Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College, St. Aldates, Oxford OX1 1DW
Where do you put the camera? This is the first question that any director or cinematographer must think about when they set up a shot. Imagine that you are filming on a battlefield. You have limited light and unpredictable weather, you risk being shelled by the enemy, and you are using a heavy hand-cranked 35mm film camera on which you have to set the focus and the exposure by hand.
These were the conditions under which Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell shot much of the 1916 feature film The Battle of the Somme.
Where do you put the camera?will show how a cinematographer would have thought about this, and how Malins and McDowell photographed a film of outstanding quality.
The talk by Andrew McCarthy will illustrate the context of the films, and how they were received by the audience at the time. It will feature a short film shot by cinematographer John Adderley on 35mm black and white film using a vintage hand-cranked Williamson camera, and a practical demonstration of the camera by John.
