A few weeks ago, an old friend of mine, Bob Bailey, reconnected with me and asked if I could help him re-home a Mitchell NC camera that he has been holding on to. Bob shot plates and 2nd unit for several movies with this camera, which he acquired from my professor and mentor Peter Gibbons. Peter was an amazing and inspiring teacher that brought tremendous enthusiasm and his vast experience to teaching the art of filmmaking. He is one of the people who inspired me to make the wonderful journey into cinematography and visual effects.
For over 20 years, Peter was a cameraman and technical advisor for Cinerama, working on such films as “How the West Was Won” and “The Greatest Story Ever Told”. I had the pleasure of working with Peter at Universal’s Hartland VFX facility on such films as “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” and “The Concorde – Airport ’79”. As you can see in the images, the camera is in need of a deep cleaning after sitting in storage for a while.
Mitchell NC 184, was originally sold to RKO Radio Pictures in 1941, and later to Republic Pictures in 1945. Interestingly, the camera is on L-base #96, originally purchased by cinematographer Sam Landers, ASC in 1937. Everything else seems to be period-appropriate to the camera, and the serial # on the movement matches.
I was most struck by the unusual and fascinating follow focus unit that is paired with this camera. This is unlike any other Mitchell follow focus unit I have seen and it has several really unique features. This unit mounts to the L-base where the matte box support bracket usually mounts. The follow focus unit not only engages the focus gear on the lenses, but has a unique adjustable cam and follower system that compensates the sidefinder for parallax.
This is unlike the many NC and BNC cameras I have worked with in the past, which had cams custom matched to a specific camera and set of lenses by serial numbers, and that package always stayed together. I will dig deeper into the camera as I clean it up, but please enjoy a couple of quick video clips of this unique follow focus unit in action.