American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1963)

Mexican borders — servicing, pho¬ tographically, the largest land mass of any APCS organization. In the course of a year’s operation they shoot more than 500,000 feet of 35mm Eastman Color Neg¬ ative, 50,000 feet of 16mm film, 24,000 black-and-white still pic¬ tures, 3500 4x5 color transparen¬ cies and 6000 35mm color slides. Detachment 2 was originally set up over four years ago to service the North American Air Defense headquarters (NORAD), the Air Defense Command (ADC), and the Air Force Academy, all lo¬ cated in and around the strategic nerve center of Colorado Springs. In the ensuing period progress in the development of Intercontinen¬ tal Ballistics Missiles has forged ahead to the point where 60% of the unit’s photographic output is dedicated to the documentation of activities at several hundred mis¬ sile sites located in the mid¬ continent area. The balance of its operation is devoted to combat coverage of such hot-spots as VietNam, field assignments from the Lookout Mountain Air Force Sta¬ tion in Hollywood, filming of Air Force Academy projects and spe¬ cial assignments from ADC and NORAD. The latter category includes a wide range of challenging commit FILMING THE construction progress in a future und the NORAD combat operation center. Lights used Skypans fed by diesel power generator. ments including complete photo documentation of the construction of the NORAD tunnel. NORAD is a two-nation organization — in¬ cluding elements of the United States Army, Navy and Air Force as well as the Royal Canadian Air Force — set up under a single com¬ mander for instant defense of the North American continent against possible enemy attack. Because of its tremendous strategic impor¬ tance the decision was made to establish an impregnable head¬ quarters inside vast underground chambers tunneled deep within a 10,000 foot mountain of solid granite. In filming the step-by-step prog¬ ress of this monumental drilling operation APCS cameramen had to cope with volatile gases and gushing underground streams lib¬ erated by the blasting of the rock. But the main problem was getting enough illumination to expose color film within the vast cavern. The coal-black rock walls of the tunnel soaked up light like a sponge, requiring use of an enor¬ mous amount of illumination Un¬ acceptable photography. Genera¬ tors were brought in to operate as many Seniors and Sky-pans as possible, enabling the photogra¬ phers to get excellent close shots of the action. The long shots, how¬ round home of USING TWO Arriflex comer re Seniors and formations at the Air Force hands of assistants provide ever, remained unconquered until a flash of Yankee ingenuity pro¬ vided the solution. An ordinary barbecue-spit motor was modified by turning the drive-shaft and slotting it to fit the motor mount of a Bell & Howell Eyemo camera. This motor, turning the camera movement at the rate of 2 frames per second, made possible suffi¬ cient exposure of the under-lighted long shots to achieve a full-bodied negative. Similar lighting problems pre¬ vail while shooting deep inside missile silos. Here space is ex¬ tremely limited and there is so little room to put lights that good photographic results are often dif¬ ficult to attain. To obtain the maxi¬ mum pictorial coverage within the silos, extreme wide-angle lenses are used on Arriflex cameras. Use of ordinary exposed lamps, open spider boxes and three-wire cabl¬ ing set-ups is prohibited because of the constant danger of a vagrant spark setting off explosions of liquid oxygen and other flammable gases present in the silos. For this reason, sealed-beam lamps mounted in Frezzo units provide safe lighting. The cameramen, who must clamber down narrow steel ladders with cameras strapped on their backs, often wear gas masks Continued on Next Page as. Air Force cinematographers photograph parade Academy in Colorado Springs. Sunlight reflectors in necessary fill light. AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, FEBRUARY, 1963 105