Flight to the West?

Fight to the West?

The citadel of Eastern-originated television was threatened last week by a routine Silver Theater show (Mon. 8 p.m., CBS-TV). The half-hour presentation, His Brother's Keeper, unusual only because it was shot entirely in film, was the first example of a multi-camera filming method devised by Hollywood's short-subject veteran Jerry Fairbanks, assisted by Silver Theater Producer-Director Frank Telford.

Standard cinema technique is to use only one camera, which is dollied forward or backward for each different shot. The consequent waste of time and continuous changes of lighting have run the cost of film far beyond the cost of a "live" telecast. Even the cheapest B movie costs upwards of $100,000, and it takes about 60 minutes of working time to produce one minute of film.

By using three cameras simultaneously, Fairbanks and Telford were able to take medium shots with the center camera, close-ups and cross-shots with the side cameras. They completed the shooting of His Brother's Keeper in one day, got a minute of film for every 16 minutes of working time. The total production cost came to $6,000--no more than a similar live dramatic telecast would cost. "And if we do only one or two repeats of the show," says Telford, "the production cost drops to practically nothing."

There are other advantages. The film can be used, in place of "watery" and generally unsatisfactory television recordings, on stations not connected to the coaxial cable. There is also a saving in actors' salaries, since rehearsal time is cut in half. And through a special processing of the film, Fairbanks has eliminated the washed-out quality common to most movies on TV.

Variety, reporting that "viewers throughout had the feeling it was live TV," hailed the show as probably answering "many of video's most complex problems." Convinced that television's future now lies in Hollywood, Director Telford saw the Fairbanks method doing away with a lot of strain and split-second timing. He predicted cheerily: "It will take the ulcers out of the business."

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