MGM in the mid-1940s was a reporter's paradise. The mammoth sound stages were abuzz with at least eight features at once, with such names as Gable, Astaire, Stewart, Garland, Rooney, Kelly, Garson, Barrymore and Ball. All were available for interviews, or at least a brief chat between scenes.
It was on sets such as these that I began hearing a different sort of chat, as well -- an odd-sounding language spoken only by film crews that originated in the silent era and continues today.
MGM's Stage 30 contained the most impressive set: the pool of MGM's amphibious star, Esther Williams. Typically, she and a couple dozen other bathing beauties would be splashing about. When the director approved a particular setup, an assistant would announce over a loudspeaker: ``Hit the kliegs.''
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On catwalks high above the stage, a dozen or more huge spots called klieg lights -- named after their 1920s inventors, the Kliegl brothers -- began to flash on, creating the illusion of sunlight on the cobalt water.
As the shooting day continued, grips, gaffers and best boys would scurry around making references to ``singles,'' ``blondes,'' ``babies'' and ``obies'' without as much as a smirk.
I had no idea what any of it meant. Thank goodness at least the stars spoke English.
But as I later discovered, the stars themselves inspired some of this strange set slang.
Emmy-winning director of photography George Spiro Dibie explains an ``obie,'' for instance, is a light placed atop the camera to shine in the actor's eyes and create a pleasant highlight. It was named for Merle Oberon, who favored the device.
When a cameraman wants a 50mm lens, he calls for a ``Jack Lord,'' the actor who played the detective hero of TV's Hawaii Five-O. Get the connection -- Five-O, 50mm?
A ``John Ford,'' Dibie says, is a shot favored by the legendary director in which an actor is seen from a distance, then walks toward the camera and into his own close-up.
If a ``DP'' -- that's director of photography -- calls for ``a cowboy shot,'' he may not necessarily be working on a Western, noted Dibie.
``When cowboys duel on a Western street, where do they go for their guns? Their holsters. So you have to photograph down almost to their knees. That's why we call it a cowboy shot,'' he says.
Even for a Hollywood veteran like Dibie, it took awhile to get it all down. He recalls working on the set of 1970s On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever and being told that a close-up of Barbra Streisand needed to be a ``3-shot.''
``For me, a 3-shot would be three actors in the scene,'' says Dibie. ``I was wrong. A 3-shot meant eyes and bosom.''
No version of this lingo has ever made much sense to me, despite a lifetime on movie sets.
A new paperback by New York-based camera operator Dave Knox offers some answers: A gaffer is the chief lighting technician; the best boy is the second electrician, working under the gaffer, and a grip is the jack of all trades, building sets, moving cameras and cables, and whatever else needs doing.
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