Crews Break Up Too often, at home, you will start a picture and, when it comes time to assemble the crew you had on your previous film, you will be unable to do so. The operator may have gone to another studio; the young fellow you had just begun to get trained to be a satisfactory assistant will have dropped from sight; and your electrician may have grown discouraged and gone back to his old job outside the industry — where paychecks come more steadily.
You will have to start in afresh to train a new crew from relative newcomers.
Here in Hollywood it is so different! It seems almost incredible to learn that if any of my American friends finds it for any reason impossible to use his regular crew on a new picture, he can virtually choose blindfolded from the many men available for each job — and find himself with a dependable crew, the youngest of whom will have had 10 or even 20 years of studio experience.
It is equally impressive to see how the same is true on the other side of the cameras as well. Our picture, Nurse Cavell, calls for a good number of bit players and extras to represent German soldiers and officers, French and Belgian soldiers and villagers, and British nurses, soldiers and civilians. At home, with the exception of the English parts, we might have some difficulty finding sufficient numbers of convincing-looking Prussians, Belgians, and the like for our requirements, even in the larger supporting parts.
Here, a simple telephone call brings us as many as we need, all of them not only perfect "types," but thoroughly camerawise. I am sure that some of my friends at home will doubt me when I say it would be the same situation had we needed Chinese, Polynesians or Hindus in almost any number!
British Advantage As far as photo-technical equipment is concerned, there is very little difference between Hollywood and one of the newer British studios. And in some respects, I think the newer British studios may have a bit of an advantage in the fact that they were either completely built from bare ground, or at least greatly expanded within just the last few years, while the studios in Hollywood were built and basically equipped many years ago.
We in England have the same lighting equipment for black-and-white and Technicolor that is familiar in Hollywood. In some cases, we have more of the newer lamps than you, because our studios have had to obtain a complete set of lighting equipment all at once, rather than getting a few new units here and there to replace or supplement old but still useful lamps.
Stage spaces and sets are pretty well on par on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact I believe the Denham studio has one stage as big as, or bigger, than the largest in Hollywood. There are minor differences in such details as power distribution and set-platforming, but, in general, once you get on the stage the only thing to tell you whether you are in Hollywood or England would be the accents of the stage crews.
Cameras Scarce There is one phase, however, in which Hollywood seems definitely ahead of our British studios. This is in the matter of cameras.
We use many of the same types of cameras — in most instances Mitchells — though in studios where French or German cinematographers have been active there are DeBries, while a few of the smaller plants use the less-expensive, British-built Vintens.
But our studios are not nearly so plentifully supplied with cameras as is common in Hollywood. Some of us have tried to argue that this was false economy, but without much success.
[ continued on page 3 ] © 1999 ASC