No, the title of this post has nothing to do with the popular Japanese auto manufacturer. Instead, it will begin an examination of the 1928 program that established the first industry-wide metric for raw stock, lighting, camera equipment and lab practices. Participating groups included the ASC, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (forerunner of today’s SMPTE) and a host of other trade organizations and craftspeople. Amazingly, their efforts gave birth to many standards that have remained in place to this day.
The primary challenge for the cinematographers was to test panchromatic film under incandescent lighting. Warner Bros. took the lead by donating soundstages that were open every weekday and most evenings to some forty ASC members – who exposed over eight-hundred hours of footage. Ninety-seven years later, hardly anyone has an awareness of this event, let alone the significant role it played in movie history. Sadly, the films are lost and the Mazda Tests (named for the lightbulb that was an appreciable improvement over older carbon-arc filament bulbs) barely rate mention in any book.
Yet, the results of this research went far beyond the initial concept. According to historian David Bordwell in his book, Film Styles and Mode of Production to 1960 (with co-authors Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson), “…the Mazda Tests established service firms as the chief source of systematic, industry-wide technical innovation and made the Academy the coordinator of large-scale technological change.” While the constant participation of ASC Associate Members is something we take for granted today, at the time such action was seen as a revolutionary step forward.
I’ll deliver more on the minutiae in the next post. My research revealed quite a few surprises and I’m sure you’ll be fascinated by them too…
This is a great topic to cover, thanks!
Interesting.