The British Entertainment History Project

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Speaker 1 0:11
Out of this recording is copyright of this recording is vested in the ACTT History Project. Jeffrey Hermes, lighting, camera man interviews, Gloria Sachs and Alan Lawson, side one.

Speaker 2 0:38
Okay, right, once upon a time, starting at the beginning. Can you tell me when you were born, where you were born? Something about your early life and your family background? Yes,

Speaker 3 0:49
certainly. Born in London, in Finchley, not very far from here, 1919. Brought up in the country in Bucks, until going to public school, which was in Hampstead, again, not very far from here, in at university, college school, and having received my education there and then done quite a lot of photography, I then started on the first steps towards anything to do with films. In other words, I went to what was then known as boat court, the what was then the London College of photo engraving and lithography in Fleet Street, which in those days, was one of the only photographic schools in London, other than the Polytechnic. And having, I wouldn't use the word graduated, but finished then, if you don't graduate from a trade school, I started again slightly off track by becoming an apprentice at the then best studio in London for fashion and advertising, which, of course, stood me in good stead, which was studio sun again, which was then part of the Sun engraving Empire, and still not getting really into films, I managed to go out to the studios at Cricklewood. Stole studios when Lawrence hunting was directing. There was a friend of my mother. My mother, at that time was a friend of the young actor who died during the war one working on next of kin, a man called Dickie Norris. And in those days, if I remember right, I think even Freddie Young was working somewhere out there at one stage, but they were making, quote, A quickies. And I spent a considerable time in the studio knocking around, suddenly unpaid, but getting to know what went on in studios, and watching studio lighting and all that sort of thing. And at that time, I found that I couldn't get directly in. I went out also to Fox Studios at Wembley, when, again, he was directing out there, again, making things like the Arsenal murder mystery. I was one of them. I don't remember. They were all very bad. Quote of quickies. Anyway, wasn't a quote of quickie. Well, anyway, it wasn't much more

Unknown Speaker 3:02
that was made in

Speaker 3 3:04
Devon, the director. I remember that. That was the period I remember going to the exact studio. Did you actually,

Speaker 2 3:12
I mean, what did your parents do? I mean, what was your father, who's a professional man? Was

Speaker 3 3:16
he, I suppose, if one called an export merchant, professional man? Yes. Have you got brothers and sisters? I have a brother who is now in Vienna, in charge of the Austrian broadcasting British service out there for years. But he's not, he's concerned with broadcasting rather than films.

Speaker 4 3:32
He's a younger than your eight years, younger years. And when you were when you started working, were you still living at home? Go, yes.

Speaker 3 3:40
And then, having served, I think, something like a couple of years of apprenticeship, I decided that I wanted to broaden my technical knowledge, and so I managed, due to a fairly good scientific background at school, to get into the research local laboratories at Codex, then at Harrow Wilson, and got in. And was very lucky in that I got a very good grounding in sensitometry and the general photographic technology from them. And then, of course, everything was interrupted by the war, and as a serving soldier being in the TA I was whisked away and eventually landed up after, I suppose, 18 months, in what was intended to be West Africa, but ended up to East Africa and ended up in Ethiopia, and on I was then My arm got broken up in the war, and I ended up graded down from being an infantry captain in the infantry, and I could not return to my battalion. And so I was which starts my film life. I. The authorities, in their infinite wisdom, decided that they'd find out what knowledge, if anything, I had about anything other than soldiering, and they came across my photographic and technological background, and said, right, you are now in charge of an army Film Unit, which came as a fast surprise, and I was then given an elderly IMO camera that took 100 feet spools. I was allotted two sergeants from the army film and photographic unit, and told you are now a Film Unit, whereupon, for some years, two or three years, I made films for the army. Can you remember the names of the sergeants? Yes, I can. One was a sergeant Mortimer, and the other one, which was Here comes the surprise of all time, was Sergeant Cyril stanbroe, who again reg of his dead, but was a very old and distinguished member of act in the civil department, and together with one or two locally enlisted personnel, we made films on subjects ranging from how to stop VD with African troops, films about camouflage for The artillery, films on family welfare for the troops. Films in Madagascar, the strange campaign when we tried to ask the fishy French the arrival and departure of troops on various campaigns, including the troops going to Burma to salon. And regrettably, I had to send the nucleus of my unit, not including Cyril, across to Burma to carry on the good work there, but I was deemed to be medically unfit, and then I returned to England, and once again, in their infinite wisdom, they transferred me to an infantry battalion to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and decided that I was then in the army Film Unit, but so I was then sent to Wembley, where I found the lovely sight of people being graded according to their technical capabilities. I think if you're a focus puller, you're a corporal, if you're an operator, you're a sergeant, if you're camera man and you became a captain. I'm not certain the exact ranks, but everybody was pouncing around pretending to be soldiers, soldiers and I then they decided that game was a supposed technical knowledge. They said, Right, we're sending you on to run a cinema in Blackpool, which didn't please me, but on the other hand, I was within striking distance of demobilization. And I thought, well, Blackpool doesn't sound too bad. From Blackpool to Nottingham, and from Nottingham, I was de mobbed, and then it all started. I have

Speaker 5 7:56
to just correct you. It wasn't army filming it. You were in the AKs army, Kinney

Speaker 3 8:01
service. Ah, when I was on the projection side, yes, Wembley was a KS, yes, but there was also, there were people there at Wembley who were army. AKs, well, they certainly had. They were, did some production there. I can't they did they, I thought that they having been in the both sides and not myself, he was not actually army films, right? AKs anyway. But as I say, they certainly seem to share personnel to a certain extent. I mean, the answer was, I believe in when Pinewood basically was, that's right, basically

