While hard at work on the new website, we have been assembling brief histories of camera manufacturers whose equipment we own. There are several major players in the movie equipment world whose histories are difficult to research. Among those, I was shocked to find that there was no information about Fries Engineering, a major innovator in the motion picture and special effects worlds. Fries Engineering was established in 1973 by Doug Fries, whose career includes stints at Librascope, Photosonics, Mitchell Camera Co., Film Effects of Hollywood, Todd A.O., Cinema Research, Stereovision, and Cinemobile, among others. With the help of Mark Wheeler, I was fortunate to spend over an hour talking with Doug about his personal history and the history of his company. Fries Engineering is most famous for its 35R and 35R3 conversions of Mitchell cameras, but Doug has a much more in depth history of providing equipment and technology to almost every corner of the motion picture industry. Doug first became interested in photography and photographic equipment during his time in the Air Force as a photo interpreter. Through good friends like Ed DGiulio, John Jergens, Lin Dunn, and Hal Scheibe, Doug was able to hone his engineering skills before he started Fries Engineering. Other notable projects Fries Engineering worked on include 40 cameras for Aardman Animations, IMAX, underwater cameras Jacques Cousteau, the Mitchell AP 65 camera for Todd A.O., the Fries Directors Finder, and scratch-built Fries 435 cameras. Character limits force us to stop here, but much more information will be available on our new site when it launches.
Fries Mitchell 35R sn. 1437 
Fries Mitchell 35R3 sn. TA 46
