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ONE OF THE pictorial highlights in “Mutiny on the Bounty" is panoramic scene above of a Tahitian fishing operation in which hundreds of native girls crouching in the surf act as a human net to contain the hords of fish being driven shoreward by men in canoes. In photo below, right. Director of Photography Robert Surtees and camera crew prepare to shoot doseups of a segment of this action being rehearsed by assistant director before them. Surtees is 2nd from right, standing on camera platform.
a ship was constructed from the keel up especially for photography. The ship, adapted in design from the actual plans of Captain Bligh’s “Bounty,” was constructed at the historic Smith & Rhuland ship¬ yards at Lunenberg, Nova Scotia.
Above deck the motion picture “Bounty” is a faithful copy of the original, from rope davits to the 10,000 square feet of canvas on the squarerigged masts. However, whereas Bligh’s vessel was 85 feet long and carried a crew of 62, the new “Bounty” was extended to 118 feet to provide room for Panavision cameras, lights and other cinema¬ tographic equipment, as well as dressing rooms and equipment storage below decks.
When the vessel was still in the blueprint stage conferences had been held to decide where cameras could best be placed and to make provision for such installations. With this in mind, permanent fittings were built into the ship to readily accommodate platforms and tubular steel parallels in the most strategic locations. Installations for parallels were also provided all along the deck and similar plat¬ forms could be installed far down on the sides of the ship, high up in the rigging, on the masts and bowsprit or in a special rig off the stern from which the complete deck of the ship could be photographed while under full sail.
Because of this foresight in design, Surtees was able to achieve the most sweeping coverage of a sail¬ ing vessel ever recorded on film. While he included
some breath-taking shots made from high up in the crow’s nest, Surtees believes that low camera angles create the most dramatic effects for action aboard a moving sailing vessel, which is why he often mount¬ ed the camera on a platform attached to the side of the ship, almost at water level. When the ship pitched and rolled the tripod and the camera oper¬ ator were sometimes partly under water.
With a crew of 25 under the command of Caplain Ellsworth Coggins, a retired commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, the “Bounty” made the 7,327 mile voyage from Lunenberg to Tahiti. Once the ship arrived, 150 days were spent aboard it filming at sea.
But bad luck dogged most of the shooting. The
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AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, FEBRUARY, 1963
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