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Camera Work
The best photography is admitted to come from Germany. Here one of the most original German camera-men who in 1932 came to Britain to photograph Gloria Sivanson's fifst British film, " Perfect Understanding," outlines the work he does.
by Curt Courant
IWOISIDER how much the cinema public reahzes what is contributed to its enjoyment by the work of the cameraman. They probably do not even notice his name when it flashes on the screen at the beginning of the film ; they do not, as a rule, talk about him, as they do about the stars of the picture ; certainly they know little about his work.
Yet the cameraman is really responsible for the technical perfection of the film, as well as the artistic result or final form. The cameraman, if he is not an artist, can ruin the work of the most artistic director in the world. Stars, sceneiy, and story can be made or marred by him.
Consider the cameraman as an artist. Try to compare his task with that of a painter or an etcher. The painter has his colours, bis canvases of var>-ing grain, his brushes of different sizes. He can put down at a moment's notice, icithoiU restyiciion, all that he may see or feel. The etcher does the same with his steel pen and his copper plate.
But the cameraman works with a box of wheels and sprockets, an optical lens, and strips of celluloid coated with chemicals. The devices of colour are denied him, save rarely ; and he cannot, like the painter, take palette knife or turpentine and make corrections in his work. Once he has pronounced the inexorable word " Ready ! " and his camera has begun to turn, he has committed himself, for better or for worse, to the lighting, the grouping, the angles and movements which he has arranged ; and the
results of his artistry — or lack of it — will appear, unalterably, in the picture. I need hardly emphasize the significance of this little word " ready," nor its power in justifying or wasting the huge expenditure on films, in setting, dressing, and salaries.
Since the change-over to talkies, the cameraman's task has become harder. Sound must be carefully considered in its relation to camera work, and great care must be taken that sound and action are properly blended. Acoustic difficulties often necessitate the shooting of scenes in the studio, when for ideal reproduction exteriors would have been desirable. In such instances the cameraman has to reproduce as best he can the light of Nature, whether it be moonlight, sunshine, or grey haze. This he must do in such a way that the film-goer shall never suspect that the scene is not an actual exterior. Outdoor night-scenes, for instance, are almost invariably shot inside the studio, since the lighting and recording of such scenes in the open air is next to impossible.
The cameraman, too, is the deviser of tricks and technique, whereby shipwrecks, train-smashes, aeroplane, and motor-car accidents, fire, flood, and earthquake may be reproduced, in miniature or by artifice, and yet give an atmosphere of reality. Film stars are too valuable to risk their necks in dare-devil falls and climbs ; and so it fails to the lot of the cameraman to reproduce this hair-breadth escape, or that miraculous rescue, with the minimum of risk for the actor, and the maximum effect for the film.