The Cine Technician (1938-1939)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

158 THE CINE 'J' E C HNICIAN Jan. Feb., L93fl MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA By Freddie Ford If a disinterested person were to investigate the various ways in which cameramen have entered their particular niche in the industry, J fancy that be would rind there were as many ways as there are cameramen. In my own particular case I arrived at the job J am now doing by actually being a cameraman. Topsy-turvy, but quite true. Alter returning from [South Axrica where I had been in charge ot a studio handling both the photographing and process work for Kinemas' Ltd., 1 worked my way round the smaller studios on "quickies" eventually landing a job with G.B. where 1 photographed several films over a period of two years. In major films, the big producers were bringing over from America and the continent ace men, whose names were fairly well known, and without casting any doubts on their actual merits, they were freezing out the native worker. I was one of that bunch of native workers who saw before him very little opportunity for advancement for a long time to come. Indeed with the influx of new blood into the industry my eventual chances were becoming less and less. Any good operator could light a quickie, and if, in say a year's time, my own operator was going to be as good as me. then it put one more cameraman on the market, and still further lessened my chances. 1 decided that if a job came along that was going to give me something more interesting to do than just the lighting of quotas, I would take it. In time I went to London Film Productions to do some shorts for them, and while on this job I was given the opportunity to do a background shot for "The Ghost Goes West." I was only too glad to do it, and was given my instructions by Ned Mann, who at that time was in charge of the special effects department. The shot was apparently just what they required ; I was given other work to do for them, and it has resulted in my becoming a member of the "special effects." I went on to do other jobs, as operator, on "Things to Come" and "Miracle Man," and it did not take long for me to realise that this department of trick photography was what I had been looking for. It was a job lor a man who wanted to specialise; it was something that was so well run. and where things were so well worked out that it was a little world on its own. 1 had to start again as an operator, but this time 1 saw signs that it might lead to something better than lighting cheap quotas. Every major studio in the country might eventually have a special trick photography department, and meantime 1 was getting in on t be ground floor. One of the earliest shots 1 had to do was a shot of waves, taken from the bows of a eross-channel steamer. That shot taught me one ot my first essentials. 1 had had the camera tied down in the usual way. just for steadiness, but 1 had not got it jacked up. W hen the shot was screened I was asked if the boat had been particularly rocky or vibrating on the trip. I couldn't remember that it had been. 1 thought the shot was as good as any thing 1 had done before, but the department were not entirely satisfied. I told them what J had done, and when 1 told them J had not had the camera jacked up I Learned their keyword — steadiness. Not just fair steadiness, not even more than average steadiness, but rock steadiness. When you have to put several different shots together to form one composite whole, as we so frequently have, if only one ot the shots has a waver on it the whole effect is lost. Instead of making a shot that is convincing and natural, you get one that smells of the trick department and looks phoney from the first frame. Here thanks must be given to our camera mechanics who play an important part in maintaining our cameras and equipment. My earliest training included such things as shooting on miniatures. Some of these shots are of quite conventional simplicity, like one of the harbour of New York where we cranked at four times normal speed to get a realistic wave motion on the water and to get the boats which were pulled by strings to move easily and without jerking. Another was an aeroplane shot done against a neutral grey backing. The backing itself was lit only by leak light, but the area of action of the planes was fully illuminated, top bottom, and sides. The reason for the grey backing was that the clouds were made against this by spraying titanium chloride into the air. It forms quite realistic cloud effects, but care has to be taken to see that the air conditions in the studio remain Optical printing will improve this by adding these