The above photo shows what passed for a state-of-the-art camera car, circa February, 1939. It’s pretty clear what it was meant to do, though I don’t think OSHA would’ve approved if they had been around at the time.
The crew were shooting footage for the Twentieth Century Fox film Kentucky at the Hollywood Park thoroughbred racetrack. Its designer and owner, “Kansas” Grosso looks out from the driver’s seat. At top left is Harry Jackson, ASC; fourth from left in the middle row (partially hidden by the speed rail) is Charles P. Boyle, ASC.
I wonder what made more noise…the car’s engine or the grinding of the three-strip Technicolor cameras? Either way, I’m glad shooting from moving vehicles has evolved to a much more refined level. See below for an example of what I mean.
Looks a little top heavy. I wouldn’t want to be the crew on top out
front of a racing thoroughbred, especially on the turns. There probably
wasn’t much testing on it beforehand but it definitely has a whole lot of ingenuity designed into it. The lower camera must have captured the
legs of the horses. The guy on the lower right must have found some
comfort on the pillow he’s laying on.
It really is amazing the approach they took to building out that vehicle in 1939. Everybody hold on! (especially if you were on the top camera!) I’m imagining what the different camera placements were for: maybe bottom for those low shots with cutaways of the horses’ hooves furiously kicking up dust on the track and the hero shot looking up at the horse and the rider? …the middle camera for the medium and eye level shots of the jockey frantically spurring his horse onward (how do you like the 2×4 supported “bipod” base for that camera?)? …the rooftop camera for the wide shots looking down at the competitors trying to pass and vying for position on the track? Very neat! I haven’t seen this movie, so now I’m keen to watch it and see if I can recognize the angles those cameras provided. Thank you Richard for the interesting find! I find these old BTS images so interesting and revealing. It’s cool to see that the industry faced the same challenges with getting moving shots from vehicles back in its earlier days, and it’s interesting to see how solutions have developed. Now, there are whole inclusive shock-dampened and gyro-stabilized systems sold as package items that are within the reach of smaller and middle budget producers (thinking of the Hydra Alien Car Mounting System and Hydra Arm Mini coupled with Ronins) for getting these kind of shots.
That is brilliant – love it, Richard.
Thank you, Jesse! My best to you and yours for the holidays!