Spielberg's attention to details

[don_chang]

<p>The other day while revisiting the film Schindler's list, I couldn't help noticing the camera used by the female photographer in the opening scene was a pre war version of the Kine Exakta! Accurate reconstruction of an event does demand scrutinizing every single detail of the history including the camera. The kine Exakta in the film was the only model available at that time any other model would be wrong. I mean when the film was shot in 93 Spielberg could have just used any Exakta that is about the right age and it wouldn't make a difference to most viewers. An Exakta VX from the 50's probably looks authentic enough but research was done on what model was available at that time and the right one was used.</p>

<p>A little on the camera: It is a pre war version of the exakta with the square magnifier. Judging from the strap lug, it is a pre war version of the Kine Exakta with two holes for the flash. I can't tell what the lens is but I do trust that it is from the same period.</p>

<p>I have used both the pre war and post war Kine's, both function similarly. The post war version has a few design changes. The biggest structural modification was on the view finder. The view finder glass on the pre war version is directly secured to the body whereas the post war version has a separate module holding the view finder. However a few screws need to be removed to detach the view finder on the post war Kine. My guess is that it is in a transition phase to the later interchangeable view finder design.</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>Thanks for that Don, great to see them getting it correct. As you say, most would not know the difference, but for those that do it gives you confidence that every thing else is correct too.</p>

[chuck_foreman1]

What Tony said is really what it comes down too... you get the camera right then the veractiy of all other

aspects fall in to place. I'm exaggerating a bit for fun, but as you mentioned " attention to detail" pays great

benefits.

[Rick Helmke]

<p>I recently saw (again) both 'Close Encounters' and 'Full Metal Jacket'. There is a scene in the first showing a bank of motorized camers firing away and they were all Nikon F2's with MD-2 units in place which was Nikon's top of the line at the time. One even had the correct 250 exposure back on it. In FMJ which is set several years earlier there is a press room scene among others in which every Nikon I saw was an F which would also be correct. Not sure if the different versions were accurate though but I suspect they were. I don't know why I'm always looking for that sort of thing but I do.</p>

<p>Rick H.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Spielburg is pretty aware of cameras, although <em>Close Encounters</em> does have a Rollei B35 at the end that never runs out of film and works surprisingly well in low light.<br /> More discussion and other cameras in films at http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00bho0</p>

[john_robison3]

<p>Yeah, attention to detail. Watched "The Odessa File" where Jon Voight is useing a Leica M4....in a scene that is suppose to take place in 1964. My wife thinks I'm crazy. "How many people would know that?" she wants to know, "enough to matter" say I. </p>

[Rick_van_Nooij]

<p>Spielberg's is also a big history buff when it comes to WW2. So he always aims at a high level of authenticity in those movies he has made. <br /><br />Heh, you guys are going to hate "The Mighty Eight". The cameraman in the trailer was shooting his filmo without his hands anywhere near the release button.</p>

[winfried_buechsenschuetz1]

<p>" The kine Exakta in the film was the only model available at that time any other model would be wrong. I mean when the film was shot in 93 Spielberg could have just used any Exakta that is about the right age and it wouldn't make a difference to most viewers. "</p>

<p>Spielberg was much more careful than the makers of "The public eye" where Leon Bernstein uses an Exakta with a pentaprism in the early 1940s...</p>

[Troll]

<p>How about the round image from Jimmy Stewart's Exakta in Hitchcock's Rear Window, like a telescope?</p>

[steve_levine]

<p>As both a "camera" and "gun" guy I always try to see if cameras and weapons are period correct. Quite often in old movies the film's armorer would send over what ever guns they had laying around and hoped no one would notice. Quite often soldiers in the Crimean war (1850's) would be fielding 1870's rifles etc.</p>

<p> The silliest of these historical mistakes has to be in the 1941 film "Sgt York" starring Gary Cooper. In real life Sgt Alvin York received the Congressional Medal of Honor for holding off wave after wave of German's in WW1 with only a Govt issued Colt 1911 .45 calibre pistol. In the film the prop dept / armorer couldn't get a Colt .45 to operate with blanks. So Gary Cooper (York) cuts down the enemy soldiers with what else , a German Luger! From what I've read the Luger worked easily with blanks.</p>

<p>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034167/</p>

[JDMvW]

<blockquote>

<p>How about the round image from Jimmy Stewart's Exakta in Hitchcock's Rear Window, like a telescope?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It probably was an APS-C lens on a 35mm body. :)</p>

<p>It's interesting that Exakta in their advertisement also used the "telescope convention" of circular images:</p><div></div>

[q.g._de_bakker]

It could be that "convention", JDM. It could also be that at that time art directors and designers were more creative, didn't assume that, since images are produced in rectangular shape, you also have to use them in that shape.<br><br>Why is it important, people, that such unimportant (to the narrative) details are period correct?

