The Sacramento Union from Sacramento, California • 21

or unmakes the STARS the and Responsible for the Success or ailure of Many Pictures and Many Screen Luminaries the an By Al ice Tildes ley track with a different name took those They from can by a bring the the first inserted the first stamp superim steam engine and finally mail stamp used by the of the first picture she ever made know it until the night of opening when she brought high school friends to watch her words are a room bodies head as a that that never had vocal cords and that never burned Conrad Nagel left is discussing Cohn of the KBS Tiffany Studios and thirty eight developed explain how an cases where death stepped in just be fore a picture was completed and when remaking the film with a new actor would have meant unjustified expense Since we had no sound track to con sider then we could use titles stick in close ups from the early portion of the picture an embrace what had been cut out before and if absolutely necessary a double photographed with his back to the camera talking pictures a voice double must be found for the dead man and this voice recorded on a sound track that can be onto the film show ing other players reacting to the words or perhaps the back of the dead man taken from an earlier sequence and processed onto a new scene have a new machine that will re verse a given piece of film so that earlier close ups of the dead player will appear in an apparently new setting if we find need for close ups to finish our story If only a brief close up is neces sary we can blank the sound track on one taken earlier and put in new lines to take the place of those spoken being careful to match the lip movements This is difficult and not worth while is a of voice seemed too strong dying man Toning it difference for it had no or weakness unless only brief scenes remain to be Sound track can be painted out with a chemical preparation and other words recorded or the film may be run and original lines eliminated by projec tion of sound against it of equal inten sity thus blanking the track or the film portion may be rephotographed and new sound track added tne cutting room floor miles of film not even may help to excellent featured actor may start out with a good part and draw a good sal ary during filming but find himself in the final cut doing no more than cross a had been scattered and sets struck be fore this conclusion was reached so the cure was passed on to the film magi cian that that over to a A part of the sample copy room where the film is assembled and made ready for projection for the director a few hours after the action of a scenario has been photographed SOME of you may have read of the cardboard voice bestowed on Connie Bennett by a young magician in Eng land It seems that wrhen the Bennett pic ture was run for the British censor it was discovered that Connie mentioned an actual British peer by name Neither Miss Bennett nor her director were aware that the name had a living owner and both would have been glad to cor rect the slip Unfortunately both were some 6000 miles away from the office The sound tracks consist of a number of and representing vowels and consonants A Humphries solved the problem by painting in a new sound When Maurice Pivar was given the completed film of Lee Tracy's latest effort he found the picture ended thus: Lee seeing the enemy were preparing to send a gas attack lends his gas mask lieutenant and rather than be caught like a rat in a trap walks out into No land to meet the gas The action seemed inconclusive All through this film a story of the utter1 futility of war exposing the farce of propaganda Lee has been shown disillusioned soldier who realizes war settles nothing Mr Pivar considered Then he a poster much used during the war to put over the sale of Liberty Bonds and portraying a soldier advancing with fixed bayonet brought this poster for ward through the fog of gas and faded out the staggering figure of Lee directly into this belligerent image a touch of grim irony that makes a magnificent finish and yet required the presence of no single actor to achieve The beginning was seen to be too abrupt when Mail" was reviewed in Mr cutting room The cast Movie views often differ with those of the film editor as to what should be cut from a reel Just such a situation with Marty others a black one and it do to have his shirt suddenly change while he was dashing from here to there on horseback but no real trouble first Tom Mix feature worked out well also but when I reached the second one I found that two of my five shorts remaining had a different villain from the other three What to do? artist friend sat opposite me drawing something with a quill pen I cried I had swer used my first heavy for three reels then killed him my friend's hand dressed to correspond with the writing: 'Dear Bill: Carry oh for brought in Bill my second heavy used my artist hand redressed like second heavy to pick up the note and on went Bill doing the dirty QRAISE for a good picture sometimes goes to the star sometimes to the director occasionally to the cameraman or the writer but never to' the film editor Yet tire film editor is often the who pulls the strings" that draw1 a pro duction from wrhat might have been failure to what is surely success Men like Maurice Pivar of Universal Marty Cohn of KBS Tiffany Harold McCord of Warner Brothers irst Na tional George Arthur of Paramount Harry Decker of Columbia who have been