American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1952)

After this, there still were some ex¬ teriors to be filmed and for these, loca¬ tion sites in the Mojave desert had been chosen. The company set out again for another session of outdoor filming that included the staging of the immense desert trek shots. At first, Wellman had planned to make this a night sequence, shooting day-for-night effects using in¬ frared film, reasoning that the pioneers would have made the trip by night in order to escape the desert heat. Mellor suggested that in view of the stark nature of the story already de¬ picted in the scenes shot in Utah, that it would be reasonable to take dramatic license here and make this a day se¬ quence, also. Besides, he pointed out, the photography would not be subject to the inconsistencies of infra-red film and, furthermore, would be more in keeping with the pictorial quality al¬ ready established in the sequences shot in Surprise Valley. This was not the first time that Wellman had listened to the wisdom of his cameraman and profited. The fact Westward The Women is the fifth picture Bill Mellor has photo¬ graphed for director Wellman makes it pretty obvious that he’s Wellman’s favorite cameraman. The productions include three at MGM and two at Paramount. Mellor also photographed A Place In The Sun for Paramount, and this along with W/estward The W' omen should be high on the list of pictures nominated for Academy Awards for black-and-white photography for 1951. DOCUMENTARY ON COAL (Continued from Page 17) when tapped will flow smoothly, but it is not infrequent for the furnace to “blow” and shower molten metal clear across the enormous room. Such a “blow” would now reach the platform where the camera and lights were mounted. While safety engineers judged Geisel and his camera to be safe from such an eventuality, because they were at an angle to the furnace, it was con¬ ceded that some of the lamps would be destroyed if a “blow” came, but that it was worth the gamble to get the picture. Fortunately, the tap went off smoothly, and provided one of the best sequences in the film. In filming the coke oven scenes, the resistance of camera, film and the hu¬ man body to intense heat was amply demonstrated. Heat rises, and the de¬ gree of heat on the topside of a coke oven must he the closest approximation to Dante’s Inferno this observer has ever experienced. Yet camera and crew spent a roasting half-hour in tempera¬ tures that would make the Tropics feel like the North Pole. Sensibly, Geisel’s first act after retreating to the comfort of a cooler area was to place his steam¬ ing hot shoes, with his feet still in them, under a cold water faucet! Moving out into the Midwest, the crew came to grips with the problem of photographing some of the largest earth-moving machinery in the world, the giant shovels used in the surface¬ mining method of producing coal. Onequarter of the nation’s total production is mined in this manner. One such “overburden” shovel stands eight stories high, weighs 31/2 million pounds, and costs more than a million dollars. Even with a 17mm lens on the camera, Geisel had to back up the equivalent of several city blocks to get this monster machine in his viewfinder! An unusual difficulty was encountered where least expected. In making the sequences on interiors of a large power plant, a 110-volt A.C. source of power for the movie lights couldn’t he found — this in a plant that generates millions of kilowatt hours of electricity for use in a great industrial center. After some highpowered maneuvering (literally and fig¬ uratively) a rig was engineered that supplied correct voltage for the photo lamps, and another unexpected hurdle was overcome. But it is one thing to work with arti¬ ficial lighting and another to be at the complete mercy of Old Sol. In shooting the railroad classification sequences, the sun, or lack of it, caused a tight sched¬ ule to go just a bit awry. Perhaps opti¬ mistically, three days had been set aside for these shots. At the end of the fourth day, with only about one-third of the railroad shooting completed, Geisel was not only talking to himself, but was wearing his cap sideways. A little more than two months after the first frame of film was exposed in the camera — and some 12,000 thousand feet later — the job of cutting, editing and sound dubbing began in the March of Time studios in New York. Final footage on the 25-minute film is 950 feet, a ratio of about 12 to 1, and a tribute to the thoroughness with which the MOT tackled this assignment. The final result is best summed up by Bill Vandivert, who said, “Our aim was to make a film that showed the modern mechanized side of bituminous coal mining, but one that did not pre¬ sent so complete a glamorized industry that the audience could not take it. We had to present a balanced and believable picture. Our aim was to keep them en¬ tertained and not drop a single member of the audience as we told our story. This I think we did.” MOVIOLA FILM EDITING EQUIPMENT 16MM. ~ 35MM. • PICTURE • SOUND — Photo, and Magnetic • SYNCHRONIZERS • REWINDERS Model LP for 1 6mm. Picture Write for Catalogue MOVIOLA MANUFACTURING CO. 1451 Gordon St. • Hollywood 28, Calif. FOR RENT— MACHINE SHOP Los Angeles Area. Ideally suited for experimental and development work. Fully equipped with modern, new ma¬ chinery. 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