[JDMvW]

<p>I'd still guess that given the widely used circular image for things seen through a telescope in motion pictures of that era, that this is an example of <em>less</em> creative, rather than "more". I merely said it was interesting, as I personally find it to be.<br /> But, regardless, if you show up at a English Civil War re-enactment wearing a wrist watch, see how long you last. ;)</p>

<p> </p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

It will be both, i think. The style is rather reminiscent of a style of the 50s using lots of geometrical shapes, 'borrowed' from the earlier constructivism. A bit of futurism, Bauhaus, Dada maybe: in short, the pre-war avant garde. The way the two circles are allowed to touch the rectangular left margin. Almost a letter from a constructivist alphabet. Not quite Lissitzky though.<br>The idea of a telescope-view would fit neatly in a design looking for basic geometric shapes.<br>But anyway. Just musing.<br><br>I know exactly how long i would last at a historic re-enactment, and it doesn't have to do with wearing an out of period wrist watch. ;-)

[Robin Smith]

<blockquote>

<p>Why is it important, people, that such unimportant (to the narrative) details are period correct?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think it is important only to those who care, but I also think that good attention to detail may indicate good attention to the rest of the film - "look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves" etc. I am one of the many who look at the details, particularly in war films. Interestingly, there has been an increase in detail authenticity now in most war films, whereas in their heyday of the late 40s and 50s WW2 films' accuracy was usually terrible, even worse in the 60s, probably because they had relatively smaller budgets.</p>

<p>I suppose Gary could conceivably have picked up a Luger from a dead German - at least he didn't have one in the Pacific War.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

But there's detail, and there's detail. Myself, i rather see a good story told in a good way.<br>Not that i like the movie, but Ben Hur is no less of an epic film because some Romans apparently wore wrist watches. Most people didn't notice because they were concentrating on the important bits, not allowing some tiny and unimportant detail to distract their attention from what it really is what the whole thing is about. Sure, if you had noticed, it would have been odd to see Romans wearing wrist watches. But it's not like the rest of the movie is more real. We are allright with that, because we do know it is a fabrication. So do we need people to check outand inform us about the 'veracity' of what we know is just a play, make believe?

[Mike Gammill]

<p>Ah, an anachronism with wristwatches. In regard to having camera gear shown in movies and TV accurately represent what was available I would also pay attention to what film was available. For example, the TV series M*A*S*H once showed Frank Burns with what appeared to be a Kodak Chevron camera. He was merrily clicking away by available light. Now with the lens speed being f 3.5 and the speed champ for 620 film in that day being Kodak's Super XX (with a blistering speed of ASA 100 or about 200 if you eliminate the safety factor) Frank would have needed a steady hand to get sharp photos.</p>

[James G. Dainis]

I notice the more obvious things such as the guy who will take shot after shot with a Speed Graphic without once pulling out a dark slide or cocking the shutter. Sometimes there is in "inside" photography joke. In a Jerry Lewis movie, I forget which one, Jerry was playing a photographer. He took an 8x10 film holder, pulled out the dark slide, looked at the pinkish brown surface inside and said, "That's a good emulsion" then he reinserted the dark slide and slid the film holder into the camera. That was a joke that only photographers would get.

[Rick_van_Nooij]

<blockquote>

<p>But, regardless, if you show up at a English Civil War re-enactment wearing a wrist watch, see how long you last. ;)</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>You'd be branded a "Farb" and told to shape up or ship out ;) </p>

[Robin Smith]

<p>It goes without saying, of course, that a highly accurate film with no plot or character is dull in comparison with one that is inaccurate but gripping. The point, I feel, is that the little points of accuracy add greatly to the whatever merit the film has, and poor accuracy detracts from a film, even if it is very good otherwise.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

How many viewers, what percentage, would you guess Robin, will notice? If it is (in this instance, involving a camera) a photographer thing, what would the percentage be then?<br>If during Ben Hur a motor car would have been seen competing in the chariot race, it would have been silly and distracting. Yes. But if we would believe that much of what we saw in that film is historically accurate we would be fooling ourselves.<br>Which is, in fact, a very good thing. It is make believe. The entire point of story telling.<br>We don't mind that people in movies talk and behave in ways noone in real life does, and that time has lost its all too familiar nature (to name just two things). We (generally) don't mind, don't even notice, that a camera used is 10 years out of date, or that a fully manual camera is 'enhanced' using the sound of a motor drive. Even if wrong, it's part of the vocabulary and does indeed enhance the story telling. (Though the sound of a motor drive has dropped from the vocabulary today's generation would understand, i think.)<br>Things usually go from good to bad when people start mistaking the 'reality' as it exists in movies and other stories for real life, start blurring the boundaries. (Things go extremely wrong when [fill in what that might be yourself - this should not become an Off Topic Forum type discussion]).<br>Now i do know that it's just fun, just something to talk about. Tautologically: as long as we don't take it too seriously, it's nothing serious.<br><br>Now what does Farb stand for, Rick?<br>And where is the line drawn? Shoukd you go to an re-enactment using period correct transportation, if only so that there is not such a thing as a parking lot at walking distance to the Civil War battlefield? The refreshments served should be period correct, including possible contamination with what nastiness you find in water near battlefields? Should you eat a period correct breakfast before you go out to participate in an re-enactment? And if so, cooked using [etc.]<br> ;-)

[Rick_van_Nooij]

<p>A 'Farb', in re-enactment or living history, is someone who (unknowingly or knowingly) wears something incorrect or inappropriate for the period being portrayed.<br />Either because they are new to the hobby or are just unwilling to go the extra mile.<br /><br />It's often thought the term comes from "Far be it from me [to give criticism on your impression, but your wristwatch is incorrect for an ECW event]".</p>