American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1949)

1914 — The motion picture cameraman in early days of silent movies worked unaided. He owned his own nondescript camera, loaded his own film and did other chores around studio when not shooting. Riding breeches, puttees and cap identified his calling. 1920 — Six years later movies were being made in¬ doors. Typical is this behind-scenes shot of Fred Jackman, A.S.C., direcfing a Mack Sennetf comedy. Cinematography’s Changing Cinematography has developed from a one-man art to a science requiring staffs of specialists, many of whom are veterans of the early silent picture days. By JAY DEVON A FIGURE well remembered by those who grew up during the era of the nickleodeon is the chap in puttees and cap turned backwards. He furiously cranked a mysterious black box while comic cops threw custard pies at each other and comely maidens tied to rail¬ road tracks stubbornly refused to surren¬ der their virtue. This eager-beaver of the crank handle was a versatile chap. He would dash out from behind his camera and shout orders to the actors through a megaphone. Five minutes later he might be pounding a set together or moving furniture into place. He wa* a man of many skills and talents, but his main responsibility was to keep the camera crank turning and the camera lens centered on the action. No one had ever thought of him as an artist, nor had he ever heard the word cinematographer , which was coined and came into use some time later, as we shall presently relate. A motion picture cameraman, in those pre-adolescent days of the movies, was a jack-of-all-trades and master of many. His world revolved around the camera crank. He usually loaded his own film magazines, set up his own equipment, placed his reflectors, moved the lights about, and kept the film whirring through his camera at a more or less uniform rate of speed. When all the drama or comedy was safely “in the can,” he often grabbed a broom and swept up the stage. Motion picture photography has come Pace . . . far since the days of the Keystone cop and open air stages where movies were filmed with the aid of sunlight. And what of the man in puttees and the cap turned backwards? The “puts” and cap eventually were discarded. His was no longer a one-man job. He was provided with a crew — men to hustle the camera about, to load magazines; separate tech¬ nicians to set focus, arrange lights, and a man to operate the camera. He was now called a cinematographer — a con¬ traction of the words cinema and photog¬ rapher. No, he wasn’t getting soft, and his role in the production of motion pictures was not made any simpler by the addi¬ tion of a camera staff. The technique of cinema photography had progressed rap¬ idly. Filming a motion picture was no longer the simple matter of setting up camera and shooting the scene in sun¬ light. Movies were now made for the most part in enclosed studio stages. A genuine photographic art was being de¬ veloped and each cinematographer of the day contributed substantially to it. Today, a cinematographer is not, as American Cinematographer August, 1949