American Cinematographer - December 1968 - 26

GENESIS AND EVOLUTION
Not religious terms, but an account of how
By ALBERTO ISAAC

the Olympic Games film began and developed

Director

Himself a former Olympic swimming com¬
petitor, Director Alberto Isaac works out with
a young Mexican contestant prior to filming
of an underwater sequence in the Olympic
Swimming Stadium pool.

When I was at the Cannes Film
Festival in 1965 I saw a screening of the
film, "TOKYO OLYMPIAD," and I
liked it very much. I was, at that time,
writing for a newspaper in Mexico and I
remember writing: "Who is going to
make the Mexican Olympics film? Who
is there who can match what the Japan¬
ese have done? It's tremendous!"
Little did I know that this task
would, one day, fall upon my own
shoulders.
While in Cannes, I remember, I dis¬
cussed the Tokyo film and compared it
with others that had been made. The
Rome Olympics film, for example, had
been "correct"-not bad, but not in¬
spired. It was simply a record of the
events. Then, of course, everybody
remembered and spoke of the Berlin
Olympics film-which was actually two
films.
By the time I returned to Mexico,
work had already begun on the 1968
Olympics. I had been an Olympic swim¬
mer in the London and Helsinki Games
and the government had decided to call
upon ex-athletes, people who had com¬
peted in the Olympics or had made
some name in sports, to help with the
1968 Olympiad. They assigned me, not
to the film, but to the committee in
charge of protocol.
Actually, at that time, they hadn't
thought about a film at all. The multimillion-dollar television contract was
the important thing, and there was a big
argument about whether a film should
even be made because it meant laying
out money instead of receiving it-at
least for a long time to come.

As a result, by the time they decided
to make a film and formed a Cinema¬
tography Section of the Olympic Games
Organizing Committee it was pretty
late.
I was, as I've said, assigned to the
Protocol Committee, but I kept asking
from the very beginning: "Who is going
to do the film? What steps have been
taken toward making this film?" I knew
that such a project could not simply be
improvised, especially in a country like
Mexico that does not have a very large
cinema industry. We have brilliant
studio cameramen here, some of the
best in the world-but making a sports
film on a huge scale is a very different
thing and calls for a different type of
cameraman, the type of which we did
not have very many.
A meeting of the International
Olympic Committee had been planned,
at which Architect Pedro Ramirez
Vazquez, Chairman of the Organizing
Committee, would be expected to pre¬
sent a progress report telling how
preparations for the Games were coming
along. I thought the best way to do this
would be on film. So, within a month's
time, I prepared a 16mm color film
showing how work on the Olympics was
progressing.
Architect Ramirez Vazquez took it
with him to the meeting, presented it
before the Committee-and it was a
success. When he returned he asked me
to prepare a report on how I thought the
Cinematography Section of the Olympic
Organizing Committee should operate. I
did an in-depth study of the subject and
it took months, but finally he approved

In constant meetings with Technical Director Antonio Reynoso and others of his staff, the Director pre-planned every phase of the massive filming
operation. Originally assigned to the Olympic Protocol Committee, he was totally surprised to be designated to direct the official film, protesting
that there were others with much more filming experience. However, his sure artistic and executive handling of the huge project have more than
proved that the decision was, indeed, a very wise one.

American Cinematographer - December 1968

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