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Technicolor Cameras Now Ride The RO Crane
MGM's versatile sound stage crane improved to accommodate unblimped Technicolor camera; permits loading and inspection of camera with¬ out removing it from crane.
By ARTHUR ROWAN
ROBERT SURTEES points out to director Curtis Bernhardt, in operator's seat behind camera, advantages of MGM's improved RO Crane, now that it accommodates the Tech¬ nicolor camera. Surtees used it to film many scenes for "The Merry Widow" which Bernhardt directed.
NEW rotatable base plate on camera support per¬ mits turning camera 45°, affording access to both sides for loading and inspection.
FRONT VIEW of Technicolor camera, showing lefthand door open for loading and inspection. Crane also affords full pan and tilf movement.
TILT feature permits heavy Technicolor camera (o be tilted full 90° with ease for a sfraight down shot, as shown here.
WHEN METRO-GOLDWIN-MAYER Studio developed and put into use its RO camera crane in 1939, most of the studio s productions then were filmed in black and white, with Mitchell cameras. The use of this crane with the larger Technicolor cameras had not been con¬ sidered.
At the time the RO crane was intro¬ duced, it was considered the foremost development of its kind, affording use of the camera at ground level, or elevating it during shooting from floor level to a
maximum height of 16 feet, and at the same time giving the camera lateral movement on the sound stage. It re¬ mains the most popular and versatile mobile camera mount in use at M-G-M.
The crane, having a boom 9 feet in length, is mounted on a four-wheel “rotambulator,” patterned after one of M-G-M’s first early-day camera dollies. Having the double feature of rotating dolly and rotating camera base (for panning shots), the term “Ro” for “rotating” was naturally applied to the
crane. Today it is still known as the “Rocrane” — or more commonly the RO Crane.
Over the years, many improvements have been made in the RO Crane by its originator and designer, John Arnold, A.S.C., but none, perhaps, as important as that recently completed, which now makes it possible to use Technicolor cameras (unblimped) on the crane with all the freedom enjoyed when a Mitchell camera is used.
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65
February, 1952
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