American Cinematographer - January 1993 - 67

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merited every inch of that war. We
shot some things I still can't discuss,
because it's classified information,
but most of the footage is now
available to the public."
The unit got its orders di¬

for 10 years, during which he as¬
cended to the position of non-com¬
missioned officer (staff sergeant) in

charge of the Army's audio-visual
agency at the Pentagon, Purdy de¬
cided it was time to move on. "I
wanted to go to Hollywood to uti¬
lize all of the things I'd learned."

rectly from the Department of the
Army, which would instruct field
commanders to give the camera
crews
anything they needed. The
resulting footage was sent back to

In

Huntsville, Alabama, where it was
stored in huge warehouses. "We
had to write captions for every¬

thing

In reflecting upon his
as a

combat

days
photographer, Purdy

maintains that the

his

fact, Purdy had already

coordinated a multi-camera shoot
as director of
photography on a
1973 concert film called Banjo Man,
shot just prior to his departure from
the Army. The film documented a
show at Manhattan University in

we shot," Purdy adds. "It
didn't matter if it was great combat

best

Kansas, and

footage,

when

team of Richard Abramson and

or close-ups of soldiers in
action. The captions had to be ab¬

solutely accurate. The footage was
shipped back to the Pentagon, and
there was a master sergeant there
an old
guy with maybe 25 years

-

of service. All he did was sit there
with a projector, viewing footage
and reading captions. You might
have gotten a beautiful shot, but if

you

didn't have that soldier's

name,

rank and unit, it

was no

good. When we shot, there was no
throwaway footage, and it made us
very selective."

camera was

ally - and the safest haven -
things got hairy. "When
you're young, you don't think
about death and you're not afraid
of it. You're convinced it's not go¬
ing to happen to you - especially
when you're looking through a
viewfinder. That is the most secure

was

produced by the

Mike Varhol (who later teamed up
again on the feature Pee-Wee's Big

Adventure) for $25,000.

place you could ever be. When you
take your eye away from that
viewfinder, [the danger! starts to
bother you." It was a lesson that
proved valuable in his subsequent
incarnation as a news photogra¬
pher.
After serving in the Army

Taking advantage of the
fact that the Army had gone all¬
volunteer (any soldier who lined
up a job could get out early), Purdy
got his discharge papers, and even¬
tually filled an opening at
Chicago's ABC affiliate. He worked
in Chicago for three years before
the Hollywood bug buzzed in his
ear once
again. A producer he
knew hooked him up with a job at

January 1993

American

Cinematographer

Above:

Purdy (at

left with
camera,

hat) is

again

in white

once

the
along

on

scene,

with sound man
Peter Yu, as
Imelda Marcos

plays hostess to
Pope John Paul
II in the

Phillipines.
Visible to the

right of Purdy is
Australian
cameraman

Neil

Davis (beneath
the parasol in
white cap with
red bill) who
was

killed by

tank fire while

covering a

coup

d'etat in
Thailand.
Below: The
cameraman

feels that in

dangerous
shooting
situations, the
camera's

viewfinder "is
the most secure

place you could
ever

be."

65
American Cinematographer - January 1993

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