Speaker 5 8:39
Pinewood Burma, India, every

Speaker 3 8:43
fact except and indeed Middle East, where I drew my supplies from. But being East African command, I was a law unto myself. Which was a good thing? You had a good time? Did you no very far time. And then, as I say, having left the army, I took advantage of the governance scheme, educational scheme, and I landed up reading anthropology in Cambridge, just to change things around. But my only continuance of filming, of course, was that there had been no Cambridge University Film Unit or Film Society, basically during the war years. And so with two other people, and I think I can remember their names, we restarted a production unit in Cambridge, and the two people concerned, or three people concerned, were myself a Michael Stanley orianu, who was a research chemist who I had never seen again, and a man called George Nordhoff, who is now at Brunell University, I think, or has been in, somehow, in a film capacity. I'm not quite certain of his role, but as an academic filmmaker, I. And we attempted to make an experimental film with little or no success, but it was a start. And we had a Don from Trinity, a Marxist Don who was a historian, whose name Alfred escapes me, who was vastly interested in films and gave us a vast amount of help, but we did manage to start a university Film Unit, something a little earlier than the Oxford one, which started a little later, and having come down from Cambridge, I then went for a very short time back to Codex in their research labs, again, this time in a thing called the applied photographic group, where I took over from a man called Derek Stewart, who then started Derek Stewart films, and he and myself and A man called George Hadland, who was my assistant, John seIf. John Hadland started. John Hadland, who were the great firm on all aspects of high speed cinematography, and are now in, I think, Bob England, or something like that, and are the major in the world, the greatest people on the techniques of high speed cinematography. So again, I added a little To my knowledge, and having done that, I felt an urge to go back to East Africa. So I headed once again for East Africa, this time for the colonial office, but again, hoping to get eventually into the colonial Film Unit. I actually became part of the Information Services, which then came under, I suppose it would have been the Minister of Information, and they had a regional office in Nairobi, where I was the in charge of all the stills and but I managed to fringe onto films because Bob Kingston Davis, who was the colonial film editor, with a Michael Stuart McAllister, who I'm sure you'll have come across, came out with a very large white truck, and spent many, many, many months wandering around some borrow land, shooting a vast amount of film, which, the best of my knowledge, never saw the light of day, and wasted vast amount of Natural money. And filming was just starting there, and the colonial Film Unit then arrived in force, with a lot of bodies and little expertise under a man little sellers, who was then the colonial Film Unit boss, with a man called Eric White, who was, I think, their senior camera man, editor. And they set up a small unit, but again, I don't think made many films, but I liaised with them, helped out, because there I was not officially part of the unit. Since I was there and spoke the language and knew my way around the country, I found myself virtually working for the Cfu. And those days, it was sellers, and I think Vic governor was the boss, one of the boss man, and I don't remember all the other names, but they there. They were the outpost. But like all good things, it had to come to an end. And the colonial office closed everything down, and I was left stranded, or more disbanded. And so I joined MGM, which I thought would step in the right direction, in that they had come out with a full Hollywood unit with Stuart Granger, Jimmy Granger, Deborah Carr, Michael Richard Carlson, to make King Solomon's mine in 49 and they employed what we laughingly called poor whites, the poor whites, being the local settlers, who the Americans could not afford to send certain grades like third assistants and Chapel boys and still photographers. And I ended up as still photographer for MGM, which was very fine, and Kane gave me a chance to work with or work around Bob Surtees, who was the cameraman, one of them Hollywood's best, and Gene Polito still in Hollywood, and I can't remember the names of the others, but a very fine crew, both of sound and picture, and an old British editor directing, who unfortunately got the sack halfway through the picture, to wit Bob Compton Bennett, and he this being archival, and must give the truth as to why he left the unit. But left he did halfway through the picture, and he and his place was taken by the second unit director called Andrew Martin, who is, I think, now just about dead, or he may not be a Hollywood director of considerable second unit repute who did things like Ben Hur and many other great pictures. And anyway, having served my time on King Solomon's mine as the still photographer, I came to England to seek fame and fortune in the film industry. And of course. To act and with the I can assure you know the inevitable response that ticket, you must surely be joking, the fact that I had quite large technical experience, including, incidentally, making a film when I was in the army, from the from Cape Town to Corona the overland route. So, I mean, I knew something about filming, but act, I was then laughed at and told, Go away. And I heard the usual stories, which I'm sure you've heard many, many a time. And so one had to find a way in to act, which in those days, consisted of subterfuge. You went in through the back door, either through labs or through somewhere. Well, I decided not on labs, so I went and gained, well technical knowledge. I went as a senior technician to the national coward research unit under Dr Bronowski, where I then, again utilized all my cinematic skills, again as a caring man, mostly working on very specialized scientific cinematography, or, again, not a non act grade, but I manage, by some I don't know quite how to persuade them that I was a suitable candidate, but once again, I had to come in under the stones, which I did do. But then I had the very good fortune to meet Ken Gordon, whom I'm sure is well known for Act. And I managed to transfer to the under some clause, or rather, into the camera department. And then I started as an assistant with, first on my own as freelance, and then with worldwide. And I went to worldwide, where I became Ronnie Anscombe assistant, and I managed to stick that for two or three years. I can't think how, and managed to upgrade myself by working with Jimmy Allen and himself. Tiger Reeve, Ken Reeve, other cameraman, upgrade myself to operator and eventually to cameraman, but found that working with a small documentary company was never going to I might make the staff grade, but it would be a long time with a lot of sitting tenants. And so I went freelancing somewhere around about, to be around about 56 or 57 somewhere around about that. And then, from then onwards, my life was one long grind, doing everything in the film business, in the camera department. In other words, I I started as I never worked in the in features, as a clapper loser. I went straight to focus Powell, because at that age, I thought it was fair enough. And as a freelance I managed to work with the cameraman down have been talking about people like Desmond Dickinson, with Georges parineau with many, many directors, often on second units and on commercials or and on those early days for Rediffusion on television material, sometimes an operator, occasionally as a cameraman, doing again, occasional films as a cameraman. But I managed to find work with both the coward doing some mining reviews with British Transport, where I made four or five films as a documentary cameraman. Quite a few documentary films and television material for odd American companies, including the American sportsman. And I worked for Colonial film, or the successor. When Vic Gover went and started his own overseas film and television, I managed to latch on, due to my America, my African experience, to go to Africa, and I made many films in Ethiopia, Liberia, the Gambia,

Speaker 3 19:18
some in Kenya, all over the place, basically for overseas film and television, with an American producer called Bill Alexander, and I went on doing this continuously until basically the present day, working as a freelance but when I have to write on paper what films I have made, you find that the only person who might know would be my accountant. I mean, he certainly doesn't know all of them, but it was a lot. It was a matter of coming and sitting waiting for the telephone to ring, putting your cards into act, and as far as I was concerned, going anywhere where there. Was experienced to be gained. And as such, I worked, oh people like the children's films. And it was another happy choice with Henry Gettys when he was there. And I worked as an operator for Johnny Cocke on now last dead. And I worked on films for them again, for worldwide, when film directed by Jimmy hill called peril for the guy. But basically all, I'm very happy to say that in those years, from 56 approximately to the present day, I've been working on and off as a cameraman or an operator all the time and finishing. And I have just finished. I'm finishing today more or less the five films that I've been doing for the United Nations University in Tokyo, where I've been working in Africa for 15 months in Nigeria as a cameraman, director. And hopefully we'll get some more. But that is basically the the framework into which my career in films would be

Speaker 5 21:16
now that you've Got a hell of a lot of experience there, which, which, which of the cameramen that you worked with, if you like, gave you the most help.

Speaker 3 21:34
I think I must say, Desmond Dickinson. That's not nice to you. Say that because he we established, this is not strictly archival, but I will say it, we established a rapport very early in that I was sent for at a moment's notice to go to Sandhurst, where he was doing a film for Clive dollar. It was a television picture of some sort, and I happened to have a hangover, and at the first tea break, he it was my first occasion on working with him, and he took me aside and explained to me that he didn't himself take a cup of tea During the tea break, but he normally had a glass of sherry. And very politely, he realized my predicament and asked me if I would care to share it or have a glass of sherry. So I said, Yes. He said, Do you have any particular brand that you like? And I said, Well, actually, Dick here I do. I like Garvey's San Patricio. That's a very strange thing. And he opened his leather briefcase. I can see it in his back room at Sand house, where he produced some cold potatoes, a bottle, two glasses and a bottle of San Patricio. Well, that was the start of one says of a beautiful friendship. He restored my confidence in the human race restored my health. We went on to do some extremely good filming, and my part, some good operating and I subsequently worked on quite a few second units and quite a lot of commercials for him at Shepparton. And we shared many interests. Not that I am a flyer, but he was a keen flyer, and quite a lot of things. He spoke French. He liked the French. I speak reasonable French. He liked French food, and we had a lot important in common. But apart from that, he was a delight to watch, to work with, and he never minded by asking a question, and was perfectly happy to share his expertise with me. And I think if I had to say any single camera, and I'd met many I think he will be the one that will come out

Speaker 5 23:43
top of the list. Yes, well, I'm with you next now, in in what way has color made me change to you, or is it just one of those things that you accept and it made no difference? No,

Speaker 3 24:04
it hasn't made an awful long difference. I liked working in black and white very much. But purely by chance, I had worked with a DR Spencer, who was the founder of a firm called color photograph limited, or Vivex, as it was known as in those days, which was the first one of the first color processes used commercially for advertising. It was a three color car bro, originally followed by dye transfer, which, of course, became a process from which Technicolor was derived. And having worked, this is as an apprentice with Dr Spencer, who was then a director of the Sun engraving company, and late, latterly, became the director of research at Codex at his own firm. And I became very interested in color. In fact, I invented an unfortunately, picked at the post Pat. Happens for a thing called chromacolor. And I read the works of people like major Klein and color cinematography. And I was early very, very interested and fairly knowledgeable about color in cinematography. And of course, when I went to Codex, because of that, I worked a lot on with early Coda Chrome, both on the 16 mil and on the stills side. And I had always done a mass of color myself in stills and in 16 mil, before the days of the Technicolor three strip. And I was, I was always well appraised of the technology of it. And then, when I worked on King Solomon's mine, the unit was using, which was one of the first major pictures to use mono pack, which was, of course, a modified Coda Pro, which was then transferred eventually to three strip Technicolor. And of course, I went along, saw the early Eastern color emulsions, and the moment I could lay my hand or work on it, watch people working on these things I did, and I always liked working on color. And when I went to both, not to Mexico, but I worked in black and white there, but certainly with transport films, I managed to shoot almost everything I shot there was on color, including seastory films, on training, train drivers, all in color. And then I made quite a few commercials and things like that in color and color. To me, I would work half an hour either, but I realized that color was had to be the one you concentrated on. And now I've come the other way round. I would love to go back to black and white, because there's so few people can work on it, and I still sit upstairs with a box full of black and white filters, which every camel man acquired for himself, because he always had his own little pet filters for doing day, for night, or for any particular effect. And I today would happily shoot in black and white, were I given the chance. But I'm afraid that day has passed.

