Karl Brown — Little Close-Ups of the A. S. C. (1922) 🇺🇸
Karl Brown, A. S. C., is a student with a passion to learn. He wants to know all there is appertaining to his profession believing that the only way to beat a game is to know all there is about it. When young Brown determined to make the photographic profession his lifework he decided to begin at the bottom.
Starting in the laboratory of Kinemacolor in the spring of 1912 Brown worked up in one year from helper through all departments to full charge of negative development. He remained six months longer until Kinemacolor went on the rocks and then went to Selig [William Nicholas Selig] as still man. Here he worked with Colin Campbell (1859–1928) in The Spoilers. After six months of this he moved his cinematographic doll rags to the D. W. Griffith camp as assistant to G. W. (Billy) Bitzer. Two years of close association with this master and Bitzer [G. W. Bitzer] equipped him for a bigger job and he was assigned to the department of experimentation where he had full charge and a free hand to pursue any line of research or develop any idea that might appear to have real photographic value. While in this department Mr. Brown produced every effect used in D. W. Griffith’s productions from 1915 to 1920. In the former year he photographed his first picture as a first cameraman and in 1916 he signed a four-year contract, personal agreement, with Mr. Griffith. Two years later he left to join the army but was discharged in 1919 and returned to finish his contract with Griffith.
Mr. Brown held the second camera on Intolerance, “Hearts of the World,” “The Great Love,” “A Romance of Happy Valley” and first on “Her Official Fathers” and “Battling Jane.”
Upon completion of his Griffith contract he went to Allan Dwan for a picture and then to Lasky Studio [Jesse L. Lasky] where he has since been. Some of his Lasky pictures are “The City of Masks,” “The Fourteenth Man,” “The Life of the Party,” “The Traveling Salesman,” “The Dollar a Year Man,” “Is Matrimony a Failure?” and the last two pictures made by Will Rogers after leaving Goldwyn [Samuel Goldwyn].
Mr. Brown is a clever satirical writer and is one of the associate editors of The American Cinematographer.
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Collection: American Cinematographer, February 1922
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