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JM Wall 35mm movie camera and tripod
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Title:
JM Wall 35mm movie camera and tripod
NFSA ID
1001990
Year
1940
Fitted with a four-lens turret, a 12-volt motor and Cooke Speed Panchro lenses, this landmark camera was donated to the NFSA by newsreel camera operator and cinematographer Ross Wood. It is pictured with an Akeley Model C gyro tripod.
The camera was used by actor Bill Hunter in Newsfront (Phillip Noyce, 1978), and was the perfect prop for a film inspired by the real-life brothers Ross and Syd Wood during their time as newsreel camera operators.
After his role in the news industry, Ross Wood was the cinematographer on The Queen in Australia (1954), the first feature documentary made in colour in Australia, as well as features The King of The Coral Sea (Lee Robinson, 1954) and On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959), a US production filmed in Australia that starred Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck and Fred Astaire. On the Beach was based on the 1957 book by pilot and aeronautical engineer-turned-novelist Nevil Shute.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.