Prior to this incredible event, technical advancements were spotty at best, with many companies and individuals – often cinematographers – unveiling some amazing tool or another before receding into the mist.
The Mazda Tests put an end to that. They established the combination of incandescent illumination and panchromatic film as a standard that would last for three decades. Manufacturers expanded relationships with customers, which led to the speedy development of new, reliable equipment. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asserted itself as the main coordinator of technical innovation. The Society of Motion Picture Engineers (forerunner of today’s SMPTE) planted the flag in Hollywood and began to exercise substantial influence over the industry’s progress. And the American Society of Cinematographers, as the ultimate end-users, gained a powerful voice that has driven positive change that continues to this day.
While researching these posts, I couldn’t help wondering what it must’ve been like to have been present on the Warner Bros. stages during those long days and nights of testing. David Bordwell, in his seminal book, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Styles & Mode of Production to 1960 (with co-authors Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson), referred to written records to describe the set and staging that made up the body of the Mazda Tests:
“…a baronial hall with fireplace, easy chairs, table, piano and raftered ceiling – a typical upper-class interior for a silent film.”
…a young man and woman in evening clothes greet one another in a room, or when the couple, sitting in a darkened library, are interrupted by the woman’s father.”
I can imagine showing up for work, like the rest of my crew, in a jacket and tie. I can hear the sound of the cranks driving the camera movements. I can smell the burning of the brand-new tungsten globes in their original housings. And I feel like I’m at the center of something that’s going to have a far-reaching, beneficial effect.
The modern, digital equivalent of the Mazda Tests would be the StEM (Standard Evaluation Material) Tests that were first conducted by the ASC in 2004. No one showed up in a nice suit for this go-round, but the commitment of the players was profound. Though they’ll likely be forgotten in a hundred years too, the StEM tests had their roots in the silent era…and I’ll always have the satisfaction of having been a small part of it!