Lights! Action! Camera!

Happily, the new wrinkles in the 8mm and 16mm movie field are in the cameras and projectors – not in your forehead. All of which makes non-pro movie-making more downright fun than ever before, whether you be living it up at Cap d'Antibes with the lady of your life, taking footage of your new blue Jag purring down the asphalt, or capturing on film a frantic session of party games in your pad. Pulling a neat switcheroo on that wizened old adage, the good words today are: the eye is quicker than the hand. The eye in this case happens to be electric and it spells a quick and painless demise for the bygone days of (a) hauling out the exposure meter, then (b) making your settings on the lens, and being forced to (c) get a new setting each time the sun went behind a cloud or your subject stepped into the shade. The gridded-glass, window-like affair that is the electric eye does it all for you, with nary a miss, and leaves you free to line up your subjects and get them moving the way you want.

Here's how it all works: actuated by light entering the photocell, the eye converts that light into electrical energy. This energy triggers the lens diaphragm. Performing a function similar to that of the iris of the eye, the diaphragm controls the amount of light passing through the lens system – guaranteeing the perfect exposure. The magic eye is here to stay and it's available in automatic and semi-automatic models. On the automatics, the eye takes over in a simple aim-and-shoot manner; you lend a hand on the semi-automatics by manually matching a light-measuring needle to a pointer representing the ASA rating of the film being used.

Competition, healthier than ever, has inspired a flood of electric-eye models, mostly 8mm but some 16mm, and foreign camera firms have bucked stiff import duties to join the fray. Advances in optics and technology – in addition to the eye innovation – have inspired scores of excellent simplified cameras, including several models equipped with effective zoom lenses.

The arrival of the electric eye and the zoom lens are blessings to camera fans, but the most headline-making scene in the history of amateur moviemaking is set for this month. It's the debut of the Fairchild Cinephonic, the first 8mm sound-on-film camera for hobbyists.

This battery-operated Fairchild records lip-sync sound through a mike which plugs directly into the camera at the time of shooting. A transistorized amplifier is right in the camera; a headset permits volume adjustments as you shoot-and-record your own epic production. It takes a special 50-foot spool of double-8 color film (a flip-over spool providing 100 feet of shooting film, twice as much as the 8mm standard). Plans call for a $240 price with the standard f/1.8 lens. About $40 apiece will bring wide-angle and telephoto lenses to fill out the tri-turret. A companion sound projector will also be available.

Sound-on-film cameras at prices the amateur can easily afford are the biggest development the industry can boast of since 1936 when 8mm cameras and projectors were first introduced. However, if you're not ready for sound movies as yet, the market is chock-full of gemlike cameras, each boasting their own special features.

Prior to bouncing into your local camera emporium, let's go over some of the decisions which you'll eventually have to make. Your first choice will have to be between 8mm and 16mm film sizes. To be brief, the 8 is strictly an amateur size, while the 16, sweet in price and performance, is accepted for commercial work. Prices for 8mm cameras start at $40 and go up tenfold for top models; 16s begin at around $125 and from that point on you become aware of the high cost of reliving.

The 16mm film is four times as large as 8; it projects more sharply, with less fuzziness at long distances, than does the 8mm frame. Keep this in mind when considering your zeal for showing movies other than those you take. Film libraries bulge with gems for sale or rental. You can pour over vintage reels of Chaplin, W. C. Fields and Harold Lloyd in mad revolt, or such not-so-whiskered Hollywood fare as On the Waterfront, Death of a Salesman, etc.; sample Rose Bowl games of the past, or explore the world of avant-garde experimentation dealt with by Arthur Knight elsewhere in this issue. The subjects available in 8mm are numerous, but the 16mm catalog tops them. If you prefer De Sica's direction interspersed with your own, invest in 16mm all the way.

