American Cinematographer - May 2003 - 50

Memories of a Master
out

tricks, without the aid of

and

zeros

-

ones

just ravishingly honest

images. I expected him to be around
for another 20 years, a cherished old
crustacean at ASC meetings or off
on his island, or still
making you feel
glad to be on his sets and to have
seen his
light. I'll miss him as a
friend, but

no

work wasn't

less

as an

artist whose

nearly finished.

Michael Ritchie, director of
Smile

(interviewed in 1975): We
had, within our budget, the oppor¬
Above: The

original

crew
from The

Professionals

(1966) -ASC
stalwarts Bobby
Byrne, Bill
Fraker, Connie
Hall and Charles
Rosher Jr.

-

trade memories
at the

Society's

clubhouse in

Hollywood.
Below right: Hall
and Jordan

Cronenweth,
ASC share

a

laugh.

Connie

really started to take off, had

attitudes. All of the older
men

had attitudes, and all of

sudden, this 'new wave'
came

had

camera¬

a

cameraman

along who was instinctive and

no

fear.

I loved his

spontaneity. He
overplanned what he was
going to do with anything. He
'winged it' a lot.
never

You had to learn how to be

a

shooter if you were

going to be his
operator, because if you couldn't

Steadicam,
sweater

so we

mechanical
hidden

had

a

made and slid
in

arm.
a

The

three-armed
one over

the

camera

was

floating, whirring

tunity to spend the
wanted to, and to
most

Conrad Hall

as

was getting
the director of

photography. Connie was extraor¬
dinary, and now matter how fast we
moved it all looked wonderful.

There

was no variation in photo¬
graphic quality between the day we
got seven setups and the day we got

45 setups.

attention to

was

Conrad found this

of the

important things

garment bag with a hole for the
lens, and nobody paid the slightest
us.

money any we
me, one

Lighting the beauty pageant
enormously difficult for

make the shot, he could. So that

amusing, but he actually laughed

Connie, because he had to do

aloud when

lighting job for the whole audito¬
rium
backstage, front stage,

better operator. I was
pretty good when I started operat¬
ing for Connie, but he made me a
energy,
-

he

like

child. We

a

were

all

playground in
those days. It wasn't like a job, really;
it was something artistic, and you
always tried to be better at it. And
Connie had

on

no

a

fear. He

went

for

daring things. He always tried to do
something a little better, a little
more
interesting. There are a lot of
good cameramen, and there are
some who are really special.
Garrett

Brown, Steadicam

inventor/operator, Marathon Man
and Love Affair: I first met Conrad
when Haskell Wexler tipped him off
that my device, then called the
'Brown Stabilizer,' had yielded a
great sequence on Bound for Glory
and could be

a

on

the

useful tool

Marathon Man. I ended up

on

doing

same

and still

we

made another shot

street

with

no

disguise,

Morituri

onward, I

observed Conrad

repeating

whatever
would be

to

Perdition. He did his

magic with¬

pit, the back of the audito¬

rium, group shots, close shots,

himself, but it all seemed daring
and marvelous, right through Road

never

one

-

orchestra

nobody looked!

From

enormous

jumping all around the set

was

like children

May 2003

running, riding on
golf-carts and flatbed trucks, and
walking along 47th Street, preceding
Laurence
Olivier through the
Diamond District. Conrad suggested
that I try to disguise the prototype

made you a

lot better. He had this

46

dozens of shots

-

for three

cameras

that

roaming all over the place.
All of the camerawork was hand¬
held, except for the zoom shots....
American Cinematographer - May 2003

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