Unknown Speaker 27:17
Now. How reliant to you on meters.

Speaker 3 27:23
Well, I think one has to be historical about this. When I started in a fashion studio, your you had a large rubber bulb on the end of a long piece of rubber tubing and a very large 10 by eight camera. And you took the bulb in your right hand and you squeezed it. And when you thought it had enough exposure, you let go the rather bulb. And by practice, of course that worked. Meters were rare. I had one of the earliest two cell Western meters, because when we worked on color, we had to be more precise. And I started on those. I had some of the earlier Western meters, Western cinemeter. I've tried many of the early meters, and nowadays I would though I could judge exposure. I naturally will normally work completely with a meter. But if I'm stuck and my meter fell on the deck and was broken. I would happily work without a meter in most circumstances. I know I'd be well within the range. But of course, nowadays, I think that to fail to take make use of modern technologies, absurd. Yes, I would use, I have modern type spot meters spectrometers, which I use all the time. But if I'm pressed for time or working under pressure, it doesn't worry me at all. If I have to work without a meter,

Speaker 5 29:02
how how when you're when you're working on a film, how close do you work with the labs?

Speaker 3 29:08
In my case, extremely closely, because in the latter part of my career, I did have a spell or some couple of years or so with with the laboratory as a technical rep with K laboratories, and I've always known of lab technology, and I think that as a cameraman, I'm a better one for my knowledge of lab technology. Many cameramen have little or no knowledge of labs. They send their rushes off and they look at them, and they don't, in all cases, know what a lab can do or know how to use a lab to its full advantage. I like working with labs, and I do always. To check everything through a lab, from printer lights to analysis of faults to actually checking the emulsions that they're using for my brush prints and my ultra prints, because labs are, again, this is archival. Are crooks, and they will try and swing Fuji or cheap stock for their rush printing on you. They will also pull a gag where you will reject an answer print, and you will possibly reject a show copy and have another one, but they'll take those prints back, and when you have the bulks down at 50 copies, they'll put them into the belts. And I know every trick that a lab could get up to

Speaker 3 30:50
sax knows I had a while as the I think I render my title technological head of technological services, or something at the COI for a while, where I was intimately concerned with the production, end of the output of the COI, when I was dealing on a day to day basis with a very large account with one particular lab. And yes, I do like dealing with labs, and I think it's absolutely essential for cameramen to know everything about a lab, what you can do, what they can do with their types of printers, their types of stock, what they can do in the way of forcing film. In fact, everything about a lab, I think, is an essential for camera

Unknown Speaker 31:35
now, coming back, actually, on to camera equipment itself. Over the years, what changes have you seen in equipment? Well,

Speaker 3 31:48
the basic changes are, of course, first of all, the changeover to 16 mil for a vast amount of television programming. Secondly, I think the major technology technological change is the use of through the lens view finding, because having been brought up with new rules Mitchells and things of that, where an operator had to be a master mind to manage to match a viewfinder to what actually came onto the film. An operator was highly skilled, quite apart from turning his handles, which, of course, nowadays operators can't do, if operators ever exist anyway. You now can see and have superb through a new technovision, through a new movie cam, or a new panel vision, you can have the most superb view finding. And of course, a thing I don't like doing is the having an add on television door the camera, which enables the director, Uncle Tom Coley and all to sit on the on the sidelines criticizing your operating. The average operator camera tests that, and I don't like it at all. It is an aid, because if you have to choose which take to print up, the director can just quickly run through on a video and say, Well, I like take two, but it stops an operator alibi and saying, No, I don't like that, because the actor did something when he acted. In actual fact, you've had finger trouble and you've locked up the handles. But I think that the major things are, of course, the fact that nowadays a steady picture is you have pin registration on most cameras. Even aerospaces can be fitted with it. You have superb lenses nowadays, whereas we were limited to originally a standard T 2.2 T point three or something like that, nowadays, the high speed sets of lenses from coward, often canon, often working at apertures like F, 1f 1.2 you can shoot available light on almost anything the labs get you out of trouble in the grading, you have such wonderful HMI lights and things like that that you can lighting is no longer a question. Happy to have 235 hour box you can work with much more portable lighting, and the public is nowadays prepared to accept lighting that would never have been accepted 30 years ago. Things come out every color of the rainbow, pink, blue and one another, but that is an accepted convention, and people do not notice the fact that interior lighting is no way matching the exterior. Everything is I think the standards have fallen off dreadfully badly. There are still great cameramen around, but there are still any person nowadays can, as has been proved time and time again, equipment now with automatic focus, automatic exposure, automatic loading. I. And a complete lack of knowledge of what decent operating is that the standard of camera work, to my mind, has fallen off grossly. There are still good cameramen about. There are still great operators about, but the general standard on pop films nowadays, I think, is so low that I don't think people ought to be given the title of camera, having said that again, is dark title express my opinion when you asked a question, yes, that's right.

Unknown Speaker 35:32
Have you seen much changes in the way of crews?

Speaker 3 35:35
Yes, I have. And I think the greatest lack in the modern crew is the fact that the operator has now been downgraded and not required. He's sunk to the American Standard. An American operator does what he's told. A British operator liaises with a director, and is, to my mind, an essential part of a crew for making good films nowadays, they've cut the crew down, and a cameraman is half the time operating and not concentrating what he's meant to be doing, which is lighting and I think on crewing, the one thing that I resent nowadays is the fact that operators are not used the way they used to be.

Speaker 5 36:21
Have you ever worked on any specialized processes in film making at all? I mean, I was thinking like kind of independent frame. But you independent

Speaker 3 36:28
frame? I never worked on. I saw it. I have worked on with auto back projection, front projection. Seen what can be done with the various processes. But I've never been a special effects specialist. I've known what I needed to know about your backing or working on the normal technology, but I've never had much. I've not had an awful lot experience. No, I know of it, and if asked, I jolyssa would be able to upgrade myself on it. But I've, I've left that to the specialists. And

Speaker 5 37:14
you were, you were saying that, what, what direct, which directors that you've worked with, have you found most appreciative of, like a camera man's problems? You know, if they are problems, well, I suppose they are problems. I think

Speaker 3 37:30
going to not one of, should we say, the acclaimed greatest, but certainly the cameraman turned to Rector. That are two that I remember working with, the two directors that I have worked with who have appreciated cameramans problems, the two that have appreciated the most were both ex cameraman was Pennington Richards and the other was Bernie Knowles. Only said it was Cyril Knowles, his brother, but Bernie Knowles, I did. I worked at dancing as all could have been abpc. It could have been MGM. I don't remember on one of the many television series. It could have been a Martin Cain private investigator. It could have been Mark saver. It could have been I didn't. I worked on all of them, but of the two of the directors that I remember that were most helpful, in fact, Bernie Noel was so helpful to be unhelpful. He would say sometimes, you know, that's on a 50 or 12 feet, and that's exactly what I want. He was right every time. Mark you. But he was appreciative of your he knew it backwards, having been, in fact, both of them, having been operators, and camera particularly, Bernie, had been very

Speaker 5 38:38
good operators of the, you know, well again, on the on the reverse of that, which is, if you like the the least appreciative, if you like the the most dogmatic of of people that

Speaker 3 38:52
well, having watched and not actually operated for him, I think Otto Preminger, I won't he is less appreciative, but a ruder and more dogmatic. And he's the only man I know that reduced one of the England's best operators almost to tears. And that was early day on Exodus, when he Ernie was the quietest of the most well mannered operator I know, but even he very rarely came up the ghost, because Otto could be absolutely possible. But he's the only man I've seen who really could reduce and he, incidentally, talking about Desmond Dickinson. Was the only man I know to have sacked Desmond Dickinson

Unknown Speaker 39:36
on the spot. Yes, yes. He

Unknown Speaker 39:43
little bit now you've done, you know, you've got an enormous, wide

Unknown Speaker 39:49
experience. I mean, the

Speaker 5 39:52
Would you ever would you have wanted to switch a toilet, and if you could go start again? Would you want to switch,

Speaker 3 39:58
had I? I. If I could go back. First of all, of course, I have to postulate the fact that i The war stopped a normal career thing. But having come in late and having eventually got my ticket into the industry and been able to work, I let personal feelings, what, where I wanted to go, wanted, I wanted to do, overcome my better judgment. I should have stuck quite simply as a focus Powell in features, and just gone up as an operator, cameraman, and never deviated. So when somebody would say to me, as they did do Geoff, can you grab a camera and go out to the Gambia for a fortnight, we want to do a little thing for the do. Thing for the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. I'd say, No, that's not my job. I want to become a feature camera man. I should never have deviated and done interesting little films in Africa or in Europe or one thing or another, which I did for interest as a cameraman on a lower type of picture I should have done. What guild members nowadays do you say? Right? I'm a feature focus puller or a feature operator. Stayed at that grade, gradually working upwards, and never deviated, never gone away, do anything that was not straight features. That's what I would have done, or should have done. I don't regret having seemed

Unknown Speaker 41:21
to have had a much more interest.

