Africa is 60 Miles from Hollywood (in the movies)
by JAMES BOWLES
If you think the title of this article is rather far-fetched, you’re doing an injustice to Hollywood’s cleverest location managers, whose special brand of geography, not taught in the public schools, crowds Alaska, Ireland, Honolulu and Holland within the bounds of the state of California. FRANCE is 20 miles from the South Seas, the Sahara Desert adjoins Holtville, California, and the dykes of Holland leak into Long Beach.
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DOLLS Become ACTORS
DOLLS may replace drawings as actors in animated cartoon movies if the idea developed by three Italian brothers proves successful. The present way of making such films, the best example of which is Walt Disney’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, is to shoot thousands of drawings separately and then piece them together so that the subjects appear to move when projected.
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HOLLYWOOD’S FROGMAN
Glen Galvin of MGM, attired in bathing suit and oxygen mask, is man behind the scenes in Hollywood’s fabulous underwater extravaganzas.
By Bob Willett
STANDING on the bottom at a depth of 12 feet, a man pulled steadily on a slender line. About 100 feet away, an object moved slowly toward him through the greenish-blue water.
As it drew near it took the shape of a beautiful young woman whose face and form could rival those of any mythical sea siren. She was bound hand and foot but, despite this apparent predicament, managed a cheerful grin when the diver finally reached out and grabbed her. Following twin streams of bubbles, they rose to the surface and he towed her to safety.
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Making Trick PICTURES with a Home Movie Camera
by Walter E. Burton
Half the fun in making home movies lies in getting unusual shots that will mystify friends viewing your production. Taking such trick pictures is quite simple and easy, as told here.
IF YOU purchase, borrow, or receive as a present a motion picture camera, you will find the mere process of photographing everything in sight thrilling enough for the first half-dozen reels. Then you will look about for new fields to conquer. Perhaps you will undertake the making of your own dramas or comedies—movies with a plot or at least a basic theme.
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James Bond’s Weird World of Inventions
007 tangles with the trickiest assortment of supergadgets ever assembled for the screen in new James Bond movie, “Thunderball”
By HERBERT SHULDINER
Gadgetry is a smash hit in Hollywood. Dozens of new films and TV episodes are filled with zany gimmicks and pushbutton devices to entertain audiences.
The thing that started this remarkable trend is the unprecedented success of the gimmick-packed James Bond movies. The first three 007 films raked in over $75 million. Gold finger alone has earned about $43 million—more than any film has ever returned over a comparable time span.
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What Makes the Movies Talk?
By William F. Crosby
Electrical Expert and Radio Engineer Millions of people have heard and seen the new talking movies, but the theater-going public knows little about the machinery that makes this form of entertainment possible. In this article Mr. Crosby writes authoritatively of the development of the talking movies, being an electrical engineer who has made a study of the sound devices.
SPEECH reproduction as an accompaniment of motion pictures has been perfected to such a degree that the common variety of silent movie promises to become something of a rarity. Even the 100-seat side-street theater will soon be able to cast out its old mechanical organ and give its patrons the same high quality musical accompaniment that distinguishes the presentations in the largest movie palaces.
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Behind the Scenes With Movie Sound Fakers
The baying of wolves, the clackety-clack of horses’ hoofs, the creaking of auto brakes—these sounds which you hear from the silver screen seldom come from their real sources. This story by an eminent movie sound expert takes you behind the scenes and shows you how these noises are faked.
by MURRAY SPIVAK
Famous Hollywood Sound Director
ONE afternoon recently I sat in the scoring room of the movie studio where I am sound director watching a team of horses gallop down a country road. Later in the picture trees swayed in a violent wind, and then brush broke as an actor ran through a forest. But never a sound issued from the talking screen.
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Creating Illusions for the Talkies
by MARY SHARON
You can’t believe everything you see in the talkies, and it’s a bit of luck for you that you can’t; for these illusions lower production costs and help keep the admission price within your reach.
“IF THE mountain will not come to Mohammet, Mohammet must go to the mountain.”
“But, most noble prophet, it costs too much to go to the mountain.”
“Then we’ll fake a mountain right here in the studio.”
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Behind the Scenes with the MARCH of TIME
by JAMES DYSON
A FLOURISH of trumpets and the announcement “March of Time”, coming through the loudspeaker at your local movie theater, represents the introduction of a new kind of motion picture journalism—dramatized news pictorially presented to impress you with the importance of current events.
Like the fast moving drama of its daily radio news presentation and the vivid stories of its companion magazine, March of Time on the screen has won public favor because it combines the striking events of the present with the unusual background so often forgotten in the hustle of the average newspaper editorial rooms. A clever harmony of realism and illusion swiftly flashed on the screen indelibly stamps on the minds of the spectators the historic importance or the social or economic significance of the story being unfolded before them.
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Simple Things Complicated in Joe Cook Comedy
THE unemployment problem in this country would be quickly solved if all inventors would follow in the footsteps of Joe Cook, for that inimitable comedian of the stage and screen seems to have a perfect genius for complicating the simple things of life and employing nine men where but two were used before.
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