Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1953)

207 Photographs from Desilu Productions CAMERA CREW (I. to r.) include assistant who follows focus on dolly shots, operator who follows field in finder, assistant who runs dolly and mike man. At right clap-stick begins a new take. possible, to get a good pickup of their voices and to avoid the unwanted noise created by the spectator audience. The camera operator, on the other hand, has to be careful to keep the mike out of the scene. Even an intruding shadow of the mike (which you often catch on live TV pickups) is frowned upon by the Lucy production crew. CONTROLLING LIGHT CONTRAST And finally there is the problem of the lighting. In the early days of television the actors really suffered. Even the most photogenic faces often were chopped up with shadows and butchered by cross lighting, due, not to malice on the part of TV production personnel, but rather to inexperience. Then, when stations went to film, still other problems arose. Pictures which had been lighted and lab-printed for theatrical projection proved too contrasty for good televising. Dark backgrounds and low key lighting, both terrific on the theatre screen, produced only disturbing flares on the kinescope tube. Karl Freund was one of the first to solve these problems in a scientific manner. Instead of depending on the laboratory to juggle print contrast, he controls the original scene. The lighting contrast, which would be about 5 to 1, or even 8 to 1, for theatrical projection, is kept down to not more than a 2 to 1 ratio. (This is the same lighting contrast, incidentally, which you normally use in your color photography.) The lighting contrast is measured with an incident-light type of meter such as the Norwood. With it as a guide, Karl balances the illumination to a level of 250 foot-candles for the main sources and 125 foot-candles for the fill lights. (In addition to the lighting contrast, the subject brightness range also has to be controlled. White shirts and white walls are out. Instead, pastel blues and pinks are used. Black is out too, supplanted by grays.) MAIN LIGHTING OVERHEAD But where, you may well be asking, does all of this carefully controlled lighting come from? With the actors always on the move, and the cameras rolling back and forth, there obviously is no room on the floor for light stands. Thus, all of them — more than a hundred units — are kept overhead on catwalks hung from the roof. This high position of the lights tends to cause "television shadows" — black eyes and dirty chins. To illuminate these shadows, Karl has mounted extra lights on each camera. A 2000 watt projection bulb is positioned over each lens with a sheet of diffusing glass. And, in addition, on the foot of each camera dolly there are three sealed-beam flood lamps. You can see them in our stills. These portable lights, as well as all key lights, are controlled through dimmers carefully manipulated from a control booth. Balancing the illumination is no small problem when you see the frequent movements of the players and the cameras. But it becomes infinitely complicated when the lighting has to be kept uniform for all three cameras at the same time. Nevertheless, Freund and his chief electrician Bill King seldom have to use exposure meters. With their combined two-score years of experience, they can judge a scene by eye and tell instantly where another foot-candle more or less needs to be added. As a matter of fact, it seldom is necessary to change lens apertures. F/4 is the standard opening, with illumination balanced accordingly, and in advance, for the three or four sets that are used each week. PLANNING MAKES PERFECTION Although it takes only an hour to film / Love Lucy, it takes a week to plan it. Rehearsals begin promptly each Monday morning. By Tuesday afternoon the cast is able to give Karl a run-through so that he can rough out his plans for the cameras and lighting. This latter work begins Wednesday and takes into account every movement of the players, every entrance and exit. Not until Thursday do the camera crews come in. As the composition of each shot is worked out, they mark its outline on the floor with Scotch tape. Lens distances are measured with a tape measure. All of this information is tabulated on an elaborate cue sheet, which also includes the lighting plots — which lights are on or off at each moment of the action. During the show, the director in a control booth will be prepared to cue the cameramen by telephone. Finally, on Friday afternoon, a complete dress rehearsal is run through, in preparation for the performance that evening. As the players make their entrances and exits, speak their lines or move around the set, the camermen follow the taped lines on the floor and listen to the director's instructions from the control booth. On each camera, the first assistant cameraman concentrates on his chief responsibility — framing the scene in the viewfinder. At the side of the camera, the second assistant keeps the lens in focus. He has a cue sheet which lists the distances (those which were measured with a tape during the rehearsals) and the focal length of lens for each shot. And for moving-camera shots he has to follow focus smoothly and accurately. The two other assistants are the cable man, who keeps the power lines free from en [Continued on page 219]