Speaker 3 41:22
I've had a probably more interesting that I've been out making films with Tom stovat on man eating tigers in Bangladesh in the middle of the war. I've played wildlife pictures. I've done all sorts of, I mean, I could go off hours of the making films for American television in Africa with people like Bing Crosby and Governor Conrad.

Unknown Speaker 41:46
Did you ever work with Armand and Michaela?

Speaker 3 41:49
I worked very briefly. I knew them well, because Armand and Michaela came on King Solomon's mine as they made a film called savage splendor, and they came as technical advisors to MGM, whereupon they spent the whole of the picture conning the company, and they were just doing surveys for films that they were going to do later. And Ricardo, of course, was doubling for Deborah Carr. And so I got to know them very well, and helped him a lot in helping him set up camera stuff out there. And I worked very briefly with him before he took on Tom Stobart, who probably have come across. And then he took on a man called des Bartlett after that. But I was with him in the very from his very earliest ones, helping him when he started his things after he'd done savage splendor before he went on to do his

Speaker 5 42:39
BBC series. This is when you were the what became the colonial Yes, I

Speaker 3 42:44
was out there. Actually, they had packed up. They packed up. I went to MGM, and then met Armand Michaela. And when that picture finished, I went to the Sudan with the the American Museum of Natural History, a man called McQueen, who was the youth e Monsanto, Queenie, who was the head of the Monsanto chemical Corporation. And every year he took an expedition to Africa, and he picked me up in Nairobi, and I went off as a cameraman to the Sudan with him, and came back. And then through that, I did a few offerings for Michael. I knew them well, but I never, I never, never, one of their staff, cameraman,

Speaker 5 43:18
tell me when you were in Ethiopia, did you know Chapman Andrews at all? Chapman Andrews Absolutely, categorically, no. Name, never he was. He was the political adviser to hail selesey during the war. During

Speaker 3 43:31
the war, because I was in the army, and I know most of the people close to the Emperor, and the only film were people that I knew Gordon was built, who ran a paper of course, and a man called Leslie Cramer, who was Dennis Craver of ranks, brother who ran a, I suppose, a film facility company, whenever he was not running a harem of Ethiopian ladies in Ethiopia when times were bad, when times were bad, you

Unknown Speaker 44:03
you've never, you've never actually did a new, actual work with arm and Michael, Right. I think me, I think, oh, Lesnar, no. I

Speaker 5 44:39
a term of Jesus side, too. You were talking when we, when we were switched off, we would, you would? You were saying that you, you remembered you worked on a film for Lucille Ball. Yes,

Speaker 3 44:50
it was rather interesting, because the Americans, I think it was the American broadcaster company, came over to make a I suppose. It would be, I don't know how you term them, a television feature or no television part of a series. I suppose it would be, and which I think it would working. Title would have been Lucille Ball in London. But anyway, they came over, and it was a story of, roughly, Lucille Ball arriving in London and being met by a man who's been allotted to her as to take her round. And it turns out to be Tony newly in a motorbike, in a sidecar motorbike, and anyway, many actors turned up on it, as I say, Tony, newly James Robertson justice, or a whole host of British actors. But they made it on quite a reasonable budget, and they came over with what in those days was a revolutionary idea. They transported a motor vehicle, rather like what would now you call a mobile home, and it was called a cinemobile. It was had been invented by a man called for art, said, who was an American Cairo gentleman. And it was a fairly large, what a motorized caravan. But in it, it had everything needed to make a film. In that it had a very special generator, but a compact generator, providing the power for something like, I don't know how many, 50 kilowatt of lighting or something. I don't know what it was silent. It baffled off. It had all its lights wrecked in it. It had 35 mill cameras all racked in IT space for a mobile dark room and carrying a crew. And it came shipped complete, and you just took it off the plane, and there you were with a complete Film Unit. And I was taken on as the English camera man, and I had an English operator. And again, has an interesting twist. I had no idea at that time. I'd only recently upgraded an operator. And I rang act and said, Have you got any operators? Yes, we've got one here early day. I said, Well, oh, dear. So I rang earlier because I'd beat his focus player weeks before. And I said, early. Would you care to be my operator. He said, Jeff, for money, I'll do anything or what works for that effect. So I had probably the best, one of the best operators in England, working as my operator. But that is the way the film of this business that you do have your ups and downs, and you don't kick anybody, because on the way, you know, you may be on the way up, they'd be on the way down. But anyway, I had him, and we went off and made this film all around London with the Dave Clark Five. We filmed on vacation in Egham at Madame Tussauds, all over the place. And it was one of those strange things where the Americans worked very well with the British but unfortunately, the director was a boyfriend of Lucille Ball. Was very young, and I felt very slightly foul of Lucille Ball in that she insisted on seeing all rushes, and she had a neck wrong, like a brontosaurus, and unless you filmed it with a very heavy diffusion disc and not closer than six meters on a 15 millimeter lens, she would scream in rushes if you she saw her neck looking rather horrible, but you got used to this, and the rest of the executives realized that she was a tricky lady, and she held court in the Hilton Hotel in a suite at the top of The Hilton and she was a very imperious lady, but got them all right. And the film, I believe, was quite successful, and it was a very funny film, but they spent a lot of money, but it was very interesting, working with an entirely American Crew, because their sparks and their gaffers were very, very, very efficient, and their sound crews, their camera man, I was the first time I'd worked with that type of television type crew, and it opened my eyes as to how you can work very fast with limited amount of location lighting. And it was most interesting as a technical experiment, what camera equipment were they using? We were using quite straightforward array, blimp tower reflexes. In those days you had a blimp 35 area, the first of the blimp, 35 mill areas, plus ordinary 2c arrays for silent shooting. But the they were using heavy, these big blimp Terrys, which, at that time were suitable for that type of film, because you were not dependent on a highly stable image. You were not doing the opticals really like that. And given good crews, they were very quick in operation. They needed, you needed to know them, because they were comparatively new in those days. But we got the results. And that was. Basic equipment within those days something quite new, which was that we had no brutes, and we were working entirely with coarse lights. And they were one of the first pictures which we made entirely with bronze and red heads, which were those days, were very new, and worked from this cine mobile truck. And rightly, vast numbers of them. We had probably something like 24 of them, so you could light quite large exteriors, or could boost light in sunlight and without having to have roots. And these were in the days before HMO highlights, or CD highlights, or anything like that. These were the early days, and they were all used with blues on we I think we had certain amount of color trends. There's monstrosities, but they were quickly shelled.

Unknown Speaker 50:48
Why do you say monstrosity is the color trend?

Speaker 3 50:52
Well, because you had to have this vast transformer box, very heavy. The light out that wasn't very high. And they worked on three or four types of head which were sealed beam lights, which were very hard to control, very hard to put bar doors on, or anything like that. And they would, you had to use a lot of them, so you had multiplicity of shadows. And they gave the light. They were okay for newsreel filming, but whereas you can use quartz lights virtually for feature lighting, color trans were all right, but they were much more difficult to use and nothing like the power. And they had to be stepped up to on a variable transformer, stepped up and up and up until you got the required color temperature, and they were much more, much more difficult to use, and you had, in those days to use, really, to be effective, color temperature meters to see that your lights were, in fact, matching to whatever

Unknown Speaker 51:56
were they expensive to use in as much as replacement bowls. Replacement

Speaker 3 51:59
bowls were reasonably expensive. The lights themselves, the boxes were quite expensive. But if it was cost per Lumen or whatever, however you rate it, they were not desperately efficient. You will still find them knocking around in old cupboards, but I don't think you'd find one in 1000 if you'll ever use them

Speaker 5 52:21
on this, this Lucille Ball thing, Erwin, what sound equipment was there?

