Burrows, Cundey Top List Of SOC Award Recipients

The Society of Operating Cameramen (SOC) will present its 1999 Governorís Award to James Burrows. The presentation will be made at the 11th Annual SOC Lifetime Achievement Awards banquet on April 25th at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Marina Del Rey.""James Burrows is the consummate director,"" says SOC President David Robman. ""He has guided the creation of more successful and award-winning situation comedies than any other director in television history. And thatís just last season alone!""Burrows produced and directed the EmmyÆ Award winning show Cheers from 1982-1993. His other directing credits include The Mary Tyler Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Lavern & Shirley, Taxi, Fraiser, NewsRadio, Caroline In The City, 3rd Rock From The Sun, Dharma & Greg and Veronicaís Closet. Past award recipients include Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy and Jacques Cousteau.The SOC Presidents Award will go to cinematographer Dean Cundey, ASC, whose body of work includes Halloween, Escape From New York, Romancing The Stone and Big Business. He earned and OscarÆ nomination for his work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Outstanding Achievement Award nominations from the American Society of Cinematographers for Hook and Apollo 13. His other credits include Jurassic Park, the Back To The Future trilogy, Death Becomes Her, The Flintstones and Casper.""It means a lot to me to receive this award from SOC, because I know firsthand that no one understands, appreciates or is more supportive of the creative role played by cinematographers better than camera operators,"" says Cundey. ""There are no great or even good cinematographers without talented camera operators on their crew.""SOC will also confer Lifetime Achievement Awards on Wayne Orr, SOC, video camera operator; Howard Block, SOC, file cameral operator; Wynn Hammer, still photographer; Gary Armstrong, camera assistant; and Tommy May, mobile camera platform operator.""These ëCammyí awards are designed to recognize individual who are rarely, if ever, in the limelight,"" says Robman. ""Filmmaking is a collaborative form of art, and these individuals have all compiled substantial bodies of work, and they have consistently contributed to the success of good films. They deserve this recognition.""The 1999 SOC Technical Acheivement Awards will also be given to companies that have made significant contributions by providing new tools that are successfully used to advance the art form. This yearís winners are Cartoni USA (Guido Cartoni, inventor of Cartoni Tripods and Fluid Heads), Geo Film Group (Nick Phillips, inventor of the Libra 3 Remote Heads), and Technocrane (Horst Burbulla, inventor of the telescopic camera crane, Techocrane).For the second consecutive year, SOC will honor an historical shot that made a memorable impression on the public. This yearís historical shot from the Touch Of Evil. The camera operator was Phillip Lathrop, ASC. The director was Orson Wells and the cinematographer was Russ Metty, ASC. The opening shot of this 1957 classic movie was a night exterior scene set in a town on the California-Mexican border. In the scene, someone is placing a bomb in the back of a parked car in front of a liquor store. There were no zoom or portable cranes in those days, so Wells stationed Lathrop on an industrial crane. He had an 18mm lens that Wells had discovered on a Mitchell BNC camera. Lathrop was holding the camera on the crane much of the time. The crane moved up and back away from the action as the car drove down an alley and turned into a street.Wells called for a long shot with the crane about a block away from the car. He was distancing the audience from the ticking bomb, Lathrop explained years later. The car overtook Vivian Leigh and Charlton Heston, who were walking down the street toward a border checkpoint. The driver stopped and showed his papers to a border guard.Lathrop recalled that Wells wanted the audience perched on the edges of their sears, praying the bomb wouldnít explode while the character portrayed by Heston and Leigh were nearby. The car pulled away, and as soon as it was out of sight, there was a huge explosion.""It was a great lesson in how to use the camera to build unbearable tension,"" Lathrop said years later. ""It would be a simple shot today, but it took us the entire night to light and shoot that scene, and it was worth every minute of that time.""It was Lathropís last picture as a camera operator. He went to become one of the industryís greatest cinematographers (The Americanization Of Emily, Earthquake, Lonely Are The Brave, Days Of Wine And Roses, The Pink Panther, and many more). His widow, Betty Jo Lathrop, will receive the award, which will be presented by Charlton Heston.Other presenters for the evening include John Toll, ASC, Gerald Perry Finnerman, ASC and John Finger.SOC was founded in 1981 for the purpose of advancing the artistic role played by camera operators. The organization sponsors many educational programs and other initiatives designed to provide information and inspiration for its members.SOC has some 430 members who are invited to join the association based on their bodies of work.The organization has a long association with The Childrenís Eye Care Clinic in Los Angeles, and a portion of the proceeds for the gala will be presented to the clinic.""Those of us who are fortunate to work in this great industry as camera operators have a particular appreciation for the value of normal vision,"" says Robman. ""We are dedicated to assisting the clinic in their commitment to providing the gift of sight to infants and children whose families cannot afford to pay for necessary treatments.""Please call the SOC at 818 382 7070 for reservations. For additional information visit the SOC Website at www.soc.org.