AMATEUR MOVIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 837, 4 December 1929, Page 16

AMATEUR MOVIES

NO LIMITS TO FILM CHANCES MATERIAL EVERYWHERE By HOMOVIE “Throw him out!” shouted the director. “But wait,” said the cameraman, who was a Frenchman and who had understood Florey’s tirade. He translated for the director. It seems their set. was all wrong, the costumes ridiculous and the whole scheme absurd. Then he gave the young man’s views as to how this could all be corrected. The director, who was Emmett Flynn, making "The Count of Monte Cristo, listened and the incident ended with Florey’s being hired as technical advisor on French detail for the film. This piece of luck was the beginning of Florey’s climb to success. It was not long afterward that "on his own” he made the short impressionistic pictures that won for him so much praise, “The Life of a Hollywood Extra,” “The Loves of Zero,” and “The Coffin Maker.” He used sets of cardboard and hairpins with puppet actors to achieve, by use of shadows and camera angles, some of the most beautiful and original effects produced on any screen. Struggles Never Over

When you say to Mr. Florey how glad he must be that his struggles are over, he replies, “My struggles are never over; I am struggling now, trying continually to express ideas with a camera. If you will come with me into the projection room I will show you a little one-reel film I made last week of New York’s skyscrapers. I did it purely as an experiment in three mornings. You will probably he the only audience it will have for the print is bad and I mean to throw it away, but it will give you an idea of what can be done in a few hours of shooting at very little expense.” Presently a tall, lean shadow flashed on the screen followed by varied shots of buildings, crevices in Wall Street, stone canyons with thin little shadows of sunlight trickling through them, Trinity tower, a close-up of an office window set in stone like a gaping eye. The most fantastic effects were secured in shooting sheer heights, in a close-up of a detailed cornice, in the meeting of distant skyscrapers like gleaming needle-points. Suddenly Times Square loomed ahead with with Broadway narrowing in the distance like disappearing tracks. The Metropolitan tower flashed into view with its familiar clock-face. St. Patrick’s steeples melted into girders of a steel skeleton rising grimly from the earth. The blank face of a new apartment house gazed into the camera’s eye like a soulless thing of stone gouged with holes that were windows. The Artist's Touch It was partly the architectural wonder of New York that made the film so stirring but, really, it was the artist’s touch that moved one, the catching of mood, line, colour and feeling in the strange walled city. All of the shots were taken from the street level and without characters; it was their lacy fantasy that made the film something unreal and lovely. Mr. Florey is emphatic in his belief that beautiful pictures can be made at little expense. He believes the amateur has a great opportunity, providing he has ideas in his head and a feeling for mood in things. He says a picture should tell a story, whether it is still life or not. This is what his buildings did, suggested, expressed, interpreted the life in them. He thinks that experimental films should be made only to throw away, after they have served their purpose of showing the amateur the flaws of his work. The real artist will some day make something that satisfies him —that will be the beginning of a beautiful picture later. No momentary disappointment will discourage him from pursuit of this ideal. Simplicity the Keynote

If the amateur is only amusing himself, with no serious ambition for making pictures a career, Mr. Florey advises him to stick to simple subjects. He says that society dramas, amateurishly acted, should be avoided, for they are bound to be artificial in their results. "The worst thing that can happen to an amateur,” he says, “is to see his work ridiculous, to see his films curdle.” Keep to exteriors for settings, and, if a short play must be tried, stick to simplicity in plot—perhaps one of Zola’s stories or a Russian thing having to do with the soil and the worker, where there is not much heavy acting nor intricate sets demanded.”

A good short subject could be got, he declared, by following a cub policeman around on his beat, or a taxidriver, or, in a place like New York, an old beggar picking up trash from the streets. But anywhere and everywhere, he believes, there is plenty of material to be found by the interested amateur in search for it with his camera.