drama, comedy, or t) illcr. And that they aro on the whole successful cannot be denied.

A projection evening at a cine society is never dull and is often most entertaining.

The well-worn story of the kor.or of a scene “getting tho players down” has to be smiled upon as pure hokum. You have to think what you’re doing when acting for the screen, and this precludes all risk of getting thrilled, especially when a camera is buzzing away besido you, and dazzling lights aro shining on you from all angles. As regards general production ioutine, the amateur director is at a slight advantage compared with the proiessional. Apart from the consoling facts that the amateur need not bother about cither the box-office ot the censor, he has not, generally speaking, to contend with temperamental players, nor with those who have the profile complex. Nor is he troubled by the picturestealing menace. i’roduction expenses are tho biggest stumbling-block. Filming on standardbize film costs nearly £1 per minuty; the amateur therefore uses narrower film, which lowers the cost to about six shillings per minute, but even so, this is a heavy item. Aioreover, use of sub-standard film, coupled with tho absence of synchronised sound,, prevents the general public from ever seeing amateur films iu the ordinary cinemas, though they arc often on view in halls and concert rooms, usually in aid of charity, and they are invariably worth a visit.

Let the film-struck join a cine society, which will give them a chance to see just how good they really are on tho screen; and even if the result is tremendously depressing they will have seen the hard labour attached to all screen acting and tasted the intriguing fruit of a superbly interesting hobby.