While you're pondering the 8mm versus 16mm matter, face the spool or magazine-load alternatives, too. On the magazine side, for an added outlay, you get the advantage of purchasing one unit that contains film, feed and takeup spools and a film gate – all in a tightly sealed magazine. You forget about hand-threading. You drop the magazine into the film chamber and that's it. Another plus for the magazine is that it permits the instant change of film – say from daylight type to indoor type – as the occasion demands – without your having to wait until you shoot an entire roll of film. Bear in mind that in 16mm size – for which there are more magazine models available – the cameras accommodate just 50-foot magazines, as opposed to the 100 feet of film that's standard on 16mm spool-loads (the 8mm camera film capacity – magazine or spool – is 50 feet). Also, you should be aware that magazines have been known to jam without the user's knowing it, making your prize scenes just matters of memory.

Changing film in a spool-load model means marching into near-darkness. But we think this inconvenience is more than compensated for by the sharper, steadier results you get with spool-loads. It boils down to this: for ease and simplicity, get a magazine-load model; for more professional results, choose the spool-load variety.

We heartily endorse the new battery-operated cameras. The Austrian import, Eumig, should be toasted for this 8mm innovation. The battery-driven motor assures you that shooting won't grind to a halt before you want it to. It's a particular prize for those who can't seem to remember to hand-wind motors after each sequence. However, hand-wound spring-drive motors are – as ever – the most popular. One thing to check while you're shopping is the comparative running time per full wind you get on the cameras you like. If you decide on the battery-operated units, you should try out the Konica or Rexer, Japanese products, or two American models: the new Fairchild noted earlier or the Wittnauer Cine-Twin.

Then, you should observe the differences among lens equipment. The variances here are comparable to those you'll find among bar bourbons. Cameras are designed for single-lens use or in turret models. The latest trend is toward built-in zooms.

For critical work, the best lenses are those developed from optical designs making as few compromises as possible. The most common concessions to perfection are found in fixed-focus lenses, which are made to keep images within tolerable sharpness over an area generally extending from six feet to infinity. The inexpensive zooms and the low-priced converter-type turret lenses are the fixed-focus sort. If you're not a stickler for extreme sharpness, and will accept average quality, they're for you. If you seek the optimum, select a tri-turret model with three prime lenses, or go to a zoom with a reflex system permitting viewing and focusing through the shooting lens (solving the parallax problem inherent in separate viewfinders).

Another decision you'll have to reach concerns fps speeds. Most 16mm cameras provide more than one frames-per-second speed, as do the high-priced 8mm models. The less expensive automatic 8s generally operate only at 16 fps or 18 fps, the latter being the new industry standard for 8mm silent and sound shooting. For most lens-pointers, the standard silent speed is all that's ever needed. However, if you plan to add sound to your film at a later date, remember that the accepted 16mm sound speed is 24 fps, the accepted silent speed, 16. If you dig analyzing football plays, your golf swing or the graceful arch of a high diver, you'll want fps speeds of 48 or 64 to get the best slowed action. For satirizing or reliving the jerky movements of the Keystone Cops era, you should have fps speeds of 8 or 12.

For those who want a compact movie rig, the unique Wittnauer Cine-Twin – a combination 8mm camera-projector – is worth testing, though the battery-operated-motor camera itself is on the hefty side and not as easy to handle as many 8mm models. Its turret mounts four lenses; the fourth is the projection lens. When used with a companion unit which houses reel arms and an electric motor driven by house current, it projects the movies you shoot. And thanks to a clever footage indicator, you can rewind the spool of film you're exposing, slip it from the camera at any time – when you want to use it as a projector, for example – and replace it later at the exact spot. If you decide on another camera, you'll want to go out and get a projector as well, natch.

Our advice: devote as much time and thought to your choice of projector – 8mm or 16mm – as you did to the camera. Test (and test you should) a group of projectors. First, you'll want one that flashes a bright picture even in a well-lighted room. Also, you'll want acceptably bright pictures at varying projector-to-screen distances. Don't demand brightness at drive-in theatre distances, (concluded on page 88) Camera! (continued from page 76) but be finicky in terms of your needs.

The projector – in purely mechanical terms – should operate smoothly. The controls should be accessible and clearly labeled. Vibration and noise during operation should be as non-existent as they are in a Rolls-Royce. The projected image should be steady; it shouldn't droop, rise or jiggle.

