When The Camera Learned To Dance
Today on The Musings, Andy Romanoff, the man who brought the Louma Crane to the United States and really changed the way we make movies, talks about that process and what the early days looked like.
If you like this story, make sure to check out Andy’s excellent book Stories I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You. Amazing book, amazing stories.
Andy on the backlot at Warner riding some old crane, sometime in the sixties
There was a time when cameras didn’t move at all. In those early days, in the novelty of the first moving pictures, pictures of people gesturing and waving on the screen were enough. Then very quickly the camera learned to travel, first on cars and trains and then on primitive dollies and cranes, and then for quite some time they were…content. The technology of the time made large and fanciful camera movements difficult. When filmmakers wanted to rise above a scene or reach out over an obstacle, they mounted the camera on a giant crane, and they went along for the ride. It was a wonderful feeling to rise majestically through the air on tons of metal, and I was lucky enough to be there for that. I was also there stuck high in the air while an actor discussed his lines with the director…and that was not as majestic.
Early days with the Louma Crane, on location near Marseille. See how small and portable the crane gets when it doesn’t have to carry the operator?
The Louma was the first crane that left the operators and assistants back on the ground to frame and focus the camera remotely. By doing so, it shed thousands of pounds and became a slim and supple device. You could transport it in pieces and build it wherever you wanted. Suddenly the camera could move quickly and in surprising ways, and the language of filmmaking gained some lovely new phrases. I was lucky enough to get involved shortly after the Louma came to life, and it was an adventure every day.
A director up on a ladder checking the scene and talking about the shot. No one trusted the video tap — often for good reason
Remote heads are now so much a part of the fabric of films that it’s hard to imagine all the work and time it took to make it so. On 1941, the first film the Louma worked on in America, when the crane arm was positioned for a high shot, the grips would place a ladder underneath it, and Dick Colean, the camera operator, would climb up and look through the viewfinder. That’s because no one trusted the video tap. On 1941, Steven Spielberg was so uncomfortable with anyone seeing what he was seeing that he had the grips build a large enclosure around the controls and monitor to block the view of all but the invited.
Helping William Katt fly on Greatest American Hero. Before the Louma, looking straight down with the camera was always a special rigging job.
We were a pain to work with. The equipment was fragile and balky and strange. But in return for the trouble we caused we were giving filmmakers something valuable - we were freeing the camera. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to watch those first users discover how they could follow an actor or switch viewpoints in mid-scene, how fluid this new point of view could be. The equipment quickly got better, and we found we were not alone. After 1941 we moved on to Wolfen where we shared a truck and scenes with Garrett Brown, him running through the rubble and us flying through the air, and together, the Louma and the Steadicam made the camera into a dancer, one that could partner with the actors, and films got a whole new look.
What we were all experiencing for the first time - that the camera could go anywhere! All photos copyright Andy Romanoff
Today we take all this for granted. Cameras leap and fly and swim to be with the action wherever it goes. But not very long ago (at least to me) it wasn’t that way. A small handful of people who wanted more from the camera invented ways to make it dance, and filmmaking was changed forever. What an adventure that was!
