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Did the Japanese ever attempt professional movie cameras?


Phillip Mosness

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Considering how much the nation manufactured cameras and lenses, as well as having a large movie industry, why isn't the world filled with pro level Japanese motion picture cameras?

Obviously they made tons of super 8, single 8, etc. And they've been at the forefront of video technology, but you'd think there would be Canon, Fuji, etc. 35mm and 16mm. (I'm aware of the Scoopic)

Perhaps they had some in pre war times?

 

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I took a tour of Toho Studios in Kyoto about seven years ago, they had a small museum with Mitchell cameras: 

02E523FC-C0A2-46B2-B126-AC70EFCA67A0.thumb.jpeg.6f48ec5ef99abacde9bcb0438b557bf1.jpeg
 

I’m guessing that poverty in the post-war period might have kept filmmaking primarily a studio affair, and the studios just used what they already owned? 

According to my dad, it was a big deal for most people in the 1950s-1960s if you owned a stills camera, let alone a movie camera. When his uncle visited from the US in the 60s and brought his 8mm movie camera, it was quite the event.

Also, I think by the time the Japanese economy began to improve in the mid-60s, television was already taking hold.

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On 2/12/2021 at 2:04 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

I was told this is a Japanese made Vistavision camera. Maybe someone else with some knowledge about this camera chime in on this. 

 

130239842_2887950278151855_1501740733358271895_o.thumb.jpg.2cdfe5fdcfe1e6a492dbd30f7049757d.jpg

How odd. The company Sankyo Seiki is the one that made the Super 8 cameras, but the Internet does not know of a Sanko Eiki. I thought that maybe it's a search engine thing, so I tried Yahoo, Bing and Google after my default of Duck Duck Go. But, alas, nothing. Yahoo got me this far:

http://sankobd.com/sanko-co-ltd.html

Maybe something to ask the ASC about? Surely someone would know. The only VV film camera I know of is the Beaucam.

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There have been a few Japanese companies or subsidiaries named Sanko over the years, including some involved with instrumentation and computer software.

It’s most likely the only Japanese contribution to that Vistavision camera is the instrumentation control panel. The rest would have been American. Vistaflex cameras were made by ILM, utilising parts and movements from earlier Mitchell VV cameras. 
http://content.propstore.com/studio/RamaPDF-ForUpload.pdf

The Vistaflex design looks an awful lot like the Mitchell lightweight ‘Butterfly’ camera from the mid 50s:

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingvv2.htm

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On 2/13/2021 at 1:31 AM, Simon Wyss said:

You have the Doiflex 16, a professional camera in my eyes. Mirror reflex finder, strictly straight moving register pin

I’ve never had one in front of me, but it seems like an interesting camera. I’d be curious to check how well the reflex system works.

Though it looks externally like an Arri 16S clone, the movement is more like something  from a Bell and Howell Filmo with a reg pin added, and the reflex viewing is achieved by a small angled mirror on a vertically reciprocating shuttle - like a mixture of Beaulieu’s guillotine mirror and Eclair ACL’s ‘wiper’ mirror. Like those, it uses C mount lenses, so there is very little room behind the mount. It was made by the Doi Ltd company.

Erkan Umut, who sometimes posts here, has a blog with some pictures of both the Doiflex and some Japanese 35mm Mitchell clones:

https://sayyes2analog.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/japanese-mitchell/

According to “Motion Picture Photography: A History”, the Mitchell clones were first made in the 50s by the old, established firm of Seiki Seisakusho, and were very important to the Japanese cinema industry. I don’t know how many were made, all the Japanese films I’ve looked into used standard cinematography cameras like Bell & Howells, Mitchells, Arriflexes and Panavision cameras, but it’s not always easy to get firm information on the technical equipment used.

I think most Japanese companies involved in photography or cinematography in the post war years concentrated more on the mass consumer market, creating many stills, 8mm and Super 8 movie cameras, but not so many 16mm ones and hardly anything in larger gauges. There was more engagement with professional cinematography optics, with firms like Canon, Kowa, Keihan and Ichizuka Kogaku. 

The motion picture industry has always been a fairly niche market. In the early days, the cameras were predominantly French, before the American-made Bell and Howell 2709 became a studio standard, to be replaced during the 20s by the Mitchell. Even an advanced industrial nation like Germany, with a large and influential film industry, made precious few of their own cameras in the years up to WWII, and most of those were clones of French Debrie Parvos.

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6 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

The Vistaflex design looks an awful lot like the Mitchell lightweight ‘Butterfly’ camera from the mid 50s:

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingvv2.htm

Really? It doesn't look a thing like any of those. Have I missed something? I looked through all six pages.

3 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

https://sayyes2analog.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/japanese-mitchell/

According to “Motion Picture Photography: A History”, the Mitchell clones were first made in the 50s by the old, established firm of Seiki Seisakusho, and were very important to the Japanese cinema industry.

Most interesting. So we have Panavision, Mitchell, Bell & Howell from America, ARRI from (West) Germany, Aaron from France, and the few from Japan. Nothing from Italy, it seems.

I suppose the Soviets did make their own cameras and lenses, though. And East Germany?

