Film Crew Research Articles

Having the Authority to Know

This paper examines how people gain authority over areas of expert knowledge and use this authority to claim the right to make decisions in small group situations. Students who enter film crews are ranked and typed as members both of a school and of a crew. They claim decision-making authority based on these ranks. Thus, depending on the social characteristics students bring to crews, the authority and decision-making patterns of these groups can vary widely.

Lucia: Style and Meaning in Revolutionary Film

Tricontinental Films has released the second Cuban feature film in the United States, Lucia by Humberto Solas. Begun in 1967, released in 1969, the film had already reaped its share of honors throughout the world, including the Gold Medal of the 1969 Moscow Film Festival, received critical acclaim, and passed on to the status of a classic by the time it first reached American audiences at the abortive Cuban Film Festival in March of 1972. Lucia has not suffered for being five years old. Little exposed to the revolutionary cinema emerging from the Third World, we find everyone of its manifestations fresh and striking. Our delight is comparable to that which was captured by a Cuban documentary film crew in a short entitled Por Primera Vez. This ten-minute film captures the expressions of children and adults in the remote mountains of Cuba who had never seen a motion picture before, as they watch Chaplin's antics in Modern Times. Now the roles are reversed: we are the uninitiated, the Cubans the pioneers in a new form of expression.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Television News Applications of HMI Lamps

The operation of a TV News department raises a number of unique requirements for the equipment used by film crews. The requirements which this places on lighting equipment includes high performance, efficiency, light weight, compact size, and ruggedness. The HMI [Hydrargyrum (Mercury), M — Medium arc length, I — iodide] lamp was developed to meet the needs of TV news applications. Their application, however, has been limited by problems encountered due to “dark frames” when ac arc fluctuation and film speed are not synchronized. With the introduction of the 200 W HMI lamp and ballasts which eliminate flicker problems, the HMI lamp is gaining wide acceptance for TV news applications.

Document & Drama in Desert Victory

DOCUMENT & DRAMA IN DESERT VICTORY By Peter Rollins Peter Rollins teaches English and Film at the University ofOklahoma at Stillwater He writes regularly on historicalfilms and on the contemporary cinema. Desert Victory (1943) is a "campaign film " which documents the battle between Rommel's desert forces and the United Kingdom's troops for North Africa. The predicament of the British filmmakers (David Macdonald, director, William Allery, music, and T.H. Hodson, narration) interested me greatly. While reporting the documentary "facts" about the successful North African campaign, it was also their assignment to create a dramatic image of war, which would inspire confidence and enthusiasm among the folks back home. Throughout the film, I kept asking myself which will win out, reportage or drama? After the first showing of Desert Victory in the United States, Manny Färber of the New Republic (April 12, 1943) praised it for its relative lack of didacticism. In its understatement, Färber found it especially in contrast with "the Russian documentaries where the heavy hand of moral purpose is always teaching you a lesson." Somewhat familiar with pre-war English documentaries, Färber traced this subtle use of film as film back to John Grierson and his circle, which included Macdonald. Grierson's teams had discovered a hard-earned truth that "emotion and interest in a film have more chance of taking hold when the event is shown at such length that it can speak for itself." (In all fairness to the Russians, it should be added that Farber's strictures against the "Russian films" can legitimately be applied to Frank Capra's extravaganzas in the Why We Fight series which began to appear in 1943.) Desert Victory indeed has the appearance ofrealism. Music is used throughout the film to build suspense between scenes and to accentuate the pace of the drama of the North African campaign, yet it is the "actual" sounds oftrucks, planes, tanks, individual rifle bolts slamming home, or of men digging their holes, that we remember. The intended effect is obvious. Because our attention is fixed on actual sounds rather than a rich orchestration, we, the viewers, more readily identify with the soldiers and airmen on the screen. We do not become distracted by the impressive panorama of massive armies clashing by day and night. Instead, we are always aware that the fighting men on the screen are standing in the breach for us. Desert Victory is surprisingly candid in its portrayal ofthe anxiety and pain of battle. One sequence in particular can stand as a representative for many. First, we see a squad clearing mines from the sand as it advances across the desert. Next, we see that one member ofthe squad has been hit by fragments from an incoming German mortar round. The camera focuses on the crumpled form of the wounded man as he is being cared for by a buddy. Suddenly, we see an explosion directly in front ofthe camera, after which the scene comes to an abrupt conclusion. This is the kind of cinematic realism which killed four and wounded six of Macdonald's twenty-six man film crew! How are such stark moments palliated? By tightly paced editing, the film convinces the viewer that the entire British nation from Rita the Riveter to the fallen 25 cameraman is part of a perfectly co-ordinated team. Even in the hottest moments of battle, the editing conveys the impression that communications are perfect, that supporting fires are always intense and on target. Under such conditions, a properly disciplined citizen soldier should be willing to go over the top. Not only is the team working at 100% efficiency, but there is an audience to cheer. For example, after Tobruk is taken, the film carries us back via stock footage of Big Ben, etc., to a munitions factory. In a staged sequence, the girls on the assembly line gossip about the victory that their boys have won. A particularly gaunt middle-aged female turns to a younger and cuter companion on the line. She says with conviction, "that '11 show 'em!" Eyes glassy with pride, her friend responds, "There's more where that came from!" The moral which relieves the...