| I received a call from Gershon Ginsberg an art director for the motion picture Hoffa. They were shooting in the Detroit area and he wanted to know if I could remove some parts from a vintage GE TV camera and put them back after their shoot. The old camera was from a TV museum somewhere in Oklahoma. He wanted to have his technician install a 24 frame TV camera and monitor inside the vintage camera so it would appear to be working and not show beats in the movie shot with the 24 frame per second film cameras. The production company had a model maker who was going to paint the camera to match the TV station of the scene in Hoffa. Gershon had the camera sent to me and asked for a quote. I quoted accurately, but it was a high figure. The company agreed to it. I removed the Image Orthocon camera tube and some modules from the monitor area. When the camera got back to Gershon, he was not completely satisfied. He asked if I could remove more from the top section to accommodate their 24 frame monitor. I explained that what remained was the welded frame of the camera. I suggested he have his model maker build up the GE camera body so the cover would be higher to accommodate the monitor. That was done. After the shoot the camera was brought back to me with the new paint, lettering, and the wooden addition that raised the top. I reinstalled all the parts I had removed exactly as I found them. All this went to "the cutting room floor". There is no television studio scene in the finished movie Hoffa. The camera was returned to the museum in Oklahoma by the production company. |
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