Speaker 3 52:27
We used Strange enough, not nagras. And my memory is good, because I'm very interested in sound. We're using perfect terms. They were the early days of perfect terms, which were before you had the, I think it's one now called the spec spectra, or spectra or something. There is a new one begins with. Anyway, it was the one. It was considerably smaller than anagra, no larger than a small laptop computer, I suppose, that sort of thing. But it gave you sync sound. The pilot tone on it was different. Was not the same as in larger I do not know the exact technology, but it could, in fact, be used on location from batteries, and it will would give you a sinkable track on quarter inch tape. And it was used, and those days, it was one of the 4r i think it was certainly on the market or in use, before general use, before the inaugural. I won't swear to this, but I think I'm right and sick,

Speaker 5 53:28
but you've done, you've done other things with foreign crews too. Yes, if you any in particular, got any particular memories of

Speaker 3 53:36
those, I think the only one, I certainly working with them. But having watched them in action, I was taken when I was in Dakar in what was then East Pakistan. I was taken to scenes to see an Indian, ought to be more exact, an East Pakistan Film Studio. And then I saw what technology was like in the early days of film. And this was in 19 the 1970s early 70s, and the the labs were huge peg boards and large vats with red lights, and you acted hand dipped. You unrolled the film onto pins and rolled them round a huge former and then you dip them into the tanks, up and down until that they looked right. And then you dip them in the next tank. And they were still making feature films with that type of laboratory. And I I'm not at all sure that they were using I think I remember rightly, they had something that I had not seen since the studio in East Africa in the 50s and 40s, which was a huge booth in which they had a silent a camera, and the camera was not blimped, but the camera man and all his crew were built in a huge, enlarged. Elephant box. And this was then tumbled around the studio. And that is, I think, I think that must be one of the last out persons that type of 1930 Yes, but it was still in use. I saw it in use in in Nairobi, in a small film studio there with a camera called Vernon. Vernon, name, name, philosophy. We set a small studio up in Nairobi in 19, the 19, late 1940s they thought of starting up a film industry. And in those days, we did, in fact, because we couldn't get a blimp camera, we did do this thing of putting a camera into and when MGM came out to make King Solomon's Mines, they wanted to do some artist tests on one thing another, and they did it in this film studio using this large blimp and the American camera man who was indeed Bob Surtees. I cannot imitate an American accent, neither can I repeat his obscenities. But when he saw this thing, it was surprising that he committed it to be used, but being a gentleman at heart, he eventually used it.

Unknown Speaker 56:12
But you tell

Unknown Speaker 56:14
us some more about the Decker, or isn't there any more?

Unknown Speaker 56:17
It was really

Speaker 5 56:19
what, kind of films they making, like the Indian films they

Speaker 3 56:24
were making the typical made a black and white typical Indian film, which consisted of many scenes of the Hero, hero or the heroine, or just both staring straight at Campbell and singing a very long Indian love song. There were many songs interspersed with dancing a minimal plot, and they were mostly people chasing each other around the set, and very simple romantic tales. But they were the staple of the Indian film industry, some of which made the Dakar, some made in Calcutta by grace, old studios and in Bombay, where I didn't but those of those were three main centers. But the Indian film industry in those days was very primitive, and the films were very senators. You were not allowed to show many taboos or love making on screen and things like that. And they confirmed to a pattern. They were very stereotyped the plots. Did

Speaker 5 57:22
you ever work with the two famous people from India,

Speaker 3 57:29
I cannot think with not James Martin tonight, yes. Well, I regret very much several British cameramen have and the ones that spring to mind was a last year, and also one of their best films. Was like, to my mind, one of the most underestimated British cameramen who started in documentary and was at the coward at one stage was Larry PEISER, who did, I think I was right in saying, Europeans, and made one of their and I think is one of their best pictures. Photographically speaking, you never had the chance. Well, I would very much like to Yes, yes, but I never had the chance. I've never lasso and I we've never worked together, so I don't think he'd have me on his crew. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 58:36
Jeff Herman, geez, cameraman, interviewer, Alan Lawson, the copyright of this recording is vested in the ACTT History Project. This is the second session recorded on the 22nd of March, 1988 side three.

Unknown Speaker 59:00
Jeff, any earlier sessions

Speaker 1 59:02
we had with glory and myself, you did talk about starting kind of specialized training at bolt court school of printing. Can

Unknown Speaker 59:16
you describe the course?

Speaker 3 59:18
Yes, certainly I can. This course was a very small course in that there were, but I think, and I was doing it, I think there were four students. It was a full time course that was also an evening course that I continued on. But as a full time course, it was one of the few, very well planned technical backgrounds that you could get at that time. There were other courses, like the Regent Street poly, but this one had a leaning towards technology, and it was run by what was then known as that, the London School of photo. Graving and lithography. And it had the four full time students, and you spent your time between the theory of photography and optics, plus a certain amount of photo engraving and a certain amount, I think, one day a week, which was art trading in graphics. And the instructors were had a bias towards optics and photo engraving, and they were very famous people, people like bull and Turner and Smith, who were the those days, the greatest experts in photogravure and in color printing, all of which had a very great influence on my technical knowledge. And it led to the examination of the city and gills in photography and pure photography. And you got a very good training in all aspects of sensitometry, of theory of color reproduction, optics, as I said, certain amount of art training, but basically, it was to equip you with all the background you needed for any job that used photography as its was its basis, and as such, I found it immensely useful right the way through my career, because things I learned there, particularly in sensitometry, when I went to labs and COI, that was a basis that very people, few people, had had. So that was basically it. And this, I can't remember, I think it was, I must have been there two years, something like that. And I did finish, in actual fact, top of the the exams that year throughout England for that sort of thing. So I did have a very good technical background, but that was basically the background of both court, boat court, at the same time, as I think I mentioned, did become what is now the London College of printing, which now, of course, has a flourishing, very large Film and Video School. But regrettably, in the days that was in 1936 37 somewhere around about then there was, there were no real film schools available, and there were no other than the poly there were very few trade or technical training places for pure photography. And that's precisely what boat court

Unknown Speaker 1:02:25
was, and you came out of that, what with a diploma. I'm

Speaker 3 1:02:30
not quite sure what it was called, but I can probably find out. I

Unknown Speaker 1:02:37
want the metals

Speaker 3 1:02:39
it was known as a technological examination, city and gills. And I think I got in front of me, Frank Jeffrey Hermes photography, first prize equal, 1937 and that was it, city and gills. So that's just to prove that in fact what I say happens to be true.

Speaker 5 1:02:57
Then from there you went to Sun engraving.

Speaker 3 1:03:01
I went, not, I went to a subsidiary of Sun engraving, which was the, it was known as studio sun, and it was one of the, I think I would say, two top advertising photographic Studios in London, because, again, that was quite an innovation. Because in the old days, you had the Bond Street portrait photographers and you had the high street man who took groups and things like that. But advertising photography was in its infancy, and Sun engraving set up one of the two studios, studio Briggs was the other one. And we it were in Blanford Street, and we had a studio which is still in existence. I think it's called Blanford studios. And I'm not quite sure they do. They have, they are still basically the same thing. But it had three top photographers, one of whom was Jack Lee, who is now in Australia. Not that the film Jack Lee, another jack Lee, who was a fashion photographer, a man called Gordon Crocker, who may well still be alive, who was a brilliant creative photographer, but not specifically fashion, and a man called Matthews, who became the head of the Ealing School of photography, who was their technical expert. And these three photographers were the best in London at the time. And there were two apprentices myself and the young man who was killed in the war. And I was basically attached to Matthews, who was the technical photographer, although I did do fashion as well, and they there I had the chance of starting or acquiring a lot of knowledge of color photography, because they being tied to Sun engraving, they had specialized in very high quality color photography, which in those days was almost nonexistent. It was in the days before, or virtually before you had. Ectochrome, Kodachrome and other still materials, and we worked very closely with Dr Spencer, who then later became the head of Codex research, and at that time, ran a firm called Vex, or color photograph limited, who were the early developers of both a single shot camera and repeating back cameras, all of which worked on three color cinema, three color photography, and were the early developers with codec of the what was then known as dye inhibition, or the color dye transfers system, which was again closely linked with the system used by Technicolor. Before that, they used auto type, three color, Cobra, things like that, for color printing. But they were, they were turning out at that time, very, very high quality color photography for advertising, which, of course, the principles all ended up in the principles used by Technicolor. And, of course, on the color transparency side, the things will would have ended up as mono pack, Coda Crow and eventually Eastman color. So all of it was a development, really, of knowledge. And I went on to that as an apprentice. And

