American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1952)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

FRONT VIEW of Natural Vision's 3-D camera on location for Arch Oboler's "Bwana Devil." Cameraman Biroc is at far left. Director Oboler (with dark glasses) sits next to camera. CAMERA was mounted on "Blue Goose," industry's favorite mobile unit, for entire production. Here camera is raised high on hydraulic lift to record scene for "Bwana Devil." shoot “Bwana Devil” in 3-dimension, using Ansco Color. Because of my ex¬ perience with the camera in making the extensive tests, I was engaged as di¬ rector of photography on the picture. Worth and Bryhn, operator and 3-D technician respectively, and Howard Schwartz and Gene Hirsch as assistants made up our camera crew. The Natural Vision camera is an in¬ teresting piece of equipment. The ac¬ companying photos show the camera in its blimp, and the unique technical details are therefore not visible. Inside the blimp are two standard Mitchell 35mm cam¬ eras mounted on a base plate with the lens turrets facing each other. In be¬ tween are two front-surface mirrors having micrometer adjustments, which reflect the scene into the camera lenses. Controls at either side of the camera base lead to the swivel-mounts holding the mirrors, and enable making the fine micrometer adjustments for the highly important parallax correction prior to shooting each scene. Thus, the two cameras record the scene in left and right images, properly related with re¬ spect for parallax. In addition to moving the mirrors, there is provision for changing the viewing angle of one of the cameras. Mounted on a rotating base, this camera may be pointed at a slight angle in con¬ junction with the mirror adjustments to achieve the correct parallax. The usual complement of 4 lenses is missing from the cameras’ turrets. Only one lens is mounted on each camera, and this is changed as the need de¬ mands The various pairs (paired for equivalent focal length) of lenses used are carefully matched and tested. Despite the apparent bulk of the cam¬ era and the need for critical adjustment of the optical equipment prior to re¬ cording each take, it is possible to at¬ tain remarkable speed in making new setups. This is due mainly to the facili¬ ties provided by the two cameras and viewfinder which permit the camera¬ man, operator and the director to scan a scene during a single rehearsal, all at the same time. This eliminates the need for separate “run-throughs” for each man, as when shooting with a two di¬ mension motion picture camera. Selecting camera setups calls for the careful placing of people and dressing of sets, together with the careful selec¬ tion of lenses of correct focal length to avoid false perspective and distortion. To keep things rolling on the “Bwana Devil” production, most of these deci¬ sions were made by Lothrop Worth and myself. Only when we encountered very ( Continued on Page 350) FRONT VIEW of Natural Vision 3 D camera on sound stage. Surrounding camera are some of the men involved in its development: Seated (I to r) are Dr. Julian Gunzburg, eye specialist and technical director; Friend Baker, designer and engineer; and Milton Gunzburg, president of Natural Vision Corp. Operator Lothrop Worth stands next to camera. August, 1952 American Cinematographer 337