The Three Headed Monster From ‘I Love Lucy’ UPDATE:
Picture Parade #5…The Three Headed Monster From ‘I Love Lucy’
UPDATE: Daniel Cahn, son of Lucy editor Dann Cahn, has added new information and photos in the comments section! Be sure to see this.
One of the first obstacles to overcome on ‘I Love Lucy’ was how to edit the show. Pictured here is editor Dann Cahn (jacket) and Bud Molin with the custom machine originally built for ‘Burns And Allen’. Below is part of a Motion Picture Editors Guild article describing a typical week. Many thanks to Daniel Cahn for the extended remarks and photos in the comments section. He is the son of Dann Cahn and a third generation editor.
The schedule was tight, Cahn related, especially compared to the more familiar pace of feature film editing. A new episode had a table read on Monday, rehearsal on Tuesday, camera rehearsal on Wednesday, and a full camera run-through on Thursday. On Friday evening in front of a live audience, the episode was filmed, in scripted scene order; the film was processed, printed, and in the cutting room on Monday morning usually by eight AM. Dann marked with a grease pencil, Bud made the cuts (with scissors) and pasted; cut scenes were then adjusted and fixed. The editor’s cut was ready to screen with the director by the time rehearsals for the next episode were already under way. Very quickly, due to demands on set, and with Cahn’s natural ability at cutting comedy and working fast, the director’s cut dissipated. A pattern of six-day work weeks and 14-hour days was unavoidably established.
In the context of the high-pressure schedule, he recalled, “They thought that the Monster would enable me to do everything, but it was just a tool, like the Avid is today; we couldn’t do everything within the time constraints! It’s expected today that picture editors do temp sound and music work.” The crew quickly increased to include an apprentice and an additional editor for sound effects and music. Dann remembered Desi’s remark to him, “Danny you want a crew bigger than my band? But that that’s exactly what eventually happened as Desilu expanded its productions as well as Cahn’s role in the company.
Inevitably, just as the workload seemed more manageable with his expanded crew working on the first episode, it was decided that the second episode would air first. The reaction to the second episode was so strong, the sponsor and CBS decided to the switch the air dates. The six-day editorial work week immediately shifted to seven days, and within four weeks all the editing and sound work, opticals, negative cutting and answer print was completed and delivered within hours of airtime. In addition to these unforeseen shakeups, Cahn also had to think creatively and act fast, especially when things didn’t run as smoothly as planned.
The first serious technical issue the editing team confronted was one still familiar to assistant editors today; fixing out of sync dailies. The three-camera setup used a “blue light” system instead of the traditional clapper; as the camera rolled at the start of a scene, all the film rolls were buzzed and flashed with a light that was exposed onto a frame of film and soundtrack. The three-camera setup was interlocked so that the flash would occur on all three cameras simultaneously. However, the flash from the three different cameras never actually wound up in the same place, as intended, so the task of eye synching most of the footage was added to the crunched schedule. After the first few shows, Cahn decided to go to the studio mill and make a giant sized wooden clapper that would cover all three cameras, and the sync problem was resolved. He then recalled Karl Freund’s wisecrack to Jess Oppenheimer, “We’ve got a bright boy here; with this giant clapper he’s reinvented the wheel!”
I asked Dann about music cues and how that developed. “Director Marc Daniels’ experience was in live theater, and that kind of spontaneity was great for the show, but not to get the music cues I needed for a cut,” he explained. I’d get music with dailies, but they were never the right length and nothing ever matched. So to get around this, I’d cut the episode and take the timings to the set on Friday, just like we did in features; the band was set up, and I’d give them my list of cues to record. They had to learn that not everything could happen all at once in the cutting room; it wasn’t like live TV or theater. The show had to be scored just like a movie and I was always adapting motion picture techniques to everything we did!”
Daniel Cahn I’m breathless for your book on your dad! Can I have an update?
A three headed monster located at the Hollywood museum for the 60th anniversary of Lucy, this one is in color
I like this show.
Bobby Ellerbee — I sure hope you are compiling these for a book and not just for Facebook (which will probably cease to exist within 1/2 a decade.) GREAT STORIES! Thanks.
Fascinating back story to something all of us take for granted today. Thanks for sharing.
What a great shot, and great stories. I remember the 3 head upright we had on Amadeus (1picture, 2 sound.) – I would jump on the 8 plate Kem whenever I could 😉
The original Monster resides in Jamestwown, N.Y. at the Lucy museum.
I remember cutting one of my first films on a two-gang, 16mm, Movieola and how difficult I found it – I ended up cutting with a guillotine splicer and rewinds. I can’t imagine cutting with three image heads. Insane. I used to own a two-head 16mm machine that i bought when Crawly films closed down. I stored it at friend Yona’s warehouse for years and then the warehouse burnt down. It never worked properly anyway.
And the original Monster had four picture and one sound head but after the first season they threw the fourth camera out using only three from that point on. I used both the 3 and 4 headed versions on CHEERS and 9 to 5 !!
BTW the monster was not made for I LOVE LUCY it was built to be originally used on THE BURNS AND ALLEN show but they never shot on film till the third season, Al Simon, who worked on ILL and was the one that mentioned the Monster originally ! Just keeping the facts straight !!
What Bob Paine is referring to, is a Steinbeck editing table. But that arrived much later in the 60´s
Hey Marc Wielage, strange enough I have never heard the story about Abbott and Costello because oddly Mr. Cahn’s father, my grandfather Phil edited most of the Early Abbot and Costello films and my dad never mentioned that ! And I will also point out that I was the last of 3 generations to use the monster when I edited the pilot for Designing Women on film !! I am pretty sure my dad would have mentioned that one !!
What happened to the 2/3 of the shots that weren’t used? To the local dump? It would be great to watch all three camera angles of an episode in real time. “Edit your own I Love Lucy show!”
wow…
Great share Bobby and all. Fascinating.
Great story !!!
Cool! Early multi-cam!
There was a distant cousin to that at a film studio where I worked. It was a flatbed unit, the name was like Steen-something or other. Interesting, but I stuck to audio.
Small correction to Mr. Cahn: the large clap stick was used on productions going back to the mid-1940s. I’ve seen outtakes from Abbott & Costello films that used the giant sticks in wide shots, so it was done on occasion. But the 3-headed monster (with a 4th transport for mag track) was an amazing innovation by Moviola.