The American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1963)

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At your dealer, or order direct from MILLER PROFESSIONAL EQUIPMENT 1619 NO. CHEROKEE HOLLYWOOD 28, CALIF. PHONE: HOLLYWOOD 7-8189 FILMING “SAVAGE SAM” Continued from Page 40 out of sequence, under such conditions, is an operation demanding great skill and patience. Cinematographer Cole¬ man avers that never before had he been confronted with so many back¬ lighted locations on a single color fea¬ ture. Judicious use of booster lights pre¬ served the feeling of “outdoors” with¬ out shadow areas going black. Like most Hollywood studio cinematog¬ raphers, Coleman prefers arc lamps to reflectors for booster or fill light when¬ ever available. Arcs are easier on actors' eyes, he says, and produce a stronger and more even light that gives truer pictorial quality than reflectors. Also, arcs do not depend upon sun¬ light for their effectiveness. In shooting exterior long shots Coleman sometimes mixes the two. using arcs to light the actors and light from the reflectors to fill in the background. “Savage Sam includes several se¬ quences in which the moving camera followed horsemen speaking dialogue as they rode. Since most of this action was backlighted by natural daylight, the problem was keeping the actors consistently illuminated with fill light during the shots without permitting noise from the power generators drown¬ ing out the dialogue. Reflectors mounted on the camera car proved unsatisfac¬ tory because they could not be held steady enough over rough terrain. Booster arcs, therefore, were the only answer. This posed the problem of how to power the lamps without using the noisy generators. Surprising enough the answer came from Disney¬ land. At this fabulous playground not far from Los Angeles special heavy-duty 12-volt wet-cell batteries are used to operate monorail cars and miniature automobiles. It was found that six of these batteries in series would provide 72 volts and 250 amps of electricity — sufficient to operate one arc lamp for a short period of time. Thus a double bank of the batteries was installed to activate the two arc lamps mounted on the camera car, making possible the three to four minutes of booster light necessary to film average running shot. The batteries were re-charged over¬ night to ready them for the next day’s shooting. Because most of the action in the picture encompassed vast areas of land¬ scape, and also because the cast fea¬ tured small children who were not permitted to work beyond a certain hour each day, most night sequences were photographed day-for-night. Coleman claims no special magic in this photographic technique. It’s simply careful application of the day-for-night shooting techniques which have be¬ come standard in the industry, he says. Coleman underexposes day-for-night scenes 17/2 L° 2 stops, depending upon the key of the natural light. When pho¬ tographing actors in day-for-night close shots, however, he overlights their faces by twice the normal amount so that, even though the background is underexposed, faces are clearly de¬ tailed. The key-light comes from one side in a fairly high contrast ratio to the fill light, and fill is carefully con¬ trolled to indicate shadow detail with¬ out washing it out. Coleman uses no blue filters in shooting such “night shots, hut works closely with the lab¬ oratory when the film is developed and printed to make sure that just the right amount of “cold" tone is added in the printing. The most challenging sequence of this type in the picture shows Indians around a campfire with the children they have kidnaped. The scenes in¬ cluding the fire had to be shot night for-night to get a true fire effect, while those of the children were shot dayfor-night. Here Coleman was careful to avoid sky backgrounds in these dayfor-night scenes, and photographed the children against a hillside background. The resultant shots, filmed under com¬ pletely opposite conditions, intercut perfectly in the edited sequence. One of the most spectacular sequences in the film involves a stampede of more than 1,000 wild horses charging directly toward the cameras. The action had to be played very close to the cameras to capture the full impact of the thundering herd, even though cam¬ eras and often their operators have been known to be trampled during such shooting. Moreover, these cameras could not be operated by remote con¬ trol due to the necessity for following the action. In this case, skilled wran¬ glers controlled the animals so precisely that the sequence was filmed without mishap — although, after the take, lioofprints were found only two inches from the tripod leg. Did Coleman re¬ main with the camera while all this was going on? “Of course,” he re¬ plies, matter-of-factly, “I had to keep 42 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, JANUARY, 1963