A Mobile Film Studio
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OR making travel colour films,
Rayant Pictures, a 'London producing company, has formed a mobile unit which can travel all over the world for long periods at a time, and which includes a complete self-contained film studio. The unit set out a few days ago for its first trip, a five-months' tour of Europe, during which films will be made in Hungary, Yugo-Slavia, Albania and Greece.
All the essentials of .a film studio have been erected in a Fordson 2-ton forward-control van, powered with an eight-cylindered engine. As it will be the workshop of the films unit until next year, it has been prepared for all weather and road conditions. The van has an elaborate ventilation system to cope with the highest temperatures. The roof has been strengthened to take the weight of three men and the cameras, whilst heavy steel supports run up the sides to take the weight off the walls.
A round porthole has been cut in the steel side to allow the recordist to have a clear view over his instruments of the scene he is recording. His instructions are conveyed through a loudspeaker on the roof. The recording equipment is a specially designed disc machine which gives high-quality reproduction and is constructed so that it can be removed in sections and set up in places where the vehicle could not go. Next to the recording booth, and separated by a partition, is the tiny laboratory. It consists of a basin with chemicals, drying racks and a specially designed light for printing and reversing. The colour tests will be shown in the world's smallest theatre—a tiny non-moving projector, only 10 ins. high, projects the tests on to a screen that pulls down from the roof just inside the doors.
The other side of the vehicle is occupied by spacious store cupboards for linen, food and general stores, and the camera store where all apparatus rests on shelves and is held to the walls by stout straps. The remaining space, except for a corridor down the centre, is filled by a small generating plant far the camera and recording batteries. The personnel consists of five people, comprising the producer and director and their wives, and the cameraman, who will live in trailer caravans drawn by the van and by a car, Both the van and the car Carry powerful searchlights and sirens for attracting the attention of the unit ahead in case of trouble.