American cinematographer (Aug 1936)

August, 1936 o American Cinematographer 347 Shooting 16 mm M y two 16mm CAMERAS spent two years in the Antarctic, and did a man-sized job for me. Work- ing at "the home of the blizzard," often in tem- peratures as low as 70 degrees below zero, my two Filmos exposed 42,000 feet of film with an almost perfect record of success: for where the "official" 35mm. cameras had plenty of troubles and mishaps, my Filmas scarcely lost a frame out of eight miles of films. But in talking about substandard filming in the Ant- arctic, I am only a voice speaking for the many substan- dard filmers in the Expedition. We had fifty men on the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition and of those fifty, nearly a dozen packed 16mm, or 8mm. cameras. Our substand- ard group included scientists, fliers and cooks' helpers, and the films we made ran the gamut from strictly scientif- ic records to the homiest of Antarctic "home movies." My own pictures I tried to make a broadly human record of everything the expedition did, so perhaps it may serve as a liberal cross-section of what Little America's 8-and-16 brigade did. The first expedition to Little America, and the North Pole flight before that, had taught me how to prepare camera equipment for successful work in the Antarctic. Before we started, I had the cameras completely disas- sembled, and carefully removing all the oil, and tightening up all of the lesser bearings to compensate both for the removal of tha oil and the contraction of the metal in the Polar cold. The more important bearings, which could not be asked to operate without lubrication, were packed with powdered graphite. This is vitaly important, for the ex- treme cold will freeze ordinary oils, with disastrous results to the camera. The same thing is true of moisture. I literally baked every bit of moisture out of the cameras in an oven. Then I kept both cameras and film in one of our ice-block sheds where the temperature was always the same as that out- doors. Thus there can be no trace of moist air in the cameras, to freeze them up or to condense into an ice- cap over the lenses. On the few occasions when I took the cameras inside, to film interior scenes of the expedi- tion's home life, I warmed them slowly, and, when I was through, baked them in the oven before returning them to their ice-house. The matter of exposure is a difficult problem in the Polar regions. The light is very deceptive; between the white snow and the usually foggy weather, one would ex- pect the light to be of much higher photographic value than it really is. In general, we exposed Superpan film as though it were ordinary Pan, and found ourselves about right. Exposure-meters, incidentally, praved misleading un- der the abnormal conditions there at the Pole; most of our photographers, from the official Paramount News and Associated Press professionals down to the ever-present 8mm. brigade, carried meters, but soon found them un- able to cope with the unusual light. In practice, I found the safest guide to exposure was to make careful photo- graphic tests. Before shooting any important scene, I would put a fresh roll into the camera (negative film was used exclusively). Then I'd make a five-foot test, using several different exposure-settings. Snipping this test- strip off in a darkroom or changing-bag, I could develop it, and have an absolutely accurate guide to exposure be- fore I finished the roll. at the South Pole An Interview with Commander George O. Noville Executive Officer, Byrd Ant- arctic Expedition, Byrd Arctic Expedition, etc. You ask what I photographed down there in the snow? Everything and anything! The "official" cameras had definite instructions as to scenes they had to bring back, and only a relatively limited supply of film, so they stuck pretty closely to orders. My Filmos, on the other hand, worked under no orders but to bring back interesting pic- tures. They stuck their inquisitive lenses into everything that happened. And because they were small and handy, they could "cover" things the bigger professionals couldn't get near. Packing a professional camera on the trail with a dog-team or tractor party is something which must be taken rather seriously. Setting up a tripod, focusing, and so on, take time. The little 16mms., on the other hand, can be tucked away in your sled, jerked out, sighted, the trigger pressed, and the camera put away again in less time than it takes ta tell it. I appreciate the steadiness of a tripod as much as anyone else does—-but in a case like this, when the few moments involved in setting up the tripod might lose an important scene. I'm all for the little cameras that don't demand tripods. So from the moment we reached the ice to the time, two years later, when we scrambled back aboard ship, I kept both cameras busy getting candid camera movies of everything we did. When my duties made it impossible for me to use the cameras, I'd give them to other members of the party and let them make whatever pictures they chose. In addition to scenes of definite news or scientific value, I tried to picture things that the average man, turned loose in Little America, would naturally stop to look at. One such subject, for instance, is the way the sled dogs lived. No matter what the weather, the dogs stayed out- side. Scenes showing how they were fed have interested all types of audience. The scene begins as a long-shot which shows an apparently empty landscape, dotted with little mounds of snow. As the trainer appears with the dog-food, the mounds stir, and unexpectedly reveal them- selves as dogs, curled up for the night and completely covered by the drifting snow. Another unusual scene is one made in one of the milder blizzards. It is one thing to read of storms so fierce that a person can get lost within twenty feet of the camp. It is quite a different thing to see it on the screen. Every- thing in the picture is gray-white, with the icy "ground" barely distinguishable from the swirling, gale-driven snow. A man walking away from the camera disappears en- tirely before he has taken half-a-dazen steps. Continued on page 358