Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

TITLES AND SPECIAL EFFECTS 207
long introduction is required, a traveling title on a drum or strip
can be made. For the main title, i.e., the name of the production,
ten characters or less per line, is the limit.
If the services of a good lettering artist are not available, lettering
sets can be bought quite cheaply. There is a product known
as Zip-a-tone which consists of various sized letters printed on
transparent sheets. These are cut out and mounted on the card.
While more expensive and not re-usable, they are very finished
in appearance and offer an excellent way to produce good titles
for about $2 or $3 per card.
Except for special features such as productions dealing with
literary or business subjects, the typewriter does not offer much
scope. For one thing, the type is so small that it does not reproduce
well even on movies, while on most television sets it is almost
unreadable unless special large type has been fitted to it.
The scope in amateur titling outfits is almost unlimited. In
fact, many of those outfits come under the heading of semi-professional
or even professional. There are so many, and the num-
ber increases almost daily, so that no useful purpose would be
served by enumerating them here. A visit to any
camera store
will turn up a selection as wide as anyone can want. Included in
this array of titlers are outfits using the following methods: cut-
out letters on cardboard; metal letters which adhere to a magnetized
backing; pin-attached letters; sponge rubber letters which
stick to any surface and consequently are fine for making strip
or drum title. This type also lends itself to lighting effects because
they will cast shadows if illuminated from the sides and so provide
a three-dimensional effect. Even the common alphabet soup
letters can be used for some types of program with suitable subject
matter. Solid block letters will be dealt with again later when
discussing trick titles.
Printer's type is also used from time to time since it can be
obtained in many different sizes or fonts, as it is usually described.
A simple outfit is all that is required to produce good results. The
type is put in a "type stick," clamped tight, inked, and an im-
pression made on any suitable card. It is well to observe here that