Talk:Lookout Mountain Air Force Station

Film section

It's unclear whether the films listed are those made there, or external films made on that facility. Sloppy work. --Jerome Potts (talk) 22:35, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistencies

The list of films included mostly films made in the 1990s and 2000s. How is this possible if the factility closed in 1969 as the narrative and infobox state? Also removed WWII TF because article indicates station opened post war.--Lineagegeek (talk) 23:10, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Although it is my opinion, it might be that a lot of the films produced by units at this former military base, were not declassified until the Clinton Administration, causing their "publishing" into the public arena to come after their declassification.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 14:08, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

The article also says that it was not a Moon studio, but a desert studio, to film Vietnam in. Yeah, the Vietnam desert? What? Where? 79.106.203.100 (talk) 12:08, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Some great new content

See [[1]] from a veteran. Please integrate this as you see fit. Guy (Help!) 23:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Photographer George Yoshitake

An editor has twice inserted something about George Yoshitake photographing five servicemen under an airburst test. I removed the bit because I cannot find Yoshitake associated with LMAFS. If anyone can pin him to LMAFS then the bit should be restored. Binksternet (talk) 21:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Why can't you find it, it is staring you right in the face. Or are you being facetious? The references that were attached state quite clearly, he worked in the LMAFS. Here's a reference, that WAS included and a quote from it.

http://lompocrecord.com/news/local/resident-filmed-historic-blasts/article_b20a7d0f-501e-5225-8216-e067ad7b8c72.html He worked for eight years, from 1955 to 1963, as a cameraman for top secret Lookout Mountain Laboratory, also known as the U.S. Air Force/s 1352nd Motion Picture Squadron. & When I got out of the Air Force in 1955 Lookout Mountain was looking for more cameramen so I applied. So the whole rationale you and others have used to remove all mention to George and his colleagues is false. So shouldn't the following edit of mine be re-inserted into the article? Seen as you (and User:Bgwhite's lack of) rationale for its repeated removal, was completely fallacious?

An airman assigned to LMAFS was at ground-zero during the MB-1 Genie high altitude air burst detonation in Nevada. A video that has become known as "Five men at ground zero", filmed by George Yoshitake.

Generally the photographers wore dosimeters and had to wear heavily tinted special glasses to prevent burning of their retina while capturing a nuclear explosion. However, once the initial brightness dissipated, according to Yoshitake’s former colleague, Ken Hackman “it really is very beautiful to look at.”

92.251.172.194 (talk) 15:17, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps this content would be better at MB-1 Genie? How much weight should be given to this filming?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:01, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

You are asking me, how much weight should be given to the studios most unusual of films? and how much weight should be given to the experience the men had producing these films? I think it pretty obvious that quite a lot of weight should be given to it, especially considering the present state of the article, which is not at all weighted correctly. It runs, on listing a million movies that aren't even related to the studio, for example ->

Another Lookout Mt. editor, William "Bill" Holmes (1904–1978) had edited 54 feature films at Warner Bros. Holmes' credits included: Ben Hur (1925), I Was A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932), Dark Victory (1939), They Died With Their Boots On (1941) and Sergeant York, for which he won the 1941 Academy Award for Best Editing. Barry Shipman (1912–1994), one of Lookout Mts' writers, had written serials for Universal Pictures including Dick Tracy (1937) and Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (1940), and had written for such TV series as Lassie, Ramar of the Jungle, Adventures of Wild Bill Hicock and Death Valley Days - When really we should just present 1 previous movie by Holmes and 1 by Shipman, if any.

Secondly, apart from the famous "five men at ground zero" footage, the other really unique piece of footage captured by live cameramen, was the overhead Easy shot of Operation Buster–Jangle. Pictured almost directly above it when it detonated, made by Douglas Wood.

Thirdly, mention in the article should also be made to the number of nuclear detonations the studio is reported to have documented. I'm finding mention to 331 nuclear explosions,

However this "331" figure perplexed me as according to the List of nuclear weapons tests of the United States there were only 216 atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests, so did LMAFS document underground tests too? This requires clarification.

Fourthly, a copy edit of this quote from Peter Kuran should be added to help readers get an understanding of what LMAFS was all about. - "EG&G were the technical end of the photography, whereas Lookout Mountain was more the documentary end. They would often have these spats with each other. The guys from EG&G wanted to do purely technical analysis, whereas the guys from Lookout Mountain were more artistic."

Lastly, that in 1997 Kuran organized a commemoration "wrap party" for the nuclear personnel involved at the American Film Institute, 24 LMAFS employees showed up and it marked the 50th anniversary of the squad's founding.

What do you think?

IMHO this article is not about George Yoshitake, but about the base and units at it. While a stand-alone article about George Yoshitake, might pass WP:GNG, any lengthy content about a single individual of a unit operating from this AFS, IMHO would be undue. Not each instance of filming deserves weight in this article, and perhaps are better mentioned in the article specific to that test. A lot of the provided sources verify the content, and thus could be on Wikipedia, but perhaps in other articles and not all in this one. I hope this helps.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:15, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

(1) No one has argued that the article is about George Yoshitake, were did you pick up that idea? (2) The material on him to add is not "lengthy", it's literally 1 line - "An airman assigned to LMAFS was at ground-zero during the MB-1 Genie high altitude air burst detonation in Nevada. A video that has become known as "Five men at ground zero", filmed by George Yoshitake" This is, by the way, much less lengthy than the superfluous info that is presently in the article about William "Bill" Holmes. (3) As I have asked earlier, a question to which, you never replied - how much weight should be given to the studios most unusual of films? Presently, the article discusses at length about movies essentially no one has ever seen, such as "A Night On Jackrabbit" and "There is a way". Which is totally unlike "5 men at ground zero", which millions have seen and the CTBTO even dedicate a page to. (4) I also think the article should include the succinct opinion of Peter Kuran as discussed above and the number of films the studio produced. Yet you regard all these proposed additions, as "undue weight"? I truly find your position incomprehensible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.167.203.250 (talk) 15:17, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I was the IP user debating above, and have since decided to start editing again as a registered user. I stand behind my earlier argument and if no discussion is forthcoming here, I will be WP:BOLD and improve the article with the material that I have found.

Boundarylayer (talk) 00:06, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

References

Form the MilHist Wikiproject page

I am an idiot: I posted this to the MilHist wikiproject but forgot to link it here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Lookout_Mountain_Air_Force_Station is text submitted to OTRS by a veteran who does not have Wikipedia skills. It's personal recollections and not referenced so can't be used directly, but there's a lot of good background and anyone who'd like to improve the article could probably find sources if they looked. Please make our reader's day :-) Guy (Help!) 09:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Draft moved in

The new draft has been stable for a while and represents a significant improvement in content, so I have moved it in and merged the histories. Guy (Help!) 12:19, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

"Obvious need to document"

The first section reads:

"there was an obvious need to document nuclear testing with still and moving pictures photography."

The author and I might think so in hindsight, but surely this line should say "there was a desire to document", and the article should state by who.

04:48, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

"Lookout Mountain Films" after 1969?

Apparently, IMDB has quite a long list https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?companies=co0041219 of films made "With Lookout Mountain Films" after 1969, including "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi". Anyone know what that's all about? Was the studio privately operated after the Air Force left? Or maybe they mean with footage taken by the Lookout Mountain studio while it was still running? Maybe an edit to explain what that's about would be useful. Wombat140 (talk) 14:36, 22 May 2023 (UTC)