“Slip on a coat we keep it cool inside here” Authentic original stalk prints, decades of television.
Much of this battle footage can be edited for combat in television and film. These sequences are difficult to technically and safely achieve.
Somewhere here, we already filmed that scene. Reuse where it applies…
T.V Guides promoted this rack in time…
Castles gone too!
Before Marvel…
“What an operation he has going on”
Cut and Print;
That’s the final command you hear. The director is satisfied with what was just captured on film by his inner troupe. The number of “takes” the actor does varies. It depends on the difficulty of the scene. It also depends on the challenges the director may face in capturing the required vibe.
In my time in the business, I saw first hand how editors become efficient directors. They know which scenes are needed and which are not. Those directors go home on 12 or less hours, but the green around the edges directors never stop shooting …ever. Tropic Thunder, I say no-more. “Inside joke”
Film needs storage at temperatures that don’t decompose the celluloid. The film stored inside here is post- 1947. This is -not Nitrate film. Film earlier to 1947 needs a blast shelter for storage. Extremely flammable, film like this is specially stored away from other film or assets. Our classic monster films were of this nature, very scary and highly flammable. The fire scene at the end of Frankenstein could easily have been started by the print itself.
I first managed access to a film vault at- Desilu Studios. This vault contained films dating back to RKO Studios during the era of nitrate film. Fortunately, we lived to tell about it. We were teenagers sneaking in to an explosive situation. We handled it like children, because we were, and were lucky we picked a vault with less volatility. Television shows were not nitrate film.
Twice in my career, New York Street burned down at Universal. The entire city, entirely gone…Twice! In each event, the fire departments battled to save these buildings and the prints inside. New York Street stood just out side, but also does the lake. Helicopters doused this area as fast as they filled up, saving prints of endless classics.
Irreplaceable
“After all, it was just another fire”…say Universal.
Written and lived by…Donnie Norden
Phantom of the Backlots 