The best background for these titles, when it is to be solid black, is a piece of black velvet. This material is a serviceable article in motion-picture work as it gives an intense and certain black, and if wrinkles form in it they do not betray themselves by any lights or shadows in the photographic print.
Sometimes in trick work it is intended that some part of the design is masked while another part is being photographed. This is a simple matter if the background is a dark one, as a piece of paper, or cardboard, of the same color is placed over it while the photography is taking place. A line of letters, for instance, that is already drawn on the dark ground is to appear letter by letter. A strip of this dark-colored paper covers the words at first, but is pulled away to expose the letters one by one. Another way would be to clip off a section of the paper bit by bit. Blackening the edges of the paper will provide against these edges showing as light lines and so giving away the ruse.
In selecting for working under the camera of dark-colored cardboards, it is advisable to pick out only those with dead mat surfaces and reject those with any enamelled or shiny surfaces.
As previously mentioned, for trick titles, a larger field is used than that for animated cartoons. It makes the manipulation of dummies and detached items much more convenient.
An amazing and wonderful screen illusion is that of animated sculpture. The audience first sees a shapeless mass of clay which of itself seems to assume in a few seconds a plastic composition. It is a portrait of a notable, perhaps, or it may take the form of a grotesque mask.
The trick of animated sculpture is produced like this: A camera is centred on a rough mass of clay, which is first photographed in this shapeless form. A sculptor now pushes the clay around to a desired preliminary effect, then when he has stepped out of the picture, that is, gets out of the range of the lens, the clay is photographed again. Once more the sculptor moulds the clay to a stage approaching the contemplated form, steps out of the picture and the camera brought into action again.
The proceeding is continued: modelling the clay, the sculptor getting out of the range of the lens, and the camera brought into action, until the clay has been fashioned in its complete form. The interruptions during which the sculptor was working will not be represented on the screen as the camera was not working then, and so no exposures were made. Instead, the effect will be a continuous one of a mass of clay miraculously forming itself into a plastic work.
The way of working in making animated sculpture, like that of the process of using dummies that are moved, little by little, while the shutter is closed and then photographed after each time that they have been moved, is called the “stop-motion” method. The motion of the camera is stopped, in other words, while the particular object is placed in a new position each time before it is photographed.
When on the screen you see some thin black line appearing on one side, crawling reptilian fashion, suddenly turning upward, twisting and soon beginning to outline the silhouette of a figure or part of a pictorial composition, there is exemplified another instance of this “stop-motion” photography.
This extraordinary performance of a plain line, to the average spectator seems wondrous, and its production a veritable mystery. But it is managed very easily.