Night movies in the wilds

              A NEW CLEAVES PROGRAM FEATURING
NIGHT MOVIES in the WILDS
FIRST FILMS OF NIGHT LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS

Figure

HOWARD CLEAVES
Three dreams came true — to film night life of stream and forest; to photograph diving ducks while under water; to cross the Everglades in blimp.

Address: HOWARD CLEAVES, Prince Bay, Staten Island, New York




He followed his nose to a baited tree—and a BIG LIGHT!


Copyright 1935 by Howard Cleaves


Cleaning the butter jar.  A night caller at the Cleaves camp



Night filming in a swallow roost at Niskayuna on the Mohawk River, New York




Where Do Birds Sleep at Night?  What Goes on in the Woods After Dark?  Prowl with Cleaves and His Big Jack Light and You Will Learn!

The principle of the jack light is simple and quite old.  Animals at night often appear indifferent to an approaching light, but the person carrying that light must remain shielded from view.  Pot-hunters formerly slaughtered robins by thousands in their winter roosts by the use of so crude a device as a pine-knot torch.  Deer become transfixed, like a child at a circus, under the spell of a light at night and are now everywhere protected by laws against jacking.  Swallows, goatsuckers, sandpipers, blackbirds—all have been easily caught in the hand after dark by the use of modern pocket flashlights.

Ordinary jack lights, even automobile headlights, however, are too weak for photography.  But by an ingenious adaptation of the jack light Mr. Cleaves is now filming nocturnal happenings in the out-of-doors.  These moving pictures are the first of their kind ever made and are not to be confused with still flashlight pictures which wild life photographers have been taking for many years.  The Cleaves method is to transport a compact electric light plant into the wilds, creating current as needed.  The blast of light from his battery of reflectors turns night into day, illuminates the scene for two hundred yards.

With this unique outfit Cleaves has done the incredible.  He has filmed beaver, bear, raccoon; night herons fishing; water turkeys, kingfishers and a gallinule along Florida's St. John's River—all at night.  The fantastic was achieved with the night filming of wild whistling swans and the capture of one of these big birds by hand (see cut).

Other features of this new program are motion pictures revealing the under-water behavior of diving ducks (described as epoch-making by one leading scientist), and films made during a blimp flight across the Everglades.  Results of new field work will be added as secured.

Preliminary showings of these latest camera achievements by Mr. Cleaves have been given at the American Museum of Natural History and the American Geographical Society in New York City.



A letter:
AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
New York

February 23, 1938

Dear Mr. Cleaves:

I want to tell you again what a very good lecture it was.  I am still getting enthusiastic comments on your pictures, on the ease with which you spoke, and your very good voice.

We shall certainly want to have you again when you have done more work with your jack light.

Sincerely yours,
(Signed) Raye R. Platt, Secretary




Dazzled by the Cleaves super jack light, a wild whistling swan on Lake Mattamuskeet, North Carolina, swam close, was caught by hand


All film standard 35mm safety stock

Address: HOWARD CLEAVES Prince Bay Staten Island, N. Y.


From a small throat came a loud voice.  Anderson's tree frog, night-filmed while broadcasting his love call in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey