The ingenious "transparency" process—most important contribution to the cinema since sound—and many so called "special effects" have been developed with the progress of the motion picture. By use of transparency, scenes of vast crowds, distant places, or real events that have previously been photo graphed, can be projected from the rear on a transparent trans lucent screen which consists of an acetate composition with a ground glass texture on one surface. Actors placed in a fore ground scenically arranged to merge with the projected back ground are then photographed by synchronization of the shutters of both the projecting machine on one side of the screen and the camera on the other. When the film thus taken is shown, the actors appear to be in the midst of the scene projected on the i transparency screen. This method, being highly
is often used as a studio economy to avoid sending players to distant points.
Using methods other than transparency, spe cial effects experts can provide a "set-up" whereby the director can photograph part of his set in miniature and the rest full-scale, thereby saving expense in set construction ; or can create the illusion of a building towering hundreds of feet in the air, when what has actually been photographed is the 2o-foot-high base of the building, the rest of it having been painted on glass and fixed before the camera lens in proper perspective. Before shooting, the director must therefore confer with the art department, the camera and special effects departments on any miniature sets or "glass shots" that are to be filmed. He must likewise confer with the transparency and camera departments on "process," or trans parency, scenes.
The shooting schedules on different pictures vary from i 5 days to So or 9o. From two weeks to a year may be spent in completion of the script and pre-shooting preparations. Many miscellaneous duties fall to the director as the day ap proaches when he must start the cameras turning, among them passing on the suitability of all properties and costumes, looking at tests of players under consideration, and "footage" of their work in previous films. He usually tests his principals in their wardrobe and make-up, to arrange in advance of the production's starting date for any changes that may be necessary. In addition, he should make a final inspection tour with the art director to see that the sets that have been erected are proper in details of con struction and decoration. He must confer with the music director and the composer of his score as to how much and what type of music is to be included, whether it be songs, background, or inci dental melody. He must also confer with his assistants, the loca tion manager, unit business manager, location director, the head of the transparency department, and his camera staff on location sites and the work to be done there.
If he is sending out a second unit to film the scenes that will later be used as the backgrounds for his trans parency work, the director must plan the work in detail with the location director, sometimes using scale models (made by the art department) of the location and carefully working out camera angles for each scene that is to be shot there. While the second unit is away on location, he must furthermore keep in constant touch with it by telephone, short-wave radio, or whatever means of communication best serves his purpose; must watch the foot age as it comes in from location to make sure the second unit di rector is getting exactly what is wanted. And it must he remem bered that if he is not a producer-director, he must confer almost daily with the producer on the decisions and progress being made.
The essence of motion pictures is pictures. For this reason, one of the director's chief collaborators, and per haps his most important collaborator next to the writers, is the camera-man. Once the screen play is written, the sets built, and the actors engaged, the camera-man becomes the director's inter preter in the matter of atmosphere. The director composes and draws the picture, but it is the camera-man who paints the draw ing. By the use of lights, lenses, and exposure, he creates upon the film the required atmosphere of gaiety or gloom, the impres sion of day or night, the hot glare of African sand, or the cold glare of Arctic snow.
The complete mobility of the camera allows broad latitude. Booms, or cranes, especially devised for the purpose, permit the camera to travel overhead, hang, swoop, or crawl. It can view objects from a distance or magnify them into startling close-ups. In each case, the director must decide whether to use the camera objectively or subjectively : as a "third person" onlooker and story-teller, or as the eyes of one or more of the characters. Usually the adroit and experienced director uses an admixture of both techniques, selecting and concentrating on individuals or objects for the most dramatic effect. In general, these operations are called: panning, if the camera moves horizontally to left or right; trucking, if it approaches or withdraws from an object ; long shot, medium shot, or close shot, depending upon the posi tion of the camera in relation to the persons or objects being photographed. On the whole, it is the director's aim not only to tell his story dramatically, but to present it to the eye in the most appealing way; to achieve with grouping and composition, with planes of brightness and shadow, the impression of a great painting in each frame of the film. To do this, he must have studied and perfected his use of both lighting and photography. For these, coupled with sound, are the chief tools with which he works.