American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1955)

COMBINATION of graceful vapor trails of B-36 and vast sea of clouds boiling up from the earth below presented rare sight for cameraman. WHILE most everyone is familiar with sight of fleet, high-flying B-36s from ground, these shots afford rare bird’s eye view from 8-mile height. Photography At 40,000 Feet How the spectacular aerial sequences for “Strategic Air Command” were planned and photographed. By WILLIAM DANIELS, A.S.C. Director of Photography, “ Strategic Air Command” The bird's-eye view of giant, vaportrailing B-36’s in flight at 40,000 feet, backdropped by the most beautiful cloud displays seen anywhere, have prompted many who have seen Paramount Pic¬ tures’ "Strategic Air Command” to in¬ quire how these aerial shots were photo¬ graphed. T he production is the first large-scale, outdoor film photographed in VistaVision and color. It is also the first motion picture affording the public rare and breath-taking aerial views of the Air Force’s B-36 planes in flight. Photographing aerial sequences such as appear in “Strategic Air Command” required something more than simply taking a camera up in a plane and shoot¬ ing. First, the planes are in almost daily use in training personnel for SAC. The Strategic Air Force is the atom-bomb carrying command whose intercontinent¬ al bombers provide the retaliatory strength upon which the U.S. relies to keep the peace. Unlike when shooting on the studio lot or on other locations, it wasn’t simply a matter of checking the weather of a morning and — finding Wm. Daniels Tom Tutwiler it photographically ideal — deciding: "We’ll make those air shots today.” No, we had to give the Air Force 24 hours notice whenever we wished to shoot scenes involving planes. And before each aerial filming session was begun, a fourhour pre-flight briefing of Air Force personnel taking part and of our produc¬ tion technicians was standard procedure. In short, we of the studio had to adjust our working procedure in harmony with operations of the SAC. Long before a camera turned — even before cinematographer Tom Tutwiler, A.S.C., knew he had been elected to do the aerial photography of this picture — Director Anthony Mann, Art Director Earl Hedrick, Production Manager Cur¬ tis Mick, and I journeyed to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, to Carswell AFB, Ft. Worth, Texas, and to March AFB near Riverside, California. At each loca¬ tion we discussed the script action for the aerial sequences with SAC and AF officers and made a survey of the planes that were to be made available to us for much of the aerial photography. Never before had studio cameras been used in these planes for photography of any kind. It was very important there¬ fore to make use of the opportunity to plan the camera locations — the positions in the planes where the cameras were to be mounted — and more important, to plan the special camera mounts that would be required. In the B-36 we need¬ ed an opening (window or port) through which to shoot at a downward angle while the plane is in flight. The bombsight port protected by heavy optical glass proved a natural for this; a great deal of Tom Tutwiler’s spectacular aerial shots were made with the VistaVision camera mounted in this position. 532 American Cinematographer September, 1955