Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/108

 *ance of quantity is often connected with symmetry in the fundamental pattern, as in the figure of the triangle. Further, there is balance through depth, the foreground weighing against the background. Another kind of balance is that of echoing motifs, a sort of fulfillment of the eye's expectations. There is also a balance of interests, which is quite different from the balance of quantity, because a small quantity of one thing may have greater weight of interest than a large quantity of something else. And there is the balance of contrasts, such as light against shadow, or straight lines against curved lines. How balance in all of these forms may be obtained in cinema composition will be discussed in the first half of this chapter.

One of the simplest tests for balance in a static picture is to draw a vertical line through the center of the picture, and then to estimate the weight, so to speak, of the two halves of the composition thus formed. If we try the experiment with the "still" from the photoplay "Maria Rosa," facing page 71, we see at once that the left half is too heavy. Besides containing by far the greater dramatic interest, it contains too many objects, shapes, and lines to attract the eye.

Now if this "still" were a student's painting which fell under the eye of the master, he might suggest various ways of "saving" it. For example, some of the bric-a-brac might be "painted out" from the dressing table, the lower lines of the mirror might be softened, and the door reflected in the mirror might be painted out, while some similar interest might be painted in at the right of the picture. Or if this "still"