Produced as part of Sterling Films’ “Celluloid College” in 1947, Basic Motion Picture Technique is an educational film on the basics of filming a motion picture. It was made by Roy Creveling and Emil Brodbeck as edutainment. The film “has been carefully designed to teach exactly what it is that makes a movie interesting and enjoyable to an audience. It teaches technique, the ‘art’ of using the camera.” The first lesson deals with panning (01:21). A camera operator in front of a cathedral demonstrates the issues with panning too quickly. Filming a visit to a zoo or filming a sporting event (04:00) reveals how panning with moving objects can be effective if done properly. The second lesson discusses the importance of using a tripod (04:20), how to move it, and how to set it up. The next lesson is shot break-down (06:45). Here, the importance of shots is discussed, using the Statue of Liberty as the subject. Scenes from a student film (Victory Garden) demonstrate the impact of the different shots. The fourth lesson pertains to screen direction (09:30), explaining how to use screen direction to tell a coherent story using a couple on a hike as the example. “Matching Action” is the next lesson in the film, which explains how to ensure that movement appears seamless from one shot to the next, using a woman on a beach doing a series of exercises as the subject for the topic (11:53). “Newsreel Technique” (14:40) demonstrates how to skip large parts of action while still giving the audience a sense of “seeing” the whole story, and highlights the importance of cutaway scenes. The seventh lesson, “Build-up” (17:58), shows how to create other cutaway scenes to tell the story, this time using a child writing a letter about his summer activities as the example. Composition (21:32) teaches how to use the view finder to identify a good scene and discusses what factors make for good composition. “Indoor Lighting” (24:23) shows the different ways to use lighting to convey emotion or genre: horror, comedy, and romantic scenes use different lighting techniques. The film ends with a short homemade photoplay in which the viewers are asked to identify the different techniques used, which is the tenth and final lesson, “Applied Technique” (27:04). The short film is a story of a man bathing his child and the difficulty of doing the seemingly simple task.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com