Since I saw this photo, I’ve been mesmerized by it. I’ve asked all the experts to weigh in on exactly what we are seeing here in the demonstration of the CBS VideoScene technology and before we enter the Rube Goldberg photo phase, here is some background on what the process is.

OK, now that we know more, we also need to know that NBC’s Chroma Key works in color, but this CBS VideoScene only works in monochrome, or black and white. Well then what are the RCA TK41 color cameras doing in the middle of this? The technology required the use of 2 of the TK41’s tubes to pull it off, so…here we go in explaining what we see here.

The only thing we know for sure in this photo is that we see either an RCA TK40 or TK41A color camera in the foreground. Note that is mounted on an electronically controlled pan head, that was designed to be slaved to another, or other units. On the lens turret, the bottom lens (the taking lens) is shooting into/through a 45 degree mirror box. It looks like to the right of the mirror is a light source and possibly a transparency of a static miniature set (see the article for this) OR…the box on the right side of the mirror is a tiny rear screen projector pushing a live image from another slaved camera here so that the cameramen can match the movements of the actor and the background. For now, we’ll call this TK41, Camera 2 and call the other TK41 (not shown, but necessary) Camera 1.

BUT…that’s not all! It appears that on the left side of the photo there is a camera mounted on a Panoram dolly…but this is NOT a camera! It is a Grey Telop projector. AND, that on the tech cart just behind the cameraman (where an oscilloscope would usually be), there is an RCA TK11 mounted there with TV33 cable coming out the back.

What it is doing there is just as big a mystery as what the projector is doing on a dolly. None of my 3 experts have any idea why this is BUT…I am going to guess here.

It could be that the large projector (on the dolly) is feeding a televised image of a live miniature set it is receiving from the second TK41 (Camera 1) into the TK11 electronically, and that the TK11s black and white image is being fed to the lightbox on the TK41 we see (Camera 2). If that light box on the TK41 really is a small rear projector, maybe the only way they had to step it down was with this convoluted rig we see, which we’ll call Camera 3.

OH, BY THE WAY…what the heck is in the top hole of the turret? It is a Watson-Barnett Diascope which was the best way to do camera setups and with this process, camera matching would have been critical. BTW, this is what the compiled image looked like, as we see in a shot from WBBM’s Magic Door program.