The international photographer (Jan-Dec 1935)

Sixteen The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER February, 1935 THE FUNCTION OF THE CAMERAMAN By Curt Courant Interviewed by Ernest Dyer (By special permission of the Cinema Quarterly of Edinburg, Scotland [N the first place," said Courant, "the word ijgpS|j 'cameraman' is unfortunate. The suggestion it ^W?h conveys is too limited, too technical. 'Chief artistic collaborator,' were the phrase not so clumsy, would be less misleading. The cameraman co laborates with the director and the scenic designer and others so as to produce an artistic picture. At the same time he is the captain of a team of specialists. On this film, for example" — we had just come off the sets of The Iron Duke — "I am 'chief cameraman.' I have as assistants two 'first cameramen' and four 'assistant cameramen'— one first and one 'second' assistant to each camera. (We shoot everything through at least two cameras.) Then there are all the studio electricians. "You ask me how far the cameraman is creative. Well, what does good camera-work imply? Is it just to secure a clear, clean, rich picture — a 'good photo' in the Kodak sense of the word? This is only the basis. No, good camerawork is to give to each scene the atmosphere which the scenario of the particular film calls for. Each room, each set, each exterior has to reflect the mood which is suggested by a reading of the scene. If the mood of the scene is sad, then the camerawork must be in harmony and must invest the scene with just the right ambience. I read the scenario like an actor and then try to interpret it in terms of atmosphere. Sometimes perhaps the result may not be 'good' photography in the Kodak sense, but that does not matter if it is the right camerawork artistically for that scene." E. D. : "So we cannot evaluate any shot fairly apart from its sequence. That seems to me well illustrated by your own work in Ces Messieurs de la Sante where the lighting seems to change with the period, from the murky gas gloom of the little shop to the electric radiance of the modern store." C. C. : "In those early scenes I wanted to make you feel the dust. You do not want the screen always bright. Think of the Paintings of Menzel and Rembrant, so dark that you have to go right up to them, yet perfect in mood. We cameramen are after the same things as the old painters. Instead of pigments and brushes we use lamps. We paint with light. Instead of colors we have a scale in monochrome. But what our cameras record is what our imaginations create when we paint our sets with light." E. D.: "To what extent do you control the sets themselves?" C. C. : "That is a matter of collaboration with the designer and director before shooting begins. We discuss the sketches and models." E. D.: "But that scene you have just been shooting, with that broken gun-wheel you arranged so carefully upon the mound, does your script give you the details of that?" C. C. : "Oh, no. Such a scene can be arranged upon the floor. Then I paint my sky-cloth with light to help the composition. That big ball-room set you saw us shooting the other day — every column of it has its roundness touched off by some specially placed light, so that the scene had form and depth and pictorial bal ance as well as the softness appropriate to candle-illumination. The lighting made it a composition." E. D.: "What of the risk that shots with intrinsic pictorial appeal may detract from the thematic content of the film ? Robert Edmund Jones says that he is most content with his stage settings when they fit a performance so perfectly that the audience does not notice them. Does that apply to camerawork?" B. P. Schulberg's Paramount Company on Ic Left to right — Danny Fapp, operative can cinematograp C. C. : "The photography should enforce, not distract from, the thematic content. Selfish photography is like over-acting. The beauty of camerawork must be absolutely lap-dissolved with the mood of the story. It is like some vital part in the mechanism of a watch. The audience — members of the average audience — should never be aware of the camera. "For instance, the camera's angle of vision is more limited than that of the human eye, so that if we wish to convey the impression of the unhampered movements and gestures of George Arliss we have to follow him with pan and track and keep him always 'trained' by a moving focus. We must not allow him to be the prisoner of the frame. But the audience is not aware of that constant movement. When the audience feels that anything is technical then it is bad. So with angles. The right angle is the natural angle. When a technical trick is so good that the audience does not see that a trick is being used then it is artistic camerawork. "Look at that set in there. A sound-stage lumped Please mention The International Photographer when corresponding with advertisers.