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driving, will make motoring easier and more pleasant.
It is the same with motion picture film. Nobody could afford to make a really inferior film stock today; the field is too competitive. But certainly you will find that one film or another will have characteristics which will make your work as a cinematographer easier and more efficient.
For many years now I have used Agfa films: I made many beautiful pictures on the old Agfa Superpan, and more recently I have used the newer Agfa Supreme. The Agfa InfraRed negative I have used since the first day it appeared. I use them not merely because they are good film products— that is to be expected — but because I find they make my work better and more efficient.
New Problems
Today the cinematographer, whether he is working in a major studio or on an independent picture, has to meet problems he never faced a few years ago. He has to work faster, and yet turn out better camerawork than ever before. In the old days of silent pictures, a production did not have to be very important to have a schedule of three or four weeks’ shooting, while a really big super-production could he shooting for six months or a year without being considered unusual. I have made some that involved as much as a year and a half or even two years of camerawork.
Today, it is, as everyone knows, very different. An independent or program picture may be allowed anywhere from six to eighteen days of shooting, and an “A” picture which takes more than two months of camera
work is considered a most exceptional — and costly — epic.
With all of that, the cinematographer, in either case, is expected to deliver photography infinitely better than the best of only a few years ago. Even the cheapest of “quickies” counts as a matter of course camerawork which is far superior to that of the best super-production of ten or fifteen years ago.
It is no wonder, then, that the cinematographer of today is constantly looking for anything in film, equipment or methods which will simplify the mechanical parts of his work, and leave him more time to concentrate on his fundamental task of putting creative artistry on the negative.
It is in this that I find Agfa Supreme and Agfa Infra-Red negative films so useful. Much of my work lately has been done for independent producers who, though they may not have so much in time and money to lavish on their pictures, none the less expect — and are entitled to get — the best possible photography in their pictures. Many of these assignments require that we make a complete feature-length production in from six to eight days of shooting. This in turn means making fifty or sixty camera set-ups a day, and working early and late to keep schedule and budget intact.
Agfa Supreme is an ideal film for this sort of work. When conditions are normally good, the film has an inherent brilliance which is most pleasing, without being in any way overcontrasty. But it is amazing when you find yourself forced to work on dull days, or late in the evening to meet a schedule. Then it picks up faint
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