Speaker 5 1:06:19
then, then from there you went to, when you went to Kodak. Then I left. There was the Kodak job, you know, not an apprenticeship. No,

Speaker 3 1:06:26
no, I went. I'd, I had found that after, I think it was about somewhere, after a year, a studio son, I'd, I wasn't really getting very far forward. And so a good friend of mine, a school friend who called Derek Stewart, who became Derek Stewart productions had gone direct from school to Codex research laboratories, and having been a life of friend at school, he rang me up one day and said, Look, there's an opening in the research laboratories. And if you'd like to go in to Codex in Kingsway in those days and see Dr Roy, who's the head of personnel, and I've arranged for you to see him, and it's up to you to convince him you're a good chap. So I went down see dr Roy, and I started work at Codex the following Monday in what was then they were the research laboratory. Had an extension under Dr man love, which was known as the testing department, and we were responsible for all the basic system metric work on all Codex sensitive materials that say the product testing, development of photographic materials. And so I stayed there, and we worked closely with the actual research laboratory. We were all at Codex under the same roof, and I stayed there until the war started, working with Codex and their research give us

Speaker 5 1:08:03
at Harrow. Was there? Was there independence from Rochester?

Speaker 3 1:08:13
No, there was a very close liaison on the scientific side, because all scientific papers from Rochester and from that matter, from France and Germany and Australia, where they had factories, all were available to us in the research library. And the materials, all the data on the photographic materials were pooled, and there were joint standards for all the materials. It was, though Rochester were our parent company, we still coated. You would get material which we, shall we say, plus x or Super X, or one of the black and white stocks. And they would only we in the factory could tell from emulsion numbers and cone numbers where they came from, and in theory, they were all identical materials. But there was, we were very closely linked with Rochester, and was, was there much difference? As a practical cameraman, one tended to think that the Rochester material was more consistent. I don't entirely agree with that. This is prejudice, yeah, only, and I don't in I don't think there was very much difference. We use the same raw base material, acetate, nitrate base. We use the same gelatines, dyes, the same patents, basically the same processing formulas, the same system, metric standards, same quality standards. There really was no difference. Occasionally, you would find a product that was only available from Rochester. You would find perhaps a new certainly the later days when color came, there will be things that were Rochester coated and only coated in Rochester. But then later, of course. The coatings were done at Harrow in those days, long before him or him. It was all centralized in Harrow.

Speaker 5 1:10:09
Then in the post war period at Code act. What were you? What were you doing then? Well, that

Speaker 3 1:10:15
I went back. I was since I was taken I was in the army, you had a right to go back to your previous firm. And Codex were remarkably good to their employees throughout the war. I received, while I was in Africa and various places, I received food parcels and various things from them. And when after the war, they got in touch with everybody, and they offered me a post back in the research laboratories, working with a man called Arthur ham who was again in charge of a division which was known as the applied photographic division. In other words, it was a part of the research derogatory which was concerned with the scientific applications of photography to industry, to research, or, for that matter, in the film business, or anything like that. It was the applications of photography. And I went in there with, in fact, I took over the job from Derek Stewart, who became Derek Stewart productions, who had left Codex to set up his own what was then known as S, scientific and medical photography, simple, s, I, M, P, L, which was down in Lambeth, And he set up a very specialized photographic laboratory to do just that thing with a man called Robin Weston, to set up a specialized laboratory concerned with the applications of photography, specialized applications, whether they be high speed Cinematography, photo micrography, anything where photography was used, or cinematography used as a an experimental tool. He left to set up as an independent and I took over his job in Codex laboratory. And I had the as an assistant, a young man called John Hadland who became John Hadland industries in bobbington, who became the world and in fact, are still the world's greatest experts in high speed cinematography. And we worked, I worked in those days on early development of the earlier, I think they were called the Edgerton Coda light, or, I think it was, it was, I don't remember the name. Anyway, it was an early electronic flash, which in the days when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Dr Edgerton were developing this discharge tube, which in those days gave an astoundingly short exposure for those days, approximately a 3,000th of a second, or something like that, which, in those days, was fantastic, and we did a lot of these publicity photographs of drops of water, things dropping into milk, and bullets emerging from muzzles of guns and golf balls being struck and deforming on striking and things like that. And a lot of the early work on that we did in the laboratories, and also the work on the processing of the material to overcome rest reciprocity failure and to the general development, anyway, of high speed cinematography. And in those days, of course, we had the Eastman mark three cine camera, which is the first camera with rotating prism, which gain worked at, I don't remember. I think it went up to something like 3000 frames a second. I can't remember exactly. Anyway, it was the early cine camera which was used for many purposes of for analyzing motion, again, a development of cinematography as applied to industry. And I stayed there for a couple of years. I said something of that order. I don't remember exactly working with in those days. The head of the laboratory course was Dr Spencer, who's come from color fresh grass. And it was a very fruitful time for me, because it enabled me, after the war, to update myself on all the developments of emulsions, of optics, and particularly work on the on the on high speed cinematography, because which interested me, and I had a chance to work on that. And I only left there when I was offered a job. Having worked in Africa during the war, I was offered a job to go back to the colonial office, to go out to Africa, to join what was then known as the regional Information Office, which. Was tied up with, of course, a regional, a branch of the colonial Film Unit, so who were also out there making films. So we all worked happily together on both films and those films,

Speaker 5 1:15:11
did you? Did you? Did I understand you actually went and joined Eric Stewart for a time?

Speaker 3 1:15:17
No, I never. I had hoped to leave Codex to join Derek down at his firm. But whether the firm was not doing very well, or for what reason, I don't know. It was nothing personal, but I did not, in fact, join Derek. We stayed friends, and I when he became Derek Stewart productions, one thing another, I still, I'm still in touch with him, in fact, but no, I never joined him, but I was, I did, in fact, do odd jobs as not exactly a consultant, but Derek naturally retained his links with Codex, and would tend to ring me up if he wanted something done on the quiet he wanted some Little bit of information about sensometry or filters or optics, or, anyways, a close liaison between Derek and simple as it was then known as and the codec Research Laboratory.

Speaker 5 1:16:11
Now, one of the other things which I should have picked up when in the earlier session, you dropped the, you know, you dropped the little remark that you've been a contact man at Kay's labs. Now let's talk about that. Well, it was not the first contact man we've talked Well,

Speaker 3 1:16:32
it was a very simple story, really, in that, I suppose I can't remember it exactly 1520, years ago, whatever it was I was working as a freelance cameraman operator, and frequently it was not working as a freelance cameraman operator. And as many jobs crop up, this job cropped up in a pub, the lamb and flag in floral Street, where I had for many a long time, talked to a man in a group who I knew had something to do with films, but I realized that he was nothing. He was a financier, but I couldn't quite understand one doesn't in a public discuss other people's business. But on one occasion, this chap whose name was Richard Sidley, said to me, Jeff, you doing anything at the moment? And I said, No. He said, Do you want a job? And I said, Yes. He said, Well, go out to Kay's lab and tell George that I sent you, which found it good enough. I said, I presume you mean George Hawkes, who was then the technical manager of Kays. And I said, Yes, certainly. And I said, But tell me, I have never asked you, Richard, what is your connection with Kays? He said, Well, I their financial director. I said, Well, that's as good a recommendation as any. And it turned out that this gentleman had come in with a team, a management team, at that time to revitalize Kays. And anybody who's in the lab business will remember this, and Kays were in the depth of despair, and a team came in, including an American called Marshall koshman, a man called Bernard Creighton, and this man, Richard Sidley, and they came in to go from top to bottom of Kays and give it a new image. And one of the new images they wanted was to improve their links with documentary film movement, where and documentary scientific and industrial side of films, and their reputation at that time was remarkably low as labs go. And I was interviewed and asked what my interest. I explained my technical background and explained that I had had by that time, of course, I had left the coward, but I'd had masses of contacts in with industrial and scientific applications of photography. And I was told, well, right, can you you are now our contact man, with particular reference to documentaries and particularly scientific and industrial work, and get off your butt and go around and see all these people and try and, you know, use your context and bring in some work. And I very happily did this for a couple of years or so, working again, making a massive context with all the small, specialized production companies working on not on commercials, but on places like oh shell and ici film units and all the units working with the major contracting companies with any. Had any scientific application of cinematography, and I managed, of course, to give them a liaison with the lab, because I knew their problems, and I also knew what a lab could or could not do, and could advise them on how to best use the lab. And I stayed there very happily until I went to the COI

