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Photographing "Mutiny On The Bounty"
Imaginative cinematography is this picture’s greatest asset.
By DARRIN SCOT
W]VIUT1NY °N THE B°unty’” be¬ set, as it was, with endless cast and production difficulties, also presented an incredible range of photographic problems — none of which, however, are apparent in the final, visually beautiful re¬ sult.
For Director of Photography Robert Surtees, ASC, who believed there never could be another try¬ ing assignment like “King Solo¬
mon’s Mines,” which he photo¬ graphed in the jungle country of Africa, or “Ben Hur,” which re¬ quired two years’ of shooting in Rome, 6 “Bounty” and its photo¬ graphic problems and challenges must have topped them both.
From the very beginning it was M-G-M’s plan to shoot most of ““Bounty” in Tahiti and the neigh¬ boring islands of Bora Bora and Moorea, the South Pacific area
where the actual historic mutiny of Fl.M.S. Bounty took place.
When first he received word of the ‘“Bounty” assignment, Surtees was hard at work on location shoot¬ ing M-G-M’s “Cimarron.” He was relieved of that assignment in or¬ der to make a location scouting trip to Tahiti with Producer Aaron Rosenberg, Director Sir Carol Reed (who was later replaced by Lewis Milestone), and the film’s star, Marlon Brando. A script writer also went along with them in the event any interesting details were encountered that could logic¬ ally be worked into the script. It was in this way that the pictorially striking stone-fishing sequence found its way into the picture. While in Tahiti, producer Rosen¬ berg heard about this colorful tech¬ nique of fishing which is per¬ formed only on the island of Bora Bora, 95 miles away. The locationscouting group flew to the island, observed the fascinating ceremony, and decided to have it written into the script. It proved to be one of the most visually dramatic high¬ lights of the picture.
Meanwhile the practical sailing model of the ““Bounty,” seen at sea under full sail in the film, was under construction. It was in ef¬ fect to be a floating motion pic¬ ture studio, designed and built to provide the most complete and spectacular camera coverage of the story action. For the first time in the history of the cinema industry
SHOOTING ABOARD THE BOUNTY— Director of Photography Robert Surtees, ASC (behind camera), with Producer Aaron Rosenberg and Director Lewis Milestone line up a shot for a shipboard sequence in “Mutiny on the Bounty” aboard the H.M.S. Bounty moving off shore near Tahiti.
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AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, FEBRUARY, 1963