American Cinematographer - May 1933 - 22

AMATEUR SECTION

May 1933 *

American Cinematographer

lighting-practice more closely than does the usual run of
amateur lighting for black-and-white pictures.
In the
latter, you can use less light, and cover a larger area;
moreover, you can pay your greatest attention to lighting
your people, feeling sure that the general illumination will
pretty well take care of the background-especially when
you are using Super-Sensitive Panchromatic film.
With
Kodacolor, you will find it decidedly different; lighting
the people is much the same, but you must make definite
provision for your background if you want it to appear in
the finished picture.
The important part of lighting people for Kodacolor
interiors is to avoid either flatness or excessive contrasts.
In other words, work for a definite balance, with one side
of the face brightly lit, and the other half lit with but half
as much light; then round the shadow side off with a nice
back-light. You can get this balance easily in several dif¬
ferent ways: by using two units on one side of the person,
and one on the other, or-if you can spare only two units
for all of the front light-having one unit much closer
to the person than the other.
In any event, this lighting
should come from above the person's head, being so posi¬
tioned that the shadows cast by the nose (when the light
on the other side is not on) comes down to the corner of
the mouth.
The exact arrangement of the lighting, of
course, will as always, depend largely upon the nature of
the subject.

Alfred Cilks, A.S.C., experimenting
with kodacolor indoors

Kodacolor
Comes Indoors
by
A. L. Cilks, A.S.C.

HE recent announcement that Super-Sensitive Koda¬
color film can now be used for making natural-color
movies by artificial light is fraught with importance
for amateur cinematographers.
It means, of course, that
the potentialities of this popular natural-color process are
vastly increased: but more than this, it means that the
amateur interested in lighting and interior cinematography
has opened to him an entirely new field of endeavor; light¬
ing for color. This can be as simple or as intricate as one
wants to make it; as commonplace or as unusual as ability
and equipment allow.
The first step, of course, is the use of the new Koda¬
color ratio-diaphragm for use with photoflood lights. This
is important, for the ordinary Kodacolor ratio diaphragms
do not admit as much light-and what they do admit is in
the wrong proportions to give satisfactory results.
If you
will examine the normal ratio diaphragms that are sup¬
plied with Super-Sensitive Kodacolor film, you will ob¬
serve that the diaphragm reduces the effective area of the
three filter-strips almost proportionately, having an open¬
ing roughly oblong in shape.
The Photoflood diaphragm,
on the other hand, leaves the red in the same proportion,
but practically doubles the green and blue areas; this is
to counteract the yellow-red components of incandescent
light. Since this diaphragm reduces the red area to 6/10
of the full red area on the filter, it is officially termed
No. 6', these diaphragms may be had without cost by
writing the Kodak people in Rochester.
Unlike some of
the normal ratio caps, these can be used for all SuperSensitive Kodacolor film so long as incandescent lighting
is used; when you go out doors, of course, the ratio-dia¬
phragm that came with the roll should be used.
Kodacolor lighting, you will find, approaches professional

Now for the background: in closeup, if you have the
background very close behind your subject, the "spilled
light'' from your lights in front of the subject will pretty
well take care of the background. In longer shots, on the
other hand, or in shots in which the subject must be
more than say eighteen inches in front of the background,
you will find it necessary (if you want the background
to show in the picture), to deliberately light it with one
or two lighting units especially placed for this purpose.
This background lighting can be just as important as is
proper lighting of the subjects themselves.
All of this seems to suggest that you'll need a lot of
lighting equipment; actually, it will depend on what you
are photographing. If you are making closeups, you won't
need much; if you are making longer shots, you II naturally
need more light to cover the larger area, you won't be able
to place your lights so close to your subject-and of course
you'll need more lighting units to do it with.
At any
rate, you can hardly have too much light, or too many
lighting units.
Although the new ratio diaphragms are conspicuously
labelled "Photoflood," you needn't discard any other equip¬
ment you may have on hand.
I have found that the
regular photographic lighting-units, such as the efficient
"Solite" and Kodalite units give very satisfactory results
with Kodacolor.
(The "Solite," of course, has the added
advantage of being adaptable to photoflood bulbs as well
as to the regular 500-watt tubular bulbs.)
Since there
are a number of inexpensive lighting units made for use
with photoflood bulbs-units ranging in price from $5.00
is not difficult to assemble a surprisingly large
up-.jt
array of lighting equipment for a very modest sum in¬
deed.
Then there are all sorts of makeshifts which can
be used: table-lamps and bridge-lamps, for instance, can
be fitted with the inexpensive 64-volt bulbs and used
very effectively for backlighting and background-lighting;
some of the multiple-socket reflecting type holders made
for photoflash bulbs can also be pressed into service; and
surprisingly useful "broadsides" and overhead units can be
made at little or no cost out of wooden boxes, fitted to
Continued on Page 34

American Cinematographer - May 1933

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