Super 8 Brothers: How to Make Good Movies
They don't make 'em like they used to...and sometimes that's a good thing.
Chris: Hey Greg, I just read a book from Kodak, published in 1955 and concisely titled, How to Make Good Movies: a non-technical handbook for those considering the ownership of an amateur movie camera and for those already actively engaged in the making of home movies who want to improve the interest and quality of their films.
Greg: That is a mouthful. Let me take a look at that bad boy.
Chris: Luckily, at the beginning of the book they assure us that, “all superfluous technicalities have been rigidly tabooed.” With language like that, how could we not read on? This tome is packed with great movie-making tips and ardent ’50s sexism. Let’s review some of the gems.
"He: How to Make Movies — here's the book we want to read, all right."
"She: Our movies seem pretty grand to me just the way they are. Why bother about reading a book?"
Five movie-making tips from Kodak:
- Know an f-stop from a bus stop: “…some readers may not recognize over- and underexposure—and hence not know what to do in the future so that these unflattering ‘boners’ do not again rear their ugly heads… an iris diaphragm is divided into different ‘stops.’… When the light is so intensely brilliant that your camera’s eye should squint, you swing the marker around toward stop f/16.”
- From your cold, dead hands: “There is only one best way to hold the average home movie camera, and that is to hold it somewhat as you would a gun.”
- With a telephoto lens, the lion sleeps tonight: “Most beginners at movie making firmly believe that the sole virtue of a telephoto lens is to make big ones out of little distant ones, as is frequently manifested in professionally made big game pictures when the hero, or heroine, can apparently reach out in front of the camera’s lens and chuck a dozing lion under the chin.”
- Again with the gun analogies? “With a shotgun you can blaze away into the middle of a nearby flock of ducks and drop a few of them no matter how much wobble there may be in your hands. But use this same technic [sic] when hunting distant deer with a rifle and you’ll never get any antlers for your fireplace… Therefore… you should always operate your camera from some steady support when using a lens of long focal length.”
- Don’t destroy life, poser: “… the problem of posing simply does not exist for the reason that you don’t want your subjects to pose… your movie camera, which exists to preserve life and not to destroy it, would far prefer that they merely go about their business of sailing a boat, teaching the old dog new tricks, or stoking up their favorite briar...”
- Oil the projector, Hector: “It does not require much oil… but it was never intended to run without oil. More than one movie maker who has wrathfully plunked his projector upon the showcase of his dealer with the statement that, ‘The blankety-blank machine sounds like a blankety-blank threshing machine,’ has readily confessed… it has never been blessed with the benefits of a single drop of lubrication.”
Greg: We better get out of here and let everyone else read the rest of the book. Gosh, are my ears red? I haven’t oiled my film projector in a month of Sundays!
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