Richard H. Kline(1926-2018)

Born in Los Angeles on Nov. 15, 1926, Kline, with the help of his dad, landed a job in the camera department at Columbia Pictures after he graduated from high school in 1943. He worked as a slate boy on Cover Girl (1944), starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. Richard is the fourth member of my family to be a part of the ASC. His father was cinematographer Benjamin H. Kline (Danger Street, Fireside Theatre, dozens of Westerns), and his uncles were, Phil Rosen, co-founded the American Society of Cinematographers in 1919 and served as its first president, and Sol Halperin who also served as president.

Kline assisted and operated on more than 200 motion pictures before becoming a director of photography in 1963, after which he compiled 46 feature credits. He is a product of the Hollywood studio-system heyday of the 1940s, '50s and '60s, an invaluable link to a time when filmmakers could focus almost exclusively on practicing their craft and improving with each picture. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1944, stationed at the Photo Science Laboratory in Washington, D.C., before shipping out to the Pacific theater, where he stayed until mid-1946. After returning to the States, he began working as an assistant at Columbia. His first assignment upon his return became one of his most memorable assisting during the shooting of Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai.

As a cinematographer, Kline earned Academy Award nominations for the lavish 1968 musical Camelot and the 1976 remake of the epic King Kong. His other credits include Hang 'em High, The Boston Strangler, The Andromeda Strain, The Mechanic, Soylent Green, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Mr. Majestyk, The Fury, Who'll Stop the Rain, Star Trek - The Motion Picture, Breathless, Body Heat, All of Me and The Competition.

Based on the hit Broadway musical, Camelot was shot on location in Spain and on expansive sets built on the Warner Bros. lot. The picture would be one of Kline's greatest challenges. The scope was overwhelming at times. Winter forest set, built on Stage 8, was immense required more than 400 10K lamps. However, Kline's reliance on mere candlelight for the film's soft-lit wedding between Arthur (Richard Harris) and Guenevere (Vanessa Redgrave) proved equally tricky, in part because the producers didn't believe real candles would actually read on film,Kline using more than 1,000 candles for the scene. The actors were supposed to walk through darkness, surrounded by all these candles, before kneeling and taking their vows. Employing a team of 30 prop men to simultaneously light the candles, while Kline doubled the wicks' effectiveness by placing mirrors in strategic positions around the set. To add a mystical glow to the proceedings, he placed an 8'x8' pane of glass in front of the camera at a 30-degree angle. Then, behind the camera, he beamed light onto a 20'x20' white flat, which was reflected by the glass into the lens. Onscreen, shot through the glass, the royal couple seemed to pass through a warm aura of mysterious illumination that was softened even more by a hint of gauze diffusion. Kline controlled colors and contrast on the picture by pre-flashing his negative, a technique he had heard about but never used. Because the process opened up the shadows slightly, he used far less fill than usual. Pre-flashing also muted the colors a bit, lending the realm of Camelot a burnished, more naturalistic look.