American Cinematographer - May 1933 - 21

22

American Cinematographer

*

May 1933

AMATEUR SECTION

The large picture was carefully pasted to a thin board
and, with a jig saw, sawed with irregular outlines into
sixteen separate pieces.
This work may be easily done
at home by using a small coping saw from the ten cent
store.
However, if a more expert job is desired, there
are numerous establishments which will cut the jig saw
puzzle to order.
The number of separate pieces should
not be in excess of twenty-five, as too much footage
would otherwise be used in assembling.
All the necessary parts have now been assembled for
arrangement on my titling board.
This is a home made
affair with the camera rigidly mounted at one end and a
board 14 inches by 103;» inches arranged to slide on the
other end. Between these, two 100-watt projection lights,
also on a sliding piece, are mounted behind reflectors. The
board was erected vertically with the camera shooting down¬
ward, the title board on the floor.
The jig saw puzzle
was assembled on the board which was moved backward
and forward and the puzzle adjusted until the extreme
edges of the picture exactly coincided with the edges of
the finder.

Lenox R.

Lohr, the author, finds new use

for

board.

title

Considerable experimenting was necessary to obtain the
correct lighting for when the regular illuminating lights
were turned on two brilliantly reflecting spots were evident
in the finder, in spite of the fact that a non-glossy print had
been used. No adjustment of the reflectors or the lights would
eliminate these glares. So for these fixed lights a detached
500-watt bulb was substituted and it was found that with
the light impinging on the picture at an angle of 45 degrees
from slightly to one side and about three feet away from
the picture, no glare or reflection from the surface of the
picture occurred. It was evenly lighted over its entire sur¬
face. The finder on my Victor Camera indicated clearly the
best position of the light to reproduce as nearly as possible
the tone of the original picture.

Monographing
The Jig-Saw
by
Lenox R. Lohr,
General Mgr., Century of Progress
International Exposition

T

HE present vogue of the jig saw puzzle suggested an
interesting stunt which worked quite successfully and
which I am here recounting for others who may be
similarly interested.
Recently I took a strip of film of four children at the
dinner table using two 500-watt lights and an F-1.9 lens.
When this picture had been printed, I cut the first frame
from the film and sent it to a commercial photographer
to have it enlarged to a width of 12 inches.
Of course,
it remained in the same proportion as the original picture.
The size of 12 inches was selected to fit the size of
my title board which was used in the process, but any
size picture from 4 inches up should be equally satis¬
factory.

It was contemplated that while using the stop motion
and taking one frame at a time, the various pieces of the
jig saw puzzle would be slowly moved into position and
assembled.
A difficulty arose however in assembling the
puzzle.
The first piece would have had to be very ac¬
curately located so that the puzzle as completed would
be exactly framed, and even a slight jar in the assembling
process might easily have knocked it out of its position.
It was also difficult to get the pieces assembled in their
proper order.
Both of these were obviated in the actual
process by photographing the picture upside down, be¬
ginning with the assembled picture and taking it apart.
Since the camera was fixed, the same result was achieved
by turning the picture upside down.
So starting with the assembled picture, piece by piece
was removed, each piece being moved from Vs to 'A of an
inch for each picture taken.
Care was taken that the
movement be not jerky and that if the direction of a
piece be begun in a straight line or a curve, it must travel
along this path for six or eight frames before making a
change in direction. From one to four pieces were in
movement at all times, some of which are removed by a
devious route creating the amusing effect in the finished
picture of searching around for their proper places. When
only four pieces were left, they were disengaged, turned
several revolutions on their own centers and taken from
the board radially, leaving it entirely black.
Some of the pieces were interlocking while others would
Continued on Page 33
American Cinematographer - May 1933

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 1933
