HOLLYWOOD `BOMBS'; HUSH-HUSH CANYON STUDIO MADE FILMS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTS.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Filmmakers who worked at Lookout Mountain Lookout Mountain, actually a plateau, is located at the northwest corner of Georgia, the northeast corner of Alabama, and along the southern border of Tennessee near Chattanooga. It is one of the southernmost ridge mountains of the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians. Studios were Hollywood regulars, but the kind of epics they shot - secret film of atomic blasts - never made it into the entertainment trade papers. The studio, hidden in a Laurel Canyon Laurel Canyon can refer to several things:
The studio's 250 producers, directors and cameramen were sworn to secrecy Sworn To Secrecy: Secrets of War (aka Secrets of War) is the most comprehensive video documentary television series ever produced on the military history and the “secrets of war” of the Twentieth Century. . The 6,500 movies they made were locked away after official viewing in Washington. But a recent move to declassify de·clas·si·fy tr.v. de·clas·si·fied, de·clas·si·fy·ing, de·clas·si·fies To remove official security classification from (a document). de·clas Cold War-era archives is bringing the Lookout Mountain filmmakers into the open. They gathered Wednesday night for a mini-atomic film festival in Hollywood. It is the first public recognition of the work done between 1947 and 1969 behind the studio's 3-foot-thick concrete walls. ``It was a time of history we should not look back in shame at,'' said former cameraman Jack Cannon, 72, of Newport Beach. ``It was a time when we faced a threat from the Russians with the most powerful weapon in the world.'' Lookout Mountain's movies weren't made for entertainment value. ``They were not things of beauty, but technical accomplishments,'' Cannon said. ``Being out there and getting the picture was an accomplishment too.'' Filmmaker Peter Kuran, a Sylmar special effects expert, learned about the Lookout Mountain cinematographers while producing a documentary called ``Trinity and Beyond/The Atomic Bomb atomic bomb or A-bomb, weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nuclei (see nuclear energy). The first atomic bomb was produced at the Los Alamos, N.Mex. Movie.'' ``I was amazed at their work. I just think they deserve their place in history,'' said Kuran, who paid the $15,000 cost of Wednesday night's event at the American Film Institute American Film Institute (AFI), nonprofit organization established in Washington, D.C., in 1967 by the National Endowment for the Arts to preserve and catalog American films and television, to provide work grants for new and established filmmakers, and to increase . Charles Demos, head of the Department of Energy's secret archives declassification de·clas·si·fy tr.v. de·clas·si·fied, de·clas·si·fy·ing, de·clas·si·fies To remove official security classification from (a document). de·clas program, said the group made a historic contribution. ``Nobody on this Earth is ever going to take pictures of nuclear weapons going off again,'' Demos said. The group is getting a commendation from Secretary of Energy Federico Pena. The 2-1/2-acre studio on Wonderland Avenue is now a private residence - perhaps the only one in Los Angeles with its own personal bomb shelter, helicopter pad, two underground parking garages, three screening rooms and 17 climate-controlled film vaults. Filmmakers flew from there to remote South Pacific atolls and dusty Nevada ridgetops to photograph the power and fury of nuclear bombs. With declassification, they are free to talk for the first time. ``I could have gotten a job in TV and been bored to tears,'' said former cameraman Doug Wood, who flew directly over an exploding bomb in 1951 - only to have his protective goggles goggles, n the protective eyewear worn by dental personnel and patients during dental procedures. goggles see periocular leukotrichia. fall apart a minute before blast. ``I'd aimed the camera and I reached up to pull the goggles down and the lens came out. I said, `Oh, oh!' '' said Wood, 75, a resident of Phelan, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles. ``All I could do was put my hand over my eyes. The blast was so bright I could see my bones through my skin.'' Lookout Studio's Hollywood location made it easy to recruit technicians from regular motion picture studios. The 100,000-square-foot studio was originally built in 1941 as a World War II air defense center that coordinated radar installations on nearby mountaintops. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO A 1957 file photo shows a Lookout Mountain Studios cameraman photographing a mushroom cloud during Operation Plumb Bob. Associated Press |
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