Jerry Lewis, Creator Of Motion Picture Video Assist

On January 28, 2014 - TV History

Jerry Lewis, Creator Of Motion Picture Video Assist

Although we have been here before, this is a new photo that shows and RCA Vidicon camera mounted just above the optical viewfinder on this Mitchell 35 BNC camera. Lewis started using this process in 1960 while shooting ‘The Bellboy’, but I think this photo is from the 1963 set of ‘The Nutty Professor’. By 1968, a beam splitter was incorporated into this dual camera arrangement that let both cameras see the same view. Director Blake Edwards was the first to use the beam-splitter single-camera system invented by engineer Jim Songer in the 1968 film ‘The Party’.

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5 Comments

  1. Rob Kates February 4, 2014

    Jerry taught film at USC. 2 of his students were Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

  2. William David French Jr January 28, 2014

    If I remember correctly his first system didn’t record the video feed so there was no ability to replay it. He changed this fairly quickly.

  3. Jack Demus January 28, 2014

    Doesn’t Dumonts Electronicam predate this system?

  4. Greg Dunlap January 28, 2014

    I did not know, “Hey Lady!”

  5. Gary Walters January 28, 2014

    There was a great interview with Jerry Lewis and the late CBC host Elwood Glover in Toronto about 1966, on how Lewis used a TV camera mounted next to a film camera.