Since you'll be filming at established speeds, it's obviously advantageous for the projector to move along at the same speeds, without fluctuation. If you didn't intend to come up with a slow-motion sequence, you shouldn't get one as a fringe benefit.

You can't project your film on a matchbook and expect to sustain attention – even if the subject is as bouncy as Bardot. The focal length of the lens determines just how far from the screen the projector must be placed in order to fill the screen. For example, to fill a screen 40 inches wide, projectors with one-inch lenses must aim from 18 feet away; 14 feet is about right for 3/4-inch lenses. The Bell & Howell Filmovara variable-focal-length lens is one way out of this confinement; it reduces the distance required. Revere's wide-angle adapter and Argus' zoom lens do, too.

Most projectors accept 400-foot reels, which provide more than thirty minutes of 8mm viewing at the 18 fps speed (15 minutes on 16mm). If a projector won't take more than a 200-foot reel, be aware of the fact that you'll have to jump up and down to change reels.

Several 8mm projectors – including the Eastman Cine Showtime, the Bell & Howell Super Auto-Load and the Revere AZ 777 – eliminate the tiresome task of hand-threading. Instead of guiding the film through the projector's labyrinthian sprocket system, you simply insert the first frame into the first step of the threading trail, hit the switch and joyously watch the film make its way unaided to the take-up reel. Just slip the leader of the film onto that bottom reel and you're ready to start the show.

The new projectors offer other convenience features, too. Look for a single-lever or button rewind. A reverse-run device enables you to repeat that scene of you pushing the girlfriend into the pool, without having to rewind the entire reel. A thread-checking knob permits you to double-check your film threading by turning the film-moving mechanism by hand, and prevents the jarring discovery of a pile of tangled film on the floor. Some of the new models have a room-lamp socket. You plug a table lamp into it and when the projector light goes off the room light goes on automatically. Most projectors offer still projection (the projection of a single frame at a time). Variable speed (intentional and mechanically controlled, not accidental) is worth having, too, to permit speeding up, running through dull spots and slowing down at the end of a rewind to bring the film to a halt without that flapping sound.

The world's best camera and projector won't save you if your directing technique is shoddy. This means you ought to be concerned with plot and continuity before you load your camera. It means, too, that the wise amateur invests in a film editor-splicer, which enables you to drop to the cutting-room floor all overexposed, underexposed, out-of-focus and light-fogged scraps. If a scene was poorly composed (lopped-off heads and the like), or if it was an unsuccessful afterthought, toss it out by judicious editing.

Finally, your assorted equipment isn't complete without a pan-head tripod, for the steadiest kind of shooting, and a screen that does justice to your films. There are a slew of splendid models of both – sturdy, lightweight tripods; washable, flameproof screens, with beaded, aluminum surface or matte surface. We recommend beaded screens that come in tripod-mounts, wall types, or permanently mounted automatic models that glide in and out of a slim enclosure on button touch. After you outline your projection area to your camera dealer, he'll recommend the right size screen for you, in terms of the focal length of your lens and the usual distance from projector to screen – so you'll get a full screen image.

Camera, projector, editor (and latch onto a titler, too, for that professional presents touch) and screen in hand, you're ready to turn out Class A productions. Advice to the film fan: build your movie around a story line. Maintain interest by mixing long and short, scenes (cardinal rule: avoid too many short ones). Strive for Hitchcockian suspense; lead up to your central idea, don't slug your audience with it. Never repeat a scene except, perhaps, for comic effect; once around is usually enough. Use close-ups to portray character. Direct your films by relating the subject to the running time; don't use three reels to tell a one-reel story. Remember that they're moving pictures; never run off a series of scenes of standing-still stuff. Tie everything you shoot smack into the plot. If there's a charming landscape nearby, forget it unless it's a part of your scenario. Never try panning without a panning tripod – and even then avoid it if you can; pan very slowly if you can't. All of these rules of thumb can be broken by a real artist, of course. But you must know them thoroughly before breaking them. Once all is mulled and filmed, don't be squeamish about cutting.

Ready? Lights. Action. Camera!