Evening star., 1951-10-04
On the Air
Those Shots
ReoIIyAre
Candid
By Joy Cormody

Oy Joy $uItnouy
Television people abhor still
photographs. Still, being in the
picture business, they find it
necessary to use a great many of
these.
A number of viewers we know
think this is the wrong attitude
on the part of video. Why wrong?
Well. mostly because it ignores
the drama in a candid camera
shot of a Senator-Say Mccarthy
which looks like a composite of
Earl Browder and Jake LaMotta.
There is nothing like a candid
camera shot of public character
to make him look like somebody
else. anybody else, and sometimes
three or four other people COM
bined. In real life, the candid
cameras victim may be merely
an average mug but on the tele-
vision screen often he looks like
one who has just stepped out of
Ia ring with Sugar Ray Robinson.
OF late, for instance, this view
'er is periodically fascinated by
a still photograph of Gen. Doug
las A. Macarthur that keeps turn
ing up on the television screen.
1t makes the hero of the Pacific
look like statue of himself by
"a whimsical sculptor who added
two black shoe buttons as eyes
This probably is more satisfying
ito the anti-MacArthur faction
than to the pro one, but entirely
apart from ones personal feeling
about it, it is dramatically ar
resting photograph.
Another that keeps coming up
is picture Of Senator Wherry.
and what it does to the Nebraska
Republican suggests that the still
cameraman who shot the film gets
IN free to Jackson Day dinners.
This is not true, of course. What
really happened is that the Sena-
tor got caught in the middle of
a word which distortS the human
face almost beyond recognition
IN Senator Wherry's case a word
like, say Democrat" or a phrase
like candid camera"
The fact is, that people in
public life-like President Truman
Senator Taft, or whoever-are
not notably photogenic and do
not need to be. It is not a re-
quirement for holding public office
and yet. in an odd way, it can be
a handicap to office holders.
The screens on which they are
appearing are occupied profession
ally by humans in whom glamour
is not merely virtue but to some
extent a necessity. Viewers of
these screens have become habitu-
ated to Clark Gable, Tyrone Pow
er, Robert Taylor. Jane Russell,
Susan Hayward and similar types
and it requires an adjustment of
focus to face the newcomers.
Mr.. Rash Can Explain-Two
methods of inserting these still
candid camera shots into news
programs are in general use and
the man who can explain them
is Bryson Rash, WMAL-TV news
caster.
I'VE don't really like to use
stills in any fashion," he SAYS
Life moves and news is action
and we like to show both for what
they are. But there is no way to
completely escape the use of
stills, most of them candid"
OF the two methods of projecting
still photos on television screens
the preferred one is to take a.
35-milimeter negative. mount IT.
in 2-by-2-inch frame and pro-
ject it just as any slide is pro-
jected.
The other is to take the still
it and place it on an easel
and then photograph it with a
live televi5ion camera. The eff
feet of this is more static-a
stlller still-then the other and it
is used only when there is no.
other way.
Live Film Preferred-"Take a
program we did recently" says
Mr.. Rash. I'VE telecast a story
Of the 10 most wanted men byi
the FB1. Well, there was nothing
available but the still photo
graphs of them. front and pro-
file views, and we had these only
to use.
News film is what we really
go for, when it is possible. This
is action-not the politician
caught in the middle of a face
dlstorting word-and it is what
the newscaster wants. It makes
him a narrator instead of an actor.
and, in my own case, I'm happy
to have six and one half, or seven.
minutes OF it in my teleneWs pro-
gram"
Right now, he can see no way
out Of using some stills and until
one is found, candid static photos
are going to keep on doing those
dramatic distortions of faces that
really are not that bad.
Maybe, in the meantime, poll
ticians could ask the stations to-
substitute studio portraits of them
selves for the candids, or at least
snapshots in which the subject