The camera-man, directing the chief electrician and his men, lights the set. His first concern is to give the photo graph third dimension by use of back-lighting and planes of shadow that alternate or cross brighter planes to overcome the flat effect a too evenly lighted set is apt to have. He paints broad strokes with sun-arcs, brightens or subdues the presence of cer tain players, accents or tones down their character and make-up with the delicate emphasis of various kinds of incandescent lamps. Upon the camera-man the director is dependent for the texture, focus, and quality of the photograph, but after the set has been appropriately lighted, it is the director's duty to use the camera to the best advantage in telling his story.
Next in importance only to the camera-man is the "mixer," who is responsible for proper positioning of the micro phones on the set and the quality of each recording, which it is his privilege to accept or reject. He has an assistant who directs the microphone according to the mixer's instructions and manipulates it for the best possible recording of various voices and sounds. The mixer sits at the mixing console on the set, a panel of dials and instruments which enable him to control volume and check on the proper perspective of the sound. Usually in another build ing is the recorder, who is in charge of the recording machine and its auxiliary equipment. The voice or sound, upon actuating the microphone, is converted into electrical energy and travels by cable to the recording machine. Here a light valve produces on film a photographic record of the audio-impulses. Called a sound track, this photographic record is a succession of light and dark lines on transparent celluloid which needs only to be exposed be tween a strong light and a photoelectric cell, and amplified, to duplicate the original sound introduced into the microphone. The director's relation to this operation is that he decides which of the scenes are to be printed, and in so deciding takes into con sideration which recordings are the best. In most of these de cisions he is guided by the mixer.
The director must also supervise the dubbing in of other sounds added for realism. These may be the many cries, rustles, buzzings and echoes of a woodland glade, all the separate sounds of a big battle, or any other combination of audible attributes not pres ent when the scene was originally filmed and recorded. To add these effects, the director may direct the recording of certain sounds or have them taken, on separate sound tracks, from the studio's stock library. In either event, the synthesis of the separate tracks into one track which properly combines them all entails an intricate process known as re-recording, the results of which the director must approve or reject. He must also approve the music to be included in the picture, the scoring, orches tral interpretation, whether or not scenes are to be filmed to musical accompaniment, pre-scored (that is, with the music recorded in advance and mechanically played during filming), or scored after completion and editing. From this it may be seen that the inclusion of sound in films is a complicated and pains taking process. And being the most scientific phase of picture making, it is one of the most exacting phases of the director's work.
The director's relation to his actors is that of the conductor to his orchestra. It is not the director's function to teach acting any more than it is the conductor's to teach his musicians how to play their instruments. He should allow the actor his interpretation of the part and at the same time regulate each character conception so that it may stand in relation to the others as the story's true development demands. He must know the individual personality and method of each player and adapt his own methods to that personality. He must offer guidance, help, suggestions when asked for, sympathetic understanding when the actor wants free rein. He must remove from the actor all respon sibility save that of playing his part successfully in character. In large mass movements, the director has assistants in the crowd who take command of a half or third of the mass: under each assistant are several trained actors, each being responsible for a subdivision, and under each of these actors is a group of extras obedient to him in "business" and movement already worked out by the assistant directors. This method of subdividing direction and responsibility gives variety to the mob and tends to avoid the old-fashioned automatic crowd, so familiar in early days.
In general, the director faces this problem : to per fect each moment of the story separately, in the script and on the stage ; then, in the cutting room, to combine these segments into a smoothly flowing drama. As a result, almost any picture is in the cutting room as long as it is before the cameras. The ground-work for the cutting is done during production, when the director, his camera-man, cutter, and staff assemble each day and review on the screen the "rushes" or footage shot the previous day. The best "takes" of each scene are then selected by the di rector and preliminary steps taken for the final assembling. The cutter and most directors work on this jig-saw chore throughout production and for many weeks thereafter, editing what they have obtained from months of work. They must reduce 20,000 or 30,000 or even i oo,000 feet of film to i o,000—the ideal limit for a feature length picture—and at the same time maintain the proper timing, crescendo, and diminuendo of drama. The cutter and his or her assistant do the actual manual labour of cutting and splicing the film, but the director leaves his impress upon it. It is he who must make the decisions of what to keep and what to discard. It is he who must give the finished picture its unity, symmetry, impact, and tempo. For, in the final analysis, the di rector is the principal story-teller. And upon the force, the clearness, and the technique of his telling depends the value of the work. (C. B. DE M.) The need for thoroughness in the art of make-up cannot be over-emphasized. The tendency, both professionally and other wise, is to apply make-up too heavily or obviously. The princi ples outlined are adaptable to motion picture photography, black and white and Technicolor; to stage, portraiture, still, and ama teur photography, 8 and 16 millimetre. The amount of make-up for the screen is comparatively the same as you would use for a good street or evening make-up, with the exception that colours of foundation are darker; eye and lip make-up is accentuated.