From the collection of Jim Danforth comes another breathtaking piece of equipment, one of the very few surviving ARKO Background Projectors designed and built by Harry Cunningham for Willis O’Brien to create the visual effects for “Mighty Joe Young” (1949). Jim’s early career earned him the reputation of being an extraordinary stop motion animator, sculptor, […]
ARKO Background Projector Read More »
The Cine-Kodak Special II is a marvel of 1940’s engineering, with innovative features like a divergent lens turret, interchangeable magazines, a through-the-lens critical focuser, and an audible warning when the wind was coming close to an end, among others. Before we send this Cine-Kodak Special II off to its new home, I thought we would
Cine Kodak Special II with auxiliary viewfinder Read More »
I wanted to share another item from John Hora’s fantastic collection of movie gear. This Mitchell Mark III is one of three cameras that I know about that were completed by Mitchell before they closed their doors. Design on this camera began sometime in the late 1960’s. Their intention with this model was to build
Earlier this week, three classic CinemaScope lenses came into our inventory. Sadly, they are here because of the death of my friend John Hora. John was a veteran cinematographer of countless national television commercials and many feature films and television shows. I met John while I was working with John Russell at JAR Enterprises some
Bausch and Lomb CinemaScope Lens Set Read More »
Continuing with the Worrall restoration and clean up, this week I focused on the tilt drive assembly. After much mining of old grease, case dirt, and oxidized aluminum, I was able to actually get my hands on the gears, drive shafts, brake assembly, and backlash adjustment sections. Special attention was paid to chiseling out the
Continuing Restoration of the Worrall Geared Head Read More »
The Worrall Geared Head was one of the premiere pan and tilt tools around the world for decades due to its silent, smooth, and accurate operation, and its ability to support extremely heavy cameras like the Mitchell BNC. When this unit arrived, it had a hitch in the tilt axis and a very large bump
Restoring Worrall Geared Head sn. 192 Read More »
A couple of days ago, Worrall Geared Head #192 limped its way into the shop. This geared head came in with the BNCR #136 that we showed in our last post, and believe it or not, it was in worse condition than the camera. I spent time this week evaluating and disassembling this geared head
Worrall Geared Head sn. 192 Read More »
All of the work on Worrall Geared Head #192 has been completed! I was able to make the pan and tilt axes run smoothly despite some of the lumps in the tilt axis tracks. Much polishing and cleaning smoothed out the big lumps to a very acceptable level. The pan axis was smooth once all
Restoration of the Worrall is Complete! Read More »
We have just received this wonderful, but in need of much love, Mitchell spinning mirror reflex BNCR, serial #136. So far, we are unable to decipher who the original owner was, but we know that it was first purchased in 1954. Unfortunately, this camera was stored poorly and suffers from petrified grease, minor corrosion and
Mitchell BNCR sn. 136 Read More »
A number of people have asked to see the Panavision SPSR Super R200 camera running. After a quick trip to Arnold Peterson’s shop for some electronic repairs, the camera is once again in good working order. I managed to squeeze in time to make this very crude video showing the camera running. We tested the
A Short Video of the Panavision SPSP Super R 200 Camera Running Read More »
