Page 1 of 1

Miniature Mitchell Cameras scaled up from photographs

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 1:18 am
by lilybettina
I thought you all might like to see a model of an NC made by the same guy who made my fake Standard front. This model, which is 7 inches tall was scaled up from photographs. He even made a Technicolor camera. I have all of his movie camera models now since he died. They were all going in the dumpster!

Re: Miniature Mitchell Cameras scaled up from photographs

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 4:57 am
by lilybettina
Here is the Technicolor camera model. A wee bit smaller and lighter than the original! The model is 14 ozs and 9 inches tall.

Re: Miniature Mitchell Cameras scaled up from photographs

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 4:04 pm
by mediaed
These are Fantastic! Cannot wait to see what you post from the rest of your collection.

Like most of us interested in this site, I have often harbored the fear of that dumpster pulling up to the door here in similar circumstances for the actual production gear I have managed to save and restore from studio junk rooms and loading docks awaiting the trash truck.

Yes, I grew up in this business. As a business one had to move to the future and everything else that was old and not working for the bottom line represented a worthless drag on resources. Witness the fall of MGM as just the best illustration of that single-minded thought pattern.

The machines that made it all possible represented artistry and innovation and invention in and of themselves. They were the tools that helped shape our world culture and by their very design fostered the creativity that are and were the movies which made us think and become.

Kudos for saving some of the past for the future. ED.

Re: Miniature Mitchell Cameras scaled up from photographs

Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 6:51 am
by lilybettina
A few more pictures. Bernard King who made these models was a map maker. He made also model cars and buses. It was only a hobby. Nobody was interested in keeping his models, and before he died he offered them to me. He visited British Movietone News HQ whilst it was still operational and took many pictures of the cameras (yes I have them too) so that he could scale down. Incidentally Bernard's sister Connie worked for the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird, the noted tv pioneer. There are experimental pictures of her taken off screen in the 1920s, published in many media history books. I've not annotated the pictures but have full details if anybody would like them. The blimp on the Panoram dolly is a Newall. Non of theses models are more than 10 inches tall

Re: Miniature Mitchell Cameras scaled up from photographs

Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 10:31 pm
by marop
Spectacular collection! Your lucky to have them and we're all lucky they didn't get dumped. I own a Mitchell Standard that was made in 1931 and sold to Paramount studios. It filmed many movies and stars like Marlene Deitrich and Bing Crosby. In the 1980s Paramount sold a bunch of their cameras and equipment, which could explain how it ended up in a Warner Brothers Studio warehouse years later. A company was hired to dispose of, destroy, all the contents, including the Standard and 4 others just like it (including motor, viewfinder, tripod, and magazine. A guy working for the salvage company was able to talk the guy into selling one camera to him. The rest are gone forever...how many of us collectors would have enjoyed saving those cameras....

Mark