First Motion Picture Unit

Artist: Van Kaufman (All)

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Artwork Details

Title:	First Motion Picture Unit
Artist:	Van Kaufman (All)
Media Type:	Mixed Media
Art Type:	Other
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	902
Likes on CAF:	1 2
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	7/22/2012
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Description

The First Motion Picture Unit of the US Army Air Forces was headquartered in Culver City, California. The unit was formed entirely from motion picture personnel and from all of the studios. More than 400 films were made including training films, orientation films and inspirational subjects. Technicians in almost every catagory of film making enlisted, including directors, producers and writers. Noted actors included Captain Ronald Regan, Sergeant Alan Ladd, Sergeant George Montgomery, Captain William Holden, Sergeant Lee Cobb, Sergeant Arthur Kennedy, to name a few. Combat Camera crews were trained by the First Motion Picture Unit and were sent to all Army Air Force fronts during World War II. They were on all bombing raids as a matter of routine.
According to the Military Museum: "One of the most notable projects undertaken by the Unit, and one whose secret had been kept necessarily of top classification,was the building of a huge miniature of the main island of Japan, exactly to scale. This was done approximately six months before the first bomb was dropped by the B-29's. The miniature covered an entire sound stage and more than 100 men worked on it at all times. With the camera's eye moving over the island, to perfectly depicted targets, briefing films were made which were run later on Okinawa for pilots to bomb Japan. Thus the crews of the B-29's could sit in their chairs and see the trip they were to make, pick out check points and the target. Some of the men connected with this work in the Unit knew the exact dates, time and hour and locations for the actual bombing of the Japanese Islands weeks before the first bomb was dropped."
Van Kaufman a designer of many combat unit insignias while at the Walt Disney Studio was a member of this unit and first designed it as the mast head for the unit news publication the SKYREEL. It found its way on to a wooden veneer door from a film projector box use by the First Motion Picture Unit during WWII.

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Joined:	January 2006
Last Login:	September 2025
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