snipping film for from ten to twenty one years may see their names on the screen after the title and while the audience is arranging its hair and asking its companion: you see all right?" but all the credit they get from the public ew people know that good film edi tors can and do build up inexperienced girls into tomorrow's stars put Into the mouths of actors who thousand miles from the cutting keep the dead acting after their have been laid to rest beneath stones return to an unhappy star scenes stolen from her on the set by more capable actors and change a faulty characterization without calling for a retake Besides this our unsung genius may evolve an artistic beginning or ending for a picture ready to release save hundreds of dollars by photographing voices flames his eyebrows amusingly when she speaking adjust a monocle swing cane rustle a newspaper or use any a hundred small tricks to call attention to himself and cause her to lose her audience These tricks may get by on the set but they are evident in the projection room If not caught and cor rected by the director the problem of how to restore the scene to the star is passed to the film editor What can he do? Would you believe it? He special magnifying process figure of the star into the foreground and fade the offending scene stealer into the background so that his tricks make no impression Or he can cut from the actor to a close up of the ar whenever he threatens her su premacy permitting his voice only to enter the scene Or cut to some angle that shows only the back In the last analysis it is the film edi tor who rules the screen He can throw scenes to a player take them away even cut the poor girl out altogether all for the sake of the story Clara Bow you knowi was cut entirely out She the her make her debut and found she on the screen at all! Copyright bv Public Ledger MOW if you have seen this picture you know1 that the clever opening strikes the mood of the tale Mr Pivar began with a photograph of the first method of mail transportation the Pony Express then came the stage coach then posed over a the first air post office In silent film days Mr Cohn shared an office with a commercial artist One day an executive of an inde pendent concern came to him with ten 1000 foot reels of Tom Mix and twelve similar reels of Bill Hart me two feature length films of each of these he directed can do it from this material must be complete stories different any got Nothing seemed impossible in days so Mr Cohn began to work on the Bill Hart features In these shorts the principal members of each cast were the same and almost every variety of situation and action was present so that evolving different plots was child's play had to vatch carefully because in some Bill wore a white shirt and in experienced from be a raise OCCASIONALLY an stage actor will steal scenes a young star who is thought to potential money maker He may After All the ilm Editor Who "Pulls TN A recent picture a stage actor had a brief scene in which he was to end his life His acting was excellent but when the scene was run in the projec tion room his for that of a do wn made no effect of strain or1 some reason this discovery was not made until the actor had gone East and by that time the set had been dis mantled What to do? The film editor was called in He took the scene blotted out the sound track containing the voice had an other actor come in and speak the lines into a microphone as they should have been spoken and then the new track onto the film Because no two men speak alike a new selection of angles had to be chosen and if you saw the picture you may have noticed that the actor spoke from behind his news paper with his back to the camera or while lying bn the floor so that you could not read the words on his lips also the method we would use if an actor died before his part in a picture was says Marty Cohn silent days there were several A NEW player may have great promise but no ex plains Mr McCord if the studio has faith in her and wishes her to be built up toward stardom it is essential that she be assisted through her first roles It do to have audiences say: the girl who was so bad in whatever the picture was she hasn't learned how to put over her lines In that case we show her as she begins to speak then cut to a close up of an experienced actor listening to her letting her voice come in over his shoulder giving his reaction If she is beautiful we give her the ad vantage of as many silent shots dis playing this beauty as are possible let her speak as few lines as we can and point up these lines in the room picture you see can be cut to achieve any end scene is made from two to ten times then one take is selected the next best is held and the others scrapped If 209000 feet of film have been taken during the filming of a picture about 60000 feet will be developed and printed Taking out different angles of the same scene shdt with long shots me dium shots and close ups the 60000 feet goes into a rough cut of 12000 and will take care of some footage and then in order to reduce to release length of 7500 to 8000 feet anything not absolutely necessary to the story must go are usually ten miles left on Lu irrni mn a lt 4 rn HVrtiririruHriitriio L' '4 I I i Mnr makes Mt' ft 'WlW'' II Wf Jl 11 IBB" 44 4 4 BbEm 11 I i' RIB'' liER V' lB M' lili al '1 Kb I 'A LddMMMh u' Jiw i 'I '41 Il ii I Xi "A A 4 4 1 lx 4 a A f' Bb 4 fe 1 I rs 4fAi 1 i ESp' WKb bEH 4A SSLjgr 4 IHI ye k' i 1 I.