"Relegated to Honorable Mention only because it has been used commercially, No Credit, a brief and amusing abstract film, would under normal conditions have attained a much higher rating. The picture, produced by Leonard W. Tregillus, is a study in forms and movement accompanied by music. Much of it is single frame work that must have required infinite pains. This sounds alarmingly modern and incomprehensible; but since the film does not have to use words and depends for its effect solely on the cameraman's sense of timing, mood and music, the end result is altogether entertaining. Most abstract films seem to illustrate a theory or argue a point. No Credit stands on its own merits of creative form and movement, integrated with a stimulating musical score." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 494.
"Not One Word, by Kenneth F. Space, ACL, is an all around triumph of amateur photoplay production. It is a simple melodrama of the keeper of a lighthouse, his wife and the rejected suitor who returns. A wreck at sea (beautifully staged in miniature) is the complicating dramatic factor, and, with these ingredients, a dignified motion picture story of remarkable unity has been produced. In it, Mr. Space and his able staff have blended dramatic lighting, authentic settings and superb photography to achieve a distinguished whole. Under restrained but smoothly paced direction, the three leading players have enacted their roles with definite histrionic skill. If one were to try to select a single quality in the film which is outstandingly brilliant, the vote of this observer would be cast for the cutting. It is accurate and incisive, adding that last bit of dramatic "punch" which is perhaps the quality least often achieved by the amateur producer. Not One Word speaks for itself, but in the wordless and potent idiom of cinematic imagination." Movie Makers, Dec. 1934, 534.
"Objectif Festival is a story based - on truth or not, we don't know - of an old photographer who decides to bring his camera, tripod and all, the to the Cannes Film Festival to get a few still shots. He is not prepared for the fast shooting shutterbugs of today, nor the Bikini clad French dolls that litter the beaches. Time has passed him by in more ways than one. The film has been cleverly cut to fit its musical score, and this unusual editing has earned for the film the MPD Golden Scissors Award for the best film editing in the contest" PSA Journal, Sept. 1964, 50-51.
"When movie makers turn to movie making itself as the subject of a picture, sometimes they are a little self conscious and heavy handed — more particularly if the approach is humorous. This fault, the Dallas (Texas) Cine Club has successfully avoided in Out to Win, an opus that displays the adventures of a new convert to filming. The hero of the tale observes that everybody has a movie camera and that he is out of things. So his trombone and the equipment of other hobbies go to the "hock shop" to finance the purchase of a new cine camera. His wife isn't particularly sympathetic to movie making, and here the real humor enters, for Mrs. Movie Maker is not antagonistic; she is just oblivious to the real importance of movies. She walks in on her husband when he is developing titles, she tramps through film clips when he is editing; but, when the movie maker receives an incredible sum for a newsreel scoop (well handled airplane wreck sequence) and, in consequence, gets a check that enables the pair to buy a new car, Mrs. Movie Maker's attitude changes. In the last scene, she is proudly using a camera. The actors are excellent: they do not overplay their roles, and so the film is really funny." Movie Makers, Dec. 1939, 634-635.
"Pipe Dreams, by Joseph Dephoure, ACL, and Edward Atkins, ACL, is ranked among the year's ten best because of its considerable triumphs over dramatic and technical difficulties. Through the imagination of its producers, a small cast, simple settings and moderate footage have been used to tell a big story, rich in pictorial effect. Dreaming that he has murdered his unfaithful wife, a young man sees in prospect the swift and fearful course of his life to the waiting gallows. The murder, the trial, the death cell and the hanging are represented in large part only by the imaginative and striking use of shadows of the real scenes. Occasional straight shots are heightened in effect by unusual angles and dramatic lighting. Sensitively planned, smartly executed and deftly cut, Pipe Dreams makes its simple story exciting and forceful." Movie Makers, Dec. 1933, 500.
"Portrait of a Young Man, by Henwar Rodakiewicz, ACL, is a triumph of fine photography and sensitive imagination. Abstract in treatment, and speaking through delicately rhythmed scenes of smoke, leaves, grasses, the sea, machinery and the heavens, this film is an attempt to portray in graphic terms a young man's reactions to the beauty, force and mystery of the natural world. In producing the final three reel version, Mr. Rodakiewicz has filmed deliberately toward the one end for more than three years and in many different locales. Although using largely material to be found in nature, he has so transmuted it, by the creative artistry of his selection and control, as to get from each selected scene, not a mere reproduced likeness, but a trenchant and symbolic image. Portrait of a Young Man is beautiful, exciting, workmanlike and distinguished." Movie Makers, Dec. 1932, 538.
"A humorous experiment in the art of making a lip sync motion picture with magnetic sound. Even short productions can overcome the producer with startling results. Dr. Crane's "Production Able" indicates the first of a series and we are already looking forward to "Production Baker". Many will recall his "Show of Hands" in the 1958 Contest" PSA Journal, Nov. 1959, 47.
"A joint project of the members of the Motion Picture Photography Class of the Westchester Workshop, in White Plains, N. Y., Recreation Handmade is notable for its evenness of camera work. It presents in a naturally episodic fashion various handiwork classes available to children and adults of the community. If you like to work with your hands, this film will make you eager to enroll in one of the many activities offered — which, of course, is the purpose of its production. A rather full commentary describes how the courses work. Walter Bergmann, as instructor of the motion picture course, proves with his pupils' film that practical movie making can be taught — and taught well." Movie Makers, Dec. 1949, 470-471.
"Revelation indeed reveals the slow, but intense, life of flowers as they unfold. Hans J. Theiler, who built a special mechanism for the purpose, has made time lapse studies of blooms in their determined efforts to find sunlight. Other flowers lose as well as open. The time lapse sequences are preceded by closeup footage of various blooms impeccably filmed. In the chief section of the picture, Mr. Theiler has caught very dextrously the unusual and almost terrifying performances of plants as they carry on their exceedingly active careers. The time lapses are exceptionally smooth." Movie Makers, Dec. 1944, 496.
"A black-and-white silent animation, which Kaneko himself described as a visualization of a musical score, Hungarian Rhapsodie. He experimented with visual geometric abstraction as a means to express the musical score, and this film was his first attempt to use the koma-otoshi technique (the technique being used for time-lapse photography or stop-motion animation)." - Noriko Morisue, "Filming the Everyday: History, Theory, and Aesthetics of Amateur Cinema in Interwar and Wartime Japan" (Yale University: PhD Dissertation, 2020): 99.
Total Pages: 9
Amateur Cinema