Tamás Szabados

A TRICK OF JOY Subjective notes on the book by cameraman Miklós Molnár entitled Video-magic (Mûszaki Könyvkiadó, 1995)


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At the end of my article, in the closing sentence I will have a critical sound as well, relax, there will be, as it should- there, at the end - a critical thought on the book Video-magic by Miklós Molnár. But first the pleasure!

For me, this book is a real joy- a pleasant form, appearance and good arrangement.

When someone begins a critique like this, you might not be willing to read on. In our quarrelsome age looking for the bad in everything we are accustomed to go without a praising word.

Dear reader, you should now bear with me and believe that the author of this book is not my friend, nor a relative. There are no well-paying sponsors in the background and I have no financial benefit whatsoever from writing this critique as there is no guessing game hidden between the lines which would increase sales.

There is only one thing here!

Joy!

The pleasure that in this field, around film and video, in the proximity of the Hungarian Television a technical guide was allowed finally to appear. A book on the optical possibilities of the cameraman, the man taking the picture, using examples introducing the thousand faces of the world of images.

Could it be published? Yes, because it had to! It was simply a must! The author of these lines has got his diploma of this occupation "pleasing the eyes" and I can firmly state that I have never had a technical book, a book containing the professional information necessary for a cameraman. We just spied upon the great-ones and learnt by close observation of those graduating before us.

I dare to say that except for a few copied or typed study-books only the last few years brought changes. The same applies for art schools abroad. There is no study book for cameramen in the world. Before, Russian (or Soviet) cameramen used to have a study-book, of course it was also written by a Hungarian cameraman (woman): Annuska Czóbel.

This is the reason why I am pleased seeing the publication of a Hungarian technical book. To go into details, it is polite to begin with the dedicatory lines.

"It fills the gap not only in Hungary, but internationally! (...) This book is the collection of a noble rich expertise ". These statements come from György Illés, the master of the Hungarian community of cameramen, who also taught the author of the book at the School for Dramatic and Film Arts.

As a cameraman myself, I am also a "competitor", "opponent", a "rival" of Miklós Molnár, this is the reason why I envy, appreciate, acknowledge and honour his courage to put the tiny rules of our world of images.

He had the gut to record the obvious. Having tested and justified it lengthily he took it for granted that this knowledge is transferable to others. He does not hide his experiences from us.

The years of experience for Miklós were the youth of the Hungarian television, but perhaps it is better for me to say infancy or childhood, for he is the child of this ungrateful medium for more than thirty years.

The television gave us her youth and we gave ours. In that period we could try everything and we were allowed to play freely, only social constraints restricted us.

Now we talk about freedom and to be free today means living among financial limits. Waiting, expecting, living on the memories of the past.

Miklós Molnár was the cameraman of great programs. Now he can use his accumulated experiences and knowledge as the leading cameraman of the broadcasts from the Parliament. Unexploited knowledge. Having seen significant programs, television plays and great directors- it is waiting. This book was probably written over years and who knows how long he has collected his material. The pictures demonstrate the years. We can see young people on them (ladies keep on being young, of course), and some of them are the players of the seventies, the eighties in my memories.

How many excellent programs were made in those years, appreciated and expected by the audience as well. How much work was put into the programs of the Our century-series- providing information and supporting it with credible images- of artistic quality. I recall an enormous amount of television film, short film, documentary and show programs where Miklós had the opportunity to "live out" his magic ability as a cameraman of film tricks.

In 1968 when I had the chance to travel to the Antarctica, we were compelled to move into the deep freeze stores of the Mirelit factory with Pál Rockenbauer for a day to test the functioning of the cameras in extreme cold and low temperatures.

We made tests on the raw materials at minus 20 centigrade. It was necessary for there was no official documents or test records for our work in Hungary - or abroad, for that matter.

Miklós, who was at the time an interested, helping colleague sharing his experiences with us, gave the most useful advise:

- The engine of the camera is oiled. Let's examine what temperature the oil of the film advancing structure hardens at and prevents the film of rolling smoothly.

At the Csepel site of Mirelit in minus 20, the oil rendering the fine structure rolling smoothly hardened after 20 minutes.

So the deep freeze store test had a sense, after all!

Miklós Molnár could have recorded those of his small discoveries and thoughts which were compiled during the years into a technical book for cameramen.

If he would have also added my experiences with batteries, no colleague setting off for the colder climates would be left now for himself before departure.

The direct consequences of my experiences in the Antarctica was that we took a belt-battery for the expedition on the Kilimanjaro in 1976. This source of power is protected by the heat of the body and thus provides more durable performance on low temperatures.

The book of Molnár does certainly not deal with such problems accompanying our work but with dilemmas of image creation. These are not to be treated any more as special problems for film or television cameramen, though it is true that city televisions and small studios have emerged in great numbers recently. More than 300 professionals and amateurs work in them. The number of cameramen and assistant cameramen is about 300 as well. Yet the probable consumer of this book is not coming only from among the ranks of these 600 curious people from the branch, much rather countless amateurs who have an insatiable appetite. I frequently overhear in the circles of excursion makers and tourist groups the discussions of people with cameras, the "video makers". To tell the truth, I envy their seriousness about the matter, the unrestricted questions and honest tries to deliver an answer. I can feel the market for Video-magic here.

There are many of us who are glad to page through this book. It is fun to look for and try the wide range of filters grouped according to chapters and titles.

As an experiment I asked an amateur company whom I happen to know what they are missing most in their work. What would help most for amateur video makers?

The answer was interesting to me. If it was possible to get some kind of book, study-book (brochure, said a man of fifty) at the time of purchasing the machine, which they could use to learn some tricks and specialities beside how to manage the machine.

There is a great need for knowing, people would like to use a handbook for making their shots.

And I believed that customers are ashamed to confess their ignorance in the small tricks of making the frames....

Video-magic helps. It helps by enchanting and bringing close the situations displayed, by introducing their actors to the reader. He calls by first name everyone acting in his tricks.

The descriptions of scenes and sites are detailed. I feel the joy in every experiment: the pleasure of "handicraft".

Youth of our age are bewildered by confusing and dazzling crazy images, used so many times in musical programs. These are not designed, but "leger", "spontaneous" solutions.

Miklós Molnár works with well designed tricks.

Yes, I do know, there is no time for subtle delicacy nowadays, for Molnár-type ideas. It is despised fussing about when somebody wants to use these today.

Mass production and cheap series everywhere.

Flashes poured on us in excess.

Unimaginable variations of impossible scenes.

Discoloured faces, hurry-scurry!

Restlessness of the camera, permanent movement: searching, a very uncertain aim, a similarly vibrating ramification of words.

Today there are no fairy tales, no time for a rest.

No money for beauty.

Knowledge and wisdom have no market.

It is only the dutiful interest and experimental spirit of the amateurs which could give us hope.

The years of Miklós Molnár devoted to Video-magic were not in vain.

And now, without pleasure-spoiling as promised, the critical sound!

What did I NOT like?

The delay!

The book is twenty years late. There should be a next one in print!


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