Perhaps the humorist-artist wishes to make his picture a little bit more telling by indicating, with appropriate onomatopœic consonants, the sound of snoring. These additions can be drawn while the photography is taking place on a blank celluloid sheet superimposed over all the drawings in a way explained in a preceding chapter.
Symbols of musical notation and sound-imitating words are often introduced into a screen picture. They can be made to dance in rhythm, or at haphazard, by drawing them in series of three or so, on celluloid sheets. These would be placed, one at a time, in their order over the general scene and repeated as long as desired.
Series of drawings marked A show the screen effect desired. Below: the elements representing it that are used with the simple component—on celluloid—marked B.
The employment of balloons—they have been alluded to before—is a frequent one in comic screen work. They are the mouthpieces containing the dialogue of the characters. Their outline, more or less balloon-shaped, hovers over the heads of the speakers. The lines defining the balloons can come into the scene gradually in a lively way, and the dialogue itself can come in word by word. This latter scheme itself suggests talking.
When the first animated cartoons were produced and an effect with balloons was intended, the artist thought that he was doing well enough if he showed the lettering and merely had the person supposed to be speaking standing motionless. But now an artist who cares enough for his craft to put as much business into the scenes as possible will show the lips moving and the arms gesticulating at the same time that the lettering appears.
There are innumerable things that the artist must think of while he is photographing his drawings, and one of the weighty ones is to have the lettering for any particular dialogue, or explanation, held long enough on the screen for it to be read. Every studio has its own special rule as to the number of separate frames of a film to allow for a word. The only way to arrive at any conclusion as to how much film to take for any sentence in a balloon, or on a title, is to have some one read it and then time this reading. In this way the artist will be able to tell how much to give any particular wording. He will be able, too, after a while, to formulate his own rule with regard to the matter.
A “CLOSE-UP.”
A favorite method of telling something, or to hint as to that which is to follow, is to have a character discovered reading a newspaper upon which the item explaining the matter shows in an exaggerated type. The design is usually enclosed within a circle with the outside space a solid black. There is no special reason for using this particular encircling design. It is a way often used. Technically it is a good plan to employ this telescopic mat, as it may be called, as its forcible contrast of solid black margin breaks the monotony of the general uniform photographic tone of the rest of the film.