The China Syndrome (1979): What film camera did Micheal Douglas' character use?

[John Matthews]

Saw this film last night and I was wondering if anyone knew the make of the camera and lens used. They actually showed quite a lot about the workings of a film crew in the broadcast industry. I'm not quite sure it was realistic, but it seemed believable to me, except for the use of lights in some of the shots.

 

[eatstoomuchjam]

The internet says CP-16 - maybe Auricon.

[John Matthews]

44 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

The internet says CP-16 - maybe Auricon.

Yes, after seeing more photos, it looks like it.

I'm guessing the lens is the Angenieux 9.5-57mm zoom lens.

[ac6000cw]

...and is that a Nagra IV open-reel tape recorder the sound op is using?

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, ac6000cw said:

...and is that a Nagra IV open-reel tape recorder the sound op is using?

It sure looks like it. How times have changed in 40 years!

[John Matthews]

Also, I'm fairly sure that's Morgan Freeman doing the voiceover for the trailer.

[SRV1981]

46 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

Also, I'm fairly sure that's Morgan Freeman doing the voiceover for the trailer.

He’s the only man who doesn’t hate the sound of his own voice 😉 

[kye]

9 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

He’s the only man who doesn’t hate the sound of his own voice 😉 

It's ok - neither does anyone else!

[kye]

12 hours ago, John Matthews said:

Yes, after seeing more photos, it looks like it.

I'm guessing the lens is the Angenieux 9.5-57mm zoom lens.

I don't think so..  all the photos I found showed the Angenieux has the writing on the outside and not visible from the front

 

Filters don't tend to have writing on them like that - that pattern looks like lens info anyway.

None of the ones on here have writing that looks similar either: https://www.oldfastglass.com/cooke-10860mm-t3

It seems to have one of those boxes that controls the lens and provides a rocker switch for zooming etc, maybe that narrows it down?  Maybe it's an ENG lens rather than a cinema lens?

[ac6000cw]

1 hour ago, kye said:

It seems to have one of those boxes that controls the lens and provides a rocker switch for zooming etc, maybe that narrows it down?  Maybe it's an ENG lens rather than a cinema lens?

If it was a real working 16mm film camera, I don't think it would be an ENG (Electronic News Gathering) lens, as they are designed for professional portable video cameras (which in the late 1970s would have been triple vacuum tube image sensor cameras using a dichroic colour splitting prism, thus having a long flange-to-sensor optical path).

But of course in the movie it's basically a prop, so doesn't have to be a working camera.

[kye]

37 minutes ago, ac6000cw said:

If it was a real working 16mm film camera, I don't think it would be an ENG (Electronic News Gathering) lens, as they are designed for professional portable video cameras (which in the late 1970s would have been triple vacuum tube image sensor cameras using a dichroic colour splitting prism, thus having a long flange-to-sensor optical path).

But of course in the movie it's basically a prop, so doesn't have to be a working camera.

Excellent point about the compatibility - I'm so used to MFT and almost everything being interchangeable that I'm not used to even thinking about these things!

In terms of it being a prop, I would have thought that it would have been easier to grab whatever was the cheapest / most common / not-rented item from their camera rental house.  I mean, if you're shooting a feature film then you're renting a bunch of stuff anyway, so renting an extra 16mm setup to use as a prop wouldn't be hard at all.

They could have rented it from a production design rental house along with all the other props etc, but then anything in that place would be non-working and likely turned into a prop when it stopped working.  In this sense, it's very unlikely to have been a camera / lens combination that wasn't compatible, as someone would have had to have glued the lens on the body or something, which takes extra effort etc which wouldn't be needed considering there would be that many of those cameras and lenses that wore out or got dropped into a river etc that they'd be worthless and ubiquitous.

[ac6000cw]

 

I think it's likely to be a real camera and lens (for the reasons you mention), but no idea which lens. TV news gathering was in a slow transition phase from 16mm film to ENG back then, so there would have been plenty of working 16mm film equipment around, used both for news and other TV production outside the studio environment.

[John Matthews]

It's definitely an Angenieux lens. Here are more shots and there's a Tiffen lens shade with writing on it. Only Angenieux has zooms machined like that. I found some better shots:

I'm fairly sure it's a "version" of the Angenieux 12-120mm, but I cannot guarantee it.

 

[kye]

Ha!  Look at Tiffen putting all their info on there for a lens shade!!  Talk about padding your part.  How funny!

Could the lens be a 15-150mm T3.1?

 

[JulioD]

CP16. 
Cinema Products brand…who were also making this new gadget called a Steadicam that’s about to be 50 years old.  

It was a common news film camera.  They also had mag film where the sound was recorded directly onto a mag stripe on the film itself.  It wasn’t as good as the open reel recorder of course.  
 

I used one on my first short movie.  It feels very cheap and lightweight but it was a staple.  

[John Matthews]

I think I found the lens! It's the Angenieux Zoom 15x10B 10-150mm f/2-2.8 lens.

This lens has "TYPE 15 x 10B" written on it and a red pinstripe around it.

[fuzzynormal]

I always wondered if this film was a ploy by the energy industry to keep legacy fuel sources economically viable and knock fission out of the market. Hard to think about those things with my tinfoil hat on, but I do try.

[kye]

3 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

I always wondered if this film was a ploy by the energy industry to keep legacy fuel sources economically viable and knock fission out of the market. Hard to think about those things with my tinfoil hat on, but I do try.

I don't even think you need a tin foil hat, the energy sector is one of the largest and most powerful on the planet and everyone knew that movies and TV were/are a pretty good way of "guiding" people how to think about the issues of the time.  Even if it wasn't influenced directly, nothing exists in a vacuum, and the politics of nuclear weapons and nuclear power were a pretty big topic with many passionate people on both sides trying to push the issue in their favoured direction by whatever means they have at their disposal.

[John Matthews]

On 5/14/2024 at 12:15 AM, fuzzynormal said:

I always wondered if this film was a ploy by the energy industry to keep legacy fuel sources economically viable and knock fission out of the market. Hard to think about those things with my tinfoil hat on, but I do try.

The producer and actor, Micheal Douglas was at the origin of this film I believe.

As per wikipedia: "He sits on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, is an honorary board member of the anti-war grant-making foundation Ploughshares Fund and he was appointed as a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 1998."