American Cinematographer - June 2020 - 78

'70s Cinema in AC

George Lucas, would also vault to
worldwide and lasting prominence
during the 1970s. Lucas made a striking debut with his independent
dystopian sci-fi feature THX 1138 -
shot by Albert Kihn and David Myers
- and the young director wrote about
his project in the October 1971 issue of
AC, which had a special focus on filmmaking in San Francisco. In touting
the promise of THX 1138, the magazine noted, "Though financed and
released by Warner Bros., the film, in
its creative concept and execution,
was in no way a 'major studio production'; on the contrary, it was totally the
product of American Zoetrope, the

San Francisco-based filmmaking
'commune,' founded and funded by
Francis Ford Coppola for the purpose
of attracting, encouraging and utilizing talented young film technicians
new to the industry." (In the same
issue, American Zoetrope was the
subject of a separate article penned by
its general manager, Christopher
Pearce.)
Summarizing his vision for the
film, Lucas wrote, "My primary
concept in approaching the production of THX 1138 was to make a kind
of cinéma vérité film of the future -
something that would look like a
documentary crew had made a film

about some character in a time yet to
come." He added, "At the same time
... I wanted the picture to look slick
and professional, in terms of cinematic
technique. I felt that the realism of the
film's content would be enhanced by
having the actors and their surroundings look slightly scruffy, even a little
bit dirty, as they might well look in the
society depicted."
Later in the decade, of course,
Lucas would bring elements of this
aesthetic to a little film called Star Wars,
which - in the July 1977 issue of AC -
received outstanding coverage of its
cinematography, miniatures, mechanical special effects, composite optical

Going "Steady" - The Introduction of the Steadicam - AC July 1976

78

Several reports in
the July '76 issue herald
the arrival of the groundbreaking Steadicam-35
system, invented by ASC
associate Garrett Brown.
ASC associate Ed DiGiulio
of Cinema Products Corp.
detailed the system's
design and capabilities in a
piece titled "Steadicam-35:
A Revolutionary New
Concept
in
Camera
Stabilization," and AC
editor Herb A. Lightman
filed a report from the
ninth Motion Picture
Seminar of the Northwest
in Seattle, providing an eyewitness
account of Brown demonstrating his
invention, "as he gallops about the stage
to illustrate its incredible versatility. As
proof of the pudding, he shows clips from
recent features utilizing the device,
including Bound for Glory, Marathon Man
and Rocky. This part of the program turns
out to be a real conversation piece and
the hit of the show."
In the same issue, an article titled
"First Feature Use of Steadicam-35 on
Bound for Glory" offers the hands-on
observations of cinematographer Haskell
June 2020

Wexler, ASC: "I used it a number of
times. The most spectacular usage was a
combination shot, which started with the
camera high up on a Chapman crane to
show a huge camp of migrants in the
'30s, poor people who were camped out
in a sort of shantytown. The camera
craned down to find David Carradine,
who plays Woody Guthrie, sitting on an
old car. He gets up off the car as the
camera crane reaches ground level, and
the cameraman steps off the crane with
the Steadicam in hand and follows
Carradine underneath tents and through
American Cinematographer - 100 Years

narrow passageways and
crowds of people until he
reaches another actor.
They then have a scene
where they back through
more crowds of people.
The camera moves as if it
has no limitations, which,
in a sense, it doesn't have,
because it travels over
rough terrain where you
couldn't lay dolly tracks -
and even if you could lay
dolly tracks, they would
appear in the picture. It's
quite spectacular. We used
it in a number of other
places where it was impossible to lay tracks, but where we wanted
some fast movement.
"Usually when a new device
comes out there are overstatements.
People say: 'This is the greatest thing
ever! This is a breakthrough! It will
change the way motion pictures are
made!' But I do think that this particular
device will significantly increase the fluidity of the camera. It will, perhaps, be
overused until people settle down to
knowing how and where to use it, but it
definitely is an exciting new working
tool."
American Cinematographer - June 2020

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