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Our first films were made with a Bell & Howell 70DA, a tripod, an exposure meter and three mushroom photofloods. We had no studio whatsoever. Interiors were shot in any convenient living room, bathroom or kitchen. We made our first dolly shot by placing our tripod on an inverted cardtable and pulling it over a carpet with a piece of clothesline. Today, we own what would be consid¬ ered a minimum of production equip¬ ment by West coast standards. When anything additional is demanded, we rent it. By the same token, our perma¬ nent staff is quite small, but this we easily augment for specific occasions.
We certainly make no claim to being experts, but we have arrived at some methods and procedures that might be of interest.
For raw stock we prefer the regular Eastman Super X 16mm Reversal except when shooting 35mm. The use of re¬ versal and the duplicate negative method of making release prints allows for ef¬ fects and, equally important, gives us a standard emulsion-up 16mm print which cuts in, at the stations, with 35mm pro¬ gram reduction prints. Also, we have found that reversal original can take a lot of punishment and not show it. This handling factor is important because we usually edit the original footage ... no master positives, no master negatives, no workprint. We commit this original sin for two reasons. The first: a good part of the editing is done in the plan¬ ning stage. We know almost exactly how long each scene will run and what ef¬ fects will be used before we shoot. Sec¬ ondly, we cannot afford the time or the duplication of effort that a workprint necessitates.
It is no more than a coincidence, but it was nevertheless reassuring, to dis¬ cover on a visit to Rochester, that East¬ man, after months of experimenting with excellent closed-circuit facilities, had just chosen to recommend the same basic lighting set ups for TV films that we had settled on a few days previous. While I was there, I was privileged to
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A CONVERTIBLE is used as a camera car for travelling shots. Director, behind camera, gives instructions to players in distance via hand mike and short-wave radio. Note lead wire attached to car's radio antenr.a.
see their excellent booklet The Use of Motion Picture Films in Television, be¬ fore it went to press. And since Eastman has published its findings, it’s no longer a secret that almost flat front lighting, with only the slightest difference between key and fill lights, coupled with overlystrong backlighting gives a very good
final image on the tube. It is a very defi¬ nite rule with us to keep contrasts quiet. The tube has a way of manufac¬ turing its own contrast, particularly where extremes are adjacent. Similarly, the tube is very unkind to dark areas at the bottom and right edge of the ( Continued on Page 540)
TYPICAL Video Films studio setup shows use of vertical lines to reduce "smear." This scene starts with a medium shot, then girl looks up happily as camera travels down inclined tracks as hands of person out of camera range sets down tray with beer, ending on closeup of bottle labels. At left is reproduction of one of opening frames of shot.
December, 1952
American Cinematographer
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