The Camera that Changed the World
Before 1960, cameras capable of capturing moving images were cumbersome and could only be used in studios to capture staged drama. As the 1950s drew to a close, American and French filmmakers’ burning desire to capture real life in the moment led to an innovation that revolutionized the viewing experience. The camera that changed the world is the story behind this innovation.
Cameras were large, delicate instruments that could be mounted on tripods at the time, and tape recorders were even more robust. Enter Moi, un noir, a 1958 French documentary filmed by Jean Rouch in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, using small hand-held cameras considered “amateurs.” The bodily freedom that the Roush camera brought to cinematography brought a film to life like never before, and inspired in artists the world over the desire to emulate the result. That seed would grow into everything documentary-making has become in half a century.
As stunning as the film was, Rouch had many criticisms of the hand-held reel camera that made it possible. On the one hand, you have to improve it. While you were doing this, an operation was skipped. Once on chain, it can only record for about twenty seconds. Also, it makes a lot of noise during recording, so simultaneous recording is not possible (at least the kind where you can’t hear the camera). Another camera is needed to appease filmmakers, as revolutionary as the experience Moi could be.
Robert Drew, then a writer and editor for Life Magazine, convinced the company’s finance staff to give him $1 million to develop a camera that would fulfill all of these wishes. The camera they developed was a four-pound prototype that would allow unprecedented mobility in filmmaking. The first film to be shot with it was “Primary,” about then-Senator John F. Kennedy’s efforts in his presidential primary campaign. In just four days of shooting, they changed filmmaking forever.