Speaker 5 1:20:20
tell me you were concentrating and then on documentary, did you? Did you have any contact with the feature side? No, because

Speaker 3 1:20:27
the the people who did, I would if I had contact with any features, which I did do through work, if I happen to hear that a production needed some special service, or I would always, I just pass it on to whoever was the man in case, who was dealing with the feature world, because we didn't overlap. There's no point in it. And when it came to the contractual side of feature work, I certainly had not got enough knowledge of the financial side of lab work, my financial thing was quite adequate to cope with documentary production, but it certainly wasn't good enough to cope with the wheeler dealering of competition between laboratories to get contracts and discounts for feature films. So I stayed right out of that. Were

Speaker 5 1:21:21
you satisfied with your results when your work at Kays?

Speaker 3 1:21:26
Oh, yes, entirely. It was an uphill job, because Kays was indeed becoming a much better lab. They had got new machinery. They had updated things like in those days, the Sikhi printer, wetgate printers, they'd made their service of a deal better. Their quality control was better. Their chemical control was better. Everything was getting better, and their deliverers were getting better. They were not telling nearly as many lies to customers as they did normally, because it used to be the one man who should be called Mr. X was fairly senior, was known as the films on the van, because whenever anybody rang to find out why their rushes hadn't a rider, and it was always on the van. And then, of course, the ship used to hit the fan. And then within two or three hours, the film was on the van. But it became, I mean, it was a standing joke. I mean, the case was, well, it was on the up and up. And I'm very pleased to say, while I was there, not just due to my efforts, but the lab certainly came out of the trough. And did get this, their quality and everything became infinitely better. And of course, they were beginning to get the share of the commercials market, which is, of course, in those days, a very critical one.

Speaker 5 1:22:47
I realized, as we as you started to answer that question, I should have asked you about your session at the coal board as a senior research tech, and exactly what kind of well,

Speaker 3 1:22:59
it involved. It was kitty will take that downstairs. What do you want to say? Sorry, no, Kitty will take that downstairs. I'm sorry about it. Sorry. No, it while I had come back from Africa, and had gone to act naturally trying to get a ticket, and failed dismally. And I was very unhappy on being unable to work in what I considered to be my own job, and I saw an investment in the Times saying that the National coward at their laboratory, their central research laboratory, needed an expert in all aspects of scientific Cinematography and scientific photography to set up a new photographic laboratory to be concerned purely with coward research, and gave a number which I rang, I got an application for and was summoned to be interviewed at Chelsea with the Central Research Establishment. And I was interviewed by Dr Bronowski, who was the head of the laboratory, and as luck would have it, we seemed to hit it off, and he realized that I had something to offer, and I was on the spot, offered the job to take over the or To set up this photograph laboratory at Cheltenham and I proceeded and from scratch, built up what I consider extremely good in house, specialized photographic service for them, which. Involved a lot of work on high speed cinematography, on basically on the design of cutting tools for coal machinery, plus a lot of work on the fracturing of coal, the way it reacts under stress and strain. Also a lot of very specialized photo micrography reflex. Talk about it got transmitted reflected light on, mostly on tungsten carbide tips metals, and also considering the structure of coal. And I was given absolutely free hand to get equipment high speed cinematography equipment, lighting equipment, microscopes, everything I needed. And set up this laboratory, and eventually had two of my own assistants there and then, when the laboratory enlarged and split, I changed, went under a new boss called Dr tight, who came from the Atomic Energy Research, to set up a new coal laboratory at what was in fact an old film studio to wit Wharton Hall at Isleworth, which had been taken over. So I came again from scratch and set up a brand new laboratory of a similar type, dealing with slightly different work. I did a certain amount of work on Dust born the measurement of dust in mines, and also a lot of work in high speed cinematography on the flow of fluid, flow of coal in fluids in pipes, which was a mess of transporting coal, crushing it underground, transferring it in pipes, things like that, gained very interesting work. And I stayed there, and would probably have stayed for the rest of my life, but I had a chance to work with the National coward Film Unit while I was there, and by dint of banging on a C T's doors, I did eventually persuade them that, since I was working with people, they're in a specialized capacity with an accredited act crude Film Unit, that would be good idea if I myself paid my dues and became a member, and I managed to get this thing through, despite an objection as an AGM when an old fellow called Harold hansco. It was unfortunate when my membership came up, he who would have opposed it bitterly, was asleep at the time. When he woke up, it had been passed that I had an act ticket, so I did, in fact, get in and had the pleasure of working with as an assistant, with Ken Gordon, a very famous act name, and act as I think it was in those days, and having served my time under Rule 13 or 10 or nine or whatever it is, where I was limited to both my grade and my department, etc, I did manage to get myself in the clear. And the moment that I was in the clear, I left the coward and went freelancing, which was then my start, really into an ordinary Commodore garden, working camera systems, come operator, come everything, and

Speaker 5 1:28:32
these, the high speed camera you were using at the coward. What kind of camera was that one?

Speaker 3 1:28:37
Well, it was two. I used one that was known as the it was made by doors instruments, high speed camera made by doors with a thing called the doors micro flash. And it was a very ingenious and very heavy camera, working at with a rotating prism. And it would work on a full frame or a half frame, up to something like 10,000 frames a second. And it worked on the principle, both on a rotating frame and as an illuminant. It had a flashing strobe light which was linked, which is the doors micro flash, which in theory, went down to a micro second flash. So you could have a millionth of a second exposure, which in those days was pretty good, you had to go into very, very secret and expensive equipment used on atomic bomb research and things like that, and used by the Admiralty research and people like that. Although I did work closely with the animal to research at Bucha. I met, I went down there they, they were using the same type of camera, so I liaise with them, but that was the main one. But also I developed and but at the time that I was leaving the cobalt, I was developing a new, brand new. Two camera which depended on crossed lenticular plates and a thing called a nip con disc, which worked at far higher speeds and would in fact give you on five by four glass plate, an image on one single plate, which you then had to analyze and reconstitute into a silly film, it would probably give you, I can't remember, maybe it was 50 frames or something like that, but you could synchronize this camera to give you speeds going into the mill, as opposed to the 1000s going into The millions of frames, but only over the total span of 1,000th of a second, or something like that, which case you then you would have your 50 images, whatever it may be, a millionth of a second, a nip, cough, disk. In fact, I went to Paris to pick up these plates because they were made. There was a firm who I think called themselves deep pictures. And if you remember, you probably still see them on funny postcards. There are things that you look at like a postcard, and as you shift your eye around, you see a stereoscopic image. Now, these were done by plates engraved on plastic or embossed on plastic, which enabled you on a single photograph, to get 20 or 30 images which you could only see by shifting your eye round the plate. But it was I helped to develop the system whereby you took two of these plates and you crossed them, and they would split up the images into a series of dots, which could only be seen when looked at at a certain angle. And this angle was determined by a spinning disk called nipkov disc, after, I think, a famous Russian physicist. And by spinning this disc in front of the plate, you could have on one plate, perhaps 50, I won't swear the exact number, but 50 sets of dots, each one that we reconstituted to give you a reasonably high image, a high definition image for the analysis of events that were of very, very short duration, such as, in this case, a piece of coal which under pressure of several tons would at a certain pressure, would crack and split. And the way coal split under pressure was of interest to the coal board because it would enable them to design tools for breaking up coal underground

Unknown Speaker 1:32:42
disk actually is, was the basis of the flying spot scanners

Speaker 3 1:32:47
of bad television. It is very much the same idea, but it had been developed by, as I say, I do not who know who Mr. Lipkoff was, but I suspect he was a Russian physicist.

