Palato-pharyngeal cine photography: a technique for developing continuing education films.

A method of Cine photography has been developed to record a variety of plastic and reconstructive surgical procedures in the oral cavity and pharynx. Effective classroom teaching of surgical closure of the cleft palate and the various palatal lengthening procedures including pharyngeal flaps, has been hampered by the lack of quality teaching films demonstrating surgical techniques in color. The small size of the structures involved and the delicate nature of the surgery requires that the surgeon work at close range and directly in front of the mouth. To avoid the shadows cast by the sides of the oral cavity, the surgeon's hands and frequent change of position by the professional photographic team, a head-mounted Cine camera was employed. A "through the surgeon's eye" view for the camera was accomplished by using a parallelogram of beam-splitting mirrors. The resulting photographic film provides the classroom audience with a sense of being in the surgeon's operating position thus having a view superior to that obtained by the surgeon's first assistant. An elaborate system of counter-balancing provides the surgeon with a weightless camera, mirror, and light complex mounted on a football helmet. The football helmet merely served as an interlocking unit enabling the surgeon to compose his own movie while operating.