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2 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

I suppose the Soviets did make their own cameras and lenses, though. And East Germany?

yes the Soviets made their own cameras. most of the designs are loosely based on the Western design on the first model but then on the subsequent refinements their own design choices start to kick in and the later models are pretty unique designs. they are not "copies of the western cameras" in that sense. Their lenses are somewhat based on the similar era Western lenses (for example the Foton 37-140 zoom based on the similar range Angenieux one and the Lomo primes somewhat similar optical design than Zeiss standard speeds in most models. the Soviet lens coatings are by my opinion worse than the Western ones of the similar era and design and the chromatic aberration is different looking but these are just "part of their look" and are appreciated by most users ?  

there was some other Eastern Block cameras available as well like the Meopta ERK (very rare camera, I have only seen one on eBay couple of years ago and nothing since). I have seen some OCT19 modified Mitchells too so they seemingly used a limited amount of them as well.  most of the Soviet cameras were just their own products like Konvas, Kinor, PSK, etc. gear. One interesting design is the Soyuz-US3N which is seemingly a partial copy of the Cinema Products XR35 (same movement etc) but is self blimped and has different body design

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1 hour ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Really? It doesn't look a thing like any of those. Have I missed something? I looked through all six pages.

See the camera at the bottom of page 2, with the magazine lying flat rather than on top.

1 hour ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Most interesting. So we have Panavision, Mitchell, Bell & Howell from America, ARRI from (West) Germany, Aaron from France, and the few from Japan. Nothing from Italy, it seems.

I suppose the Soviets did make their own cameras and lenses, though. And East Germany?

Many more than that. Here’s a selection, mostly disregarding smaller firms or those that only made small gauge cameras:

France had Pathe and Debrie and Eclair, as well as Aaton.

Britain had Williamson, Moy, Darling, Newman Sinclair and Vinten, though like many other countries their studios mainly used French Debries and American Bell & Howells or Mitchell’s, until Rank made a Mitchell NC copy using the British firm Newall, which became something of an industry standard there in the post-war era.

Italy had Prevost, Donnelly and Ventimiglia, but never produced many of their own cameras and mainly used American, French, British and Czech studio cameras.

Germany had Geyer, Ernemann and Askania, but as mentioned earlier, these companies primarily made Pathe or Debrie copies for professional use, and were rarely used on their own important productions. Arnold and Richter (Arri) became quite successful in the post-war era, but studios often still used French and American cameras for some years. Since about the 70s, Arri cameras have dominated the 35mm industry, with only Panavision and their Mitchell based cameras as a rival. 

Czechoslovakia produced a number of their own cameras to high standards through companies like Slechta and Cinephon, which found success across the world before WWII. After the war, the industry was nationalised and various cameras were produced by government companies like Filmovy Prumsyl and Meopta.

The Soviet Union made a number of cameras for its motion picture industry, including Rodina,  KC50 and Konvas, among others. These were mostly based off Western cameras like the Eyemo, Mitchell NC and Cameflex. East Germany also made a few cameras.

The US has been the most prolific camera manufacturer for the motion picture industry, with companies like Akeley, Bell and Howell, Mitchell, Wall, Auricon, Frezzolini, Cinema Products and Panavision among others.

The Japanese cameras mentioned earlier are probably quite rare compared to any of the above.

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In 1935 there was the Arrow camera for 16mm film, a Victor clone. Haven’t heard of a 35mm camera from Japan, yet. Maybe that Konishiroku made one. Possible also an attempt before the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964 parallel to the Doiflex.

 

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2 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

C’mon Dom, you forgot the Austrian Moviecam!! 

I know, and since you own one Sat I apologise for the grievous oversight. ?

In terms of how many were used for feature film production I don’t think it was a huge dent in the Arri/Panavision dominance, but certainly the design was exceptional and led to Arri buying them out to create the Arricam line.

I suppose I could also have mentioned Aaton and Fries and Photosonics and Cinema Products who all produced 35mm cameras during the last 50 years, but none in great numbers. 

 

2 hours ago, Simon Wyss said:

which is a silenced Mitchell.

No that would be a Panaflex, or a Fries Mitchell. Moviecams are quite different really. 

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5 minutes ago, Dom Jaeger said:

I know, and since you own one Sat I apologise for the grievous oversight. ?

In terms of how many were used for feature film production I don’t think it was a huge dent in the Arri/Panavision dominance, but certainly the design was exceptional and led to Arri buying them out to create the Arricam line.

they were used in many higher budget movies too in the late 80's and all of the 90's and 2000's. even in the 2010 still.  I can remember for example the movies Salvador, 21 Grams, most of the LOTR movies, the Hellboy films, Tarsem films like The Fall, etc. being shot with them (just to name a few) and the Compact or SL being a steadicam/handheld camera on countless movies using Arri or Panavision as a main camera. later in the 2000's they were replaced by Arricam LT in similar use in some cases

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10 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

they were used in many higher budget movies too in the late 80's and all of the 90's and 2000's. even in the 2010 still.  I can remember for example the movies Salvador, 21 Grams, most of the LOTR movies, the Hellboy films, Tarsem films like The Fall, etc. being shot with them (just to name a few) and the Compact or SL being a steadicam/handheld camera on countless movies using Arri or Panavision as a main camera. later in the 2000's they were replaced by Arricam LT in similar use in some cases

https://shotonwhat.com/cameras/moviecam-compact-camera 

I am pretty sure that all of the people on this forum have seen at least a couple of dozen of those films 

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10 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

they were used in many higher budget movies too in the late 80's and all of the 90's and 2000's. even in the 2010 still.  I can remember for example the movies Salvador, 21 Grams, most of the LOTR movies, the Hellboy films, Tarsem films like The Fall, etc. being shot with them (just to name a few) and the Compact or SL being a steadicam/handheld camera on countless movies using Arri or Panavision as a main camera. later in the 2000's they were replaced by Arricam LT in similar use in some cases

Yeah you’re right, the list is pretty extensive! 

We had Moviecams at the last rental house I worked at, and they certainly got a lot of work, but once Arricams came out they were sort of relegated to B cams. It didn’t help either when Moviecam shut down around 15 years ago and technical support ended. But yeah, looking at their credits there’s some big movies in there.

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