Speaker 5 1:33:01
Now you from Kays. You went to COI.

Speaker 3 1:33:05
From Kays again. I went to COI because I had been when working at worldwide, long in my first real, what I call pucker job in the industry, we had an editor called Francis Coburn, who, by then, when I was working at Kays, had become the director of the films division at COI, and knew me from my days in worldwide and also wid met socially over the years, and she'd known of my involvement at Kay's because the COI had a very large contract, an exclusive contract, in fact, with the COI and K. And the COI were not best pleased with the results they were getting from K as the service and one thing another, and they badly needed somebody internally at the COI to be a liaison, a technical expert, to make to be a really charge of quality control from the point of their COI is filled up, and they recruited me. They rang me up at Kay's on a personal basis. Said, Look, come down and see us. And they said, We are shortly. This, I suppose, should not be said, but it will be said, Well, look, we are shortly, advertising a post as Senior Technical Officer in Charge of technical services. And we. Was marked by cards, it would be worth your while applying for it, and I was interviewed on one thing another, and my technical background was deemed adequate, and I applied and went in. Originally, I was on my own, and I later recruited another man called Maurice Draper from case was subsequently died, and we then took charge of all the Technical Liaison, the technical side, technical requirements of COI and my particular brief was all the work up to the up to the show, copy, state of a film, all the bulk distribution and the various other aspects were not in my hands, but all the getting of the image onto film, the troubleshooting advisory organization was mine, in addition to a staff of 29 of which were seven editors, seven assistant editors, and egg cutting and everything. So I had a all the cutting rooms. All came under my jurisdiction, but basic and also, of course, I had to advise on all the technical requirements, because the producers at COI were frequently inexperienced in the film business. They were. They'd come from various disciplines, but very few of them had come from the film business. So when they were setting up shoots for one another, they wanted camera member. They wanted technical facilities, special cameras, special lighting, specialized staff. I was there to advise them and liaise and liaise. But they act as a liaison between the COI, their administrative officer, who was responsible for booking crews, and the actual companies, platyburg and worldwide, and crystal films, all the companies that we use and the requirements of the CRI were filtered through me. So if they said, Well, what do we need as a package for daily rate things? I say, Well, you need a BL camera, plus a Niagara with so many mics. You'll need so many lights, the basic crew, so many lenses, certain filters, certain types of stock, certain allowance of stock, and all the reporting procedure from the labs, the evaluation of rushes. So if there's anything wrong, there would be an arbiter. I would say, Look, this has to be reshocked because this is not up to our standard. Or if the labs let us down, and there'd be a complaint we've been getting, all our rushes are coming out, the flavor of the week, which is bright olive green, or something like that. It was down to me to get to the lab. Or if sound transfers were wrong, if densities when soundtracks were wrong, if, in fact, any technical fault of any sort was under my jurisdiction, they referred to me and I would be asked to arbitrate, and if I said, and naturally, the labs knew being hated by guts because it was a case of a pocha Turner, Game keeper. They haven't worked there. When we had, I think I mentioned you'd have an answer, print, go back for correction, and then the same answer it would turn up in the bulks. I knew the tricks, and so any any trick that the labs, not only case, but the other labs, used, any tricks they got up to, were quickly scotched. And in fact, I was the complete liaison, and I would visit all the production companies, and if new camera men were required, or we, I was asked, well, so and so doesn't appear to be a very good cameraman. Do you think that company we could possibly, we could put the black on him and say, We don't, whenever we have a crew, we don't want Mr. X or we don't, I hate to say so sound men were the most difficult because documentary sound men were tended to blind you with science. But there's only one thing tells you is when I sit and I'm listening to the original quarter inch tape, I can tell you if that sound is there or not. There's no good them trying to tell me anything about sound. I mean, I'm not going to check the circuits of the darkness, but I do at least know when sound comes if that thing is under recorded. And I know, and I'm looking at those dials, I know on the transfer what they've got to do to bring that. I mean, they would try and fool me, so that when they had their transfers done from quarter inch, instead of being done level on a tone on a minus four dB totally. They say, Oh, well, couldn't we sort of FAD these a bit. We're afraid we've under recorded all these bits. We'll make it. Level it all out. And no, no, you don't level anything out. I want to know what's there. I'll make the decision as to whether we can get away with it in the dumping. But all the aspects of technology came under my jurisdiction at cy. Did you have equipment at all? Oh, yes. Well, you see, we had, I mean, sensitometers and these. Oh yes, you did, yes. Oh. Senators, no, I had to depend on going to labs using theirs or densestometers. Senators, naturally, the labs, densitometers. No, I didn't have, but any system metric tests or anything like that would be initiated by me, and we'd be, I would go out to the labs and check the orifice and go to Codex research or anywhere like that, and any sound stuff we could basically check because we had our own theaters and our own tele city and everything there. So basically anything on the sound side I could check internally. And we also had, of course, had the radio division, so I had access to their sound equipment there. So sound was no problem. Camera wise. I mean, I had to depend if there were any questions about lenses or being checked, or any sentiment work done, I would go to the laboratories or go out to the film laboratories themselves, go to act for go to Codex or and I luckily, through my having worked in Codex labs, I could pick up the phone and get an honest answer of added problems. I'd just get in the car and live out to Harrow and say, Look, got a problem here. Look. Or I'd say, Well, look, we've seen him getting on batch number so and so. Look, I just want to know, is this a Duff batch, or isn't it? I don't want any flem flam Look, do we put the black on batch number three, 974, or don't we? And if they say, Well, look, we have let it out. It's okay. But if I were you, Jeff, I'd look, just scrap that batch of stock that. And I mean, I had problems because I wanted to, for instance, buy all our stock in bulk, have it tested by me, and then issue it out to companies. But companies wanted to supply their own, because they obviously made more money on doing that. So I had certain I didn't win all my battles. You never do. But by and large, sir, I was fine. No troubles at all. I liked and thoroughly enjoyed

Speaker 5 1:42:00
it. Oh yes. It. Now, one thing you did say towards the end of our first session that you'd rather deplored the fact that the role of the camera operator was now being kind of brushed aside. Now is it? Is it market forces? Is it the new cameramen coming in? Perhaps don't have the confidence of of a crew?

Speaker 3 1:42:32
No, it is largely due to the there are two things. One is it's economic in that film producers and production managers think that it is an economy. If you're paying a camera for the operator x pounds, and you're having to put him up and pay his airfares to one another, and if you can calm the camera man into doing his own operating they think that it's an economy not to have one. And at one stage the Act had crewing levels. You had a minimum crew, and on a sound crew. On a feature film, you had an operator. That was it. There was no argument about it. And then you would have certain camera men who said, Oh, I much prefer doing my own operating. I like doing my own operating. And they would then, then the problem would come up against minimum crew. You had to have four on the crew. And they would then by talking, smooth, talking somebody, Mr. X or Y in Act would agree that you could put an extra body on, and he'd be paid a clapper loaders race and use as a rod, job man. But you got away without having an operator. You saved money, and the camera man had his way. And then foreign producers, various people, came in and said, Oh, I much prefer my cameraman to the operating I don't think it was a good thing, because I don't think the product improved, and it meant decreased efficiency and also decreased work for operators. That shouldn't be relevant. But I sincerely think that the the decline in the role of the operator is bad. I've seen it in American films where operator is is he is just hard hand. He's told what to do. But in my day and your day in British films, an operator was a very important person. He knew a lot of the directorial side. He may not have known he might have been the world's worst focus puller. He might well have been the world's worst cameraman, but he was the world's best operator because an operator. Can stay as an operator all his life. And there are operators to this day who will never become camera men, and there are fewer that have become camera but there are quite few who are more than happy to stay as operators because you have a very important role in the creative part of film making, because you work with the director the liaison and the rapport between an operator and a director can be very close, and operators frequently make good directors. They sometimes don't make good cameramen, as once again, cameraman often become rotten directors. They've been videos to mention any names, but it can. They can make good ones. But I do think that, as I say, My own feeling is very strong, and it's the feeling of many operators and many technicians in the film business, if I might, I will you keep the machine running? I may just have,

Speaker 5 1:46:00
yes, you run wrong. I

Unknown Speaker 1:46:33
um, Jeff, geez. Side four,

Speaker 3 1:46:35
