American cinematographer (Jan 1930)

Nine January, 1930 American Cinamatographer In o^frica with Trader Horn Clyde De Vinna, A. S. C., Gives a Few Facts on Photographing in African Jungle By William Stull, A. S. C. T he set designers in Hollywood’s studios can, and have, built sets representing almost every part of this world and the next, but when the officials of the Merto-Goldwyn- Mayer Studios want their scenes made on the actual locations, they always call for Clyde de Vinna, A. S. C. Few men indeed have received such substantial evidences of executive confidence as Clyde has, for he has been sent, times without number, to remote corners of the earth, far away from studio supervision, at times entirely alone, or even in charge of a company, to bring back vitally important scenes for the studios big productions. His success in this unique field is well attested by the scant time he has been allowed to remain in Hollywood during the past few years. At times he has been fortunate enough to be able to photograph a picture or two in the studio before answering a hurry call to Kamchatka or Zanzibar, but of late even this has been denied him, as he has been assigned the photographic direction of three successive "specials” filmed entirely on remote locations. The first of these three was the superbly beautiful epic "White Shadows in the South Seas," which took Clyde and his direc- torial teammate, W. S. Van Dyke to Tahiti for many months. The success of this picture was so complete that they were immediately rushed back to Polynesia to create Ramon Novarro’s "The Pagan.” Now they have just returned from ten months in darkest Africa where they have battled hardship, wild beasts, and storms to make "Trader Horn" the outstanding production of 1930. That it most certainly will be that is the unqualified prediction of all who have seen the preliminary ‘rushes’ which have emerged from the crowded cutting rooms. In point of size, novelty, and cost it easily takes place beside the most opulent epics of the silent screen. While the exact amount of the production cost has not as yet been computed, it is known to exceed in cost all of the firm’s previous pictures, with the single exception of the colossal "Ben Hur,” which it closely rivals. The magnitude of the undertaking can perhaps be imagined when it is learned that, despite the most skillful management, the bare operating cost of the company while in the field could not be brought below an average of $5,000 per day! Under these circumstances, the terrific responsibility resting on the shoulders of Director Van Dyke and First Cinema- tographer de Vinna is painful to imagine. Their success is indicated, however, by the fact that the studio officials are unanimously enthusiastic over the picture, pronouncing it a worthy successor to the same team’s "White Shadows, and well worth the costly 25,000 mile safari required. Concerning his own part in the expedition. Mr. deVinna is modestly reticent, though outspoken in his praise of the other members of the company. * We had a great trip, he says, "and, in spite of all the hardships and trouble we went through, we’ve managed to bring back a pretty good picture. "We left here,” he continues, "February 4, 1929, and our advance party reached Mombasa on March 16. We went at once to Nairobi, the principal city of the interior, where we established our base. And right there we got our first surprise, for we found Nairobi, in spite of its location in the wilds of Africa, was a fine young city, and an ideal base. By the time the rest of the party joined us. a month later, we had our laboratory installed, and had put through it more than 14,000 feet of film that I had shot for tests, etc. During that month, we’d gotten a couple of cars (all safaris are made by motor nowadays), and we’d been able to scout around that part of the country pretty well, and line up a lot of good locations.^ "We’d begun to get an idea of the tricky light conditions we were up against, too. You see. most of our work was done on the plains, high above sea-level, where the air is so much thinner that although the sunlight beats down plenty hard from above, there is little diffusion, and the shadows are just so many big ink-spots. And down there by the equator we always had to knock off shooting between the hours of ten A. M. and three P. M., because the angle of the sun made a nasty top-light which simply eliminated quality results, and the shimmering heat-waves danced around so that anything but close-ups were impossible. Incidentally, it was usually so hot about that time that nobody could do any work, anyway. "Still, by the time the rest of the bunch got down there, we’d pretty well gotten used to these photographic conditions, and were all ready to start work in earnest. And work we did, too! We safari-ed all over British East Africa, up into the Uganda, and over into Belgian Congo, making pictures all the while. "Then, all of a sudden when we were almost half through with the picture, the studio cabled us that as the world was demanding its pictures all-talking, "Trader Horn” would have to talk too, and so a sound crew was on its way to Africa to join us! "Well, the sound men reached us all right, and we found that they had brought everything with them but silenced cam- eras for us to use. Then the fun began! We had to make talkies, even though we didn’t have the proper cameras—and. believe it or not, we did it! Our prop man was a wonderful fellow, and he surprised us by breaking out a lot of felt and canvas, and fixing up some surprisingly effective camera covers, so, with them and a few blankets, our two standard Bell ^ Howells and George Nogle’s Akeley did as good service as though they’d been the latest of sound cameras. You can bet we were satisfied with them—until we got back to the studio and started bragging a bit about them. Then we found that they’d sent us off two brand new silent Mitchells five or six months before! They’re still trying to find those Mitchells! "You can imagine we had to use a lot of such makeshifts out there in the bush, for most of the time we were too far from even our Nairobi base to have anything to rely on but our own wits— and luck. I recall one time when we were on safari from one camp to another. Van and I were in the lead car, several miles ahead of the others, when suddenly we came upon a lion with a fresh kill—a scene we specially needed. We stopped the car, and Van hurriedly sent back for the actors, while I got the cameras ready. When all was ready to shoot, we found that the reflectors were still back with the main party—a typical cameraman’s ‘bad break’. Well, there was no time to send back for the things, and we couldn’t get on without them, so we hurriedly threw some together. We made two splendid hard’ ones out of a couple of five gallon gasoline—excuse me, petrol—tins, hammered out flat on wooden frames made from the crates they were shipped in, and a couple of excellent ‘soft’ ones (1916 style) out of the sheets on the leading lady’s bed. Pretty crude makeshifts. I’ll admit—but they worked, and we got a scene that might have taken us weeks to get, otherwise. "Another makeshift was our own African camera crane. The script called for a scene showing our actors stumbling along in their headlong flight from the cannibals, nearly dying of thirst in the waterless veldt, while the camera is raised straight up to reveal a water-hole directly ahead of them, over a knoll. Of course the scenarist meant well enough when he wrote it. but, after all —he didn’t hav’e to shoot it in the middle of Africa! That was our job! "When we came to make the scene, we found the location easily enough, but, unfortunately. Dr. Fejos’ famous camera- crane was busy in Universal City, California, some six thousand miles away from where we very earnestly wanted it. Again we put our heads together, and finally evolved our primitive, but effective, substitute. We set up an ordinary six-foot parallel, and from one side of it we ran a stout crossbar, made of fresh- cut timber, to serv'e as the axis for our crane. The crane itself was a twenty-foot pole, with a convenient fork at one end, (Continued on Page 26)