Hugh McClung — Little Close-Ups of the A. S. C. (1922) 🇺🇸
Hugh C. McClung, A. S. C, began his photographic career as early as 1908 with the old Georges Méliès company. He started in the laboratory and had two years’ experience there before joining the Gaston Méliès company in 1910 where he also started in the laboratory.
In a short time, however, he was given a camera and has never again returned to the lab. He shot twenty-five two reelers before 1912 and early in that year started around the world on an expedition organized by Méliès, being in charge of both photographic and laboratory work.
The trip consumed an entire year and attracted great attention as it was a wonderful novelty in those days for a motion picture company to go abroad. On this trip Mr. McClung photographed and co-directed The Judgment of Buddha, made in Cambodia; The Yellow Slave and The Sword Maker, made in Japan; My Chinese Friend, made in Singapore; Poisoned Darts, made in Java.
Mr. McClung’s first work after returning to the United States was to film the Johnson–Jim Flynn fight on July 4, 1912, and then he did some free lancing before joining David Wark Griffith [D. W. Griffith] in 1914. Here he had a camera on The Lily and the Rose, The Sable Lorcha, The Man and His Mate, and others. He remained at Fine Arts until the end of 1916 and went thence to Fox to photograph Vivian Martin and June Caprice in a series of starring productions.
In 1919 he joined Harry Carey for two pictures and then co-directed in David Butler’s Fickle Women, Girls Don’t Gamble, Smiling All the Way.
He co-directed Lying Lips with Marion Fairfax and in 1917–18 photographed Douglas Fairbanks [Douglas Fairbanks Sr.] in A Modern Musketeer, Headin’ South, He Comes Up Smiling, Say, Young Fellow, Bound in Morocco, Arizona, The Knickerbocker Buckaroo.
Mr. McClung was with Mabel Normand in her famous picture Mickey which went through so many vicissitudes.
After his fourteen years of service he still thinks the camera is the big thing in motion pictures and, while tempted to retire and engage in the building business, he finds the call of the set and location too strong, yet awhile.
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Collection: American Cinematographer, February 1922
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see here all Little Close-Ups of the A. S. C. (1922)
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A Yellow Slave * 13
The Sable Lorcha * 15
The Man and His Mate * 15
Fickle Women * 20
Girls Don’t Gamble * 20
Smiling All the Way * 20
A Modern Musketeer * 17
He Comes Up Smiling * 18
Say! Young Fellow * 18
The Knickerbocker Buckaroo * 19
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