American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1955)

ALFRED MILOTTE, in the special armored 4-wheel-drive camera car, photographs a mother lion bringing home the entre for her cubs' dinner. Elma Milotte, in a Jeep some distance away, made this shot with a telephoto lens. In background is famed Mt. Kilimanjaro. Filming The African Lion" Alfred and Elma Milotte’s three-year camera safari for Walt Disney's latest True-Life Adventure feature carried them for more than 50,000 miles through the primitive lands of Kenya, To bring the first full accurate life story of the King and Queen of Beasts out of the African wilderness for movie audiences, Alfred and Elma Milotte, famous team of 16mm cinema¬ tographers, literally consorted with lions for many months in photographing Walt Disney’s newest True-life Adventure fea¬ ture, “The African Lion.” In their 32-month camera safari for the Disney assignment the Milottes lived as closely amongst groups of lions as they ever have with human neighbors. In that time, traveling in a truck which was both home, laboratory and camera car, they traversed the vast Serengeti plain and contiguous animal territory from Mt. Kenya to the lofty, storied Mt. Kilimanjaro. Here they photographed the greatest pageant of wildlife anywhere on earth, uncountable in numbers, on over 100,000 feet of 16mm Kodachrome film, in¬ cluding in the lion’s domain elephant, Tanganyika and Uganda. rhino, giraffe, leopard and cheetah, zebra and wildebeest, baboon, hyena, jackal and wild dog packs, scores of antelope and gazelle species and birds of many feather. The real preparation for the safari began with the construction by Disney engineers of the mobile carrier which was to transport the Milottes and their equipment into and through the rugged African interior, and which was to serve as a combination home, transport, and mobile camera car. On the chassis of a new 4-wheel-drive truck, a sturdy, steelsheathed cabin was erected. This pro¬ vided two pullman bunks; lockers for clothing, cameras and camera equip¬ ment; and a collapsible steel parallel or tower on top for use in gaining higher vantage point for the cameras. Heavy optical glass protected the windows and camera ports of the cab. The Milotte’s motion picture equip¬ ment consisted of a 16mm Arriflex cam¬ era, two Cine Specials, and a Filmo Special equipped with a detachable 400foot film magazine. The wide array of camera lenses ranged from wide-angle up to 16-inch telephotos. Three exposure meters insured them against the con¬ tingencies of loss or unexepected dam¬ age that invariable occur when only a single meter is carried. While a substantial quantity of 16mm Kodachrome film — both Commercial and Regular — was taken along, the stock was replenished at intervals by shipments from Disney headquarters, which the Milottes picked up at Nairobi, base of operations. At the same time, exposed film was shipped via air-mail to Holly¬ wood for processing. The processed film was then sent to Disney' studios. Not a foot of it was seen by the Milottes until they returned to Hollywood some thirty months later. Actually, there would be no advan¬ tage for the Milottes in seeing what might be termed “dailies” or “rushes.” For if a shot was marred by poor ex¬ posure or focus or framing, which it rarely was, there would be nothing they could do about it anyway; it couldn’t be restaged and shot. So the policy was to shoot on the basis of long experience in photographing wild life, to photograph enough of it and thereby provide more than enough footage for the production as planned. We use the term “planned” loosely here, for actually there was no shooting script; no list of subject material sup¬ plied to the Milottes. When they set out on the vast African plain, they were on their own to shoot what they could, when and wherever they could find it — based, of course, on a knowledge gained through many years experience in wild life photography and a study of books on Africa and its denizens of the bush. In addition, the Milottes received un¬ limited cooperation from officials of the Royal National Parks of Kenya, the Serengeti National Park of Tanganyika, Queen Elizabeth National Park of Ugan¬ da, Kruger National Park of South Africa, and the Game Departments of Kenya, Uganda and Tangayika. During their twenty years of wildlife photography, from arctic to equator in many lands, Alfred and Elma Milotte have learned how to behave and how to command respect in the presence of wild creatures. After proving they meant no harm, the human intruders were accep¬ ted as just another kind of animal. Their steel-clad camera truck became a famil¬ iar feature of the landscape. As long as the Milottes kept their tolerated distance, the lion families went on about their business of life and death in the melee of survival passions to which they were born. Making their camera setups confi 534 American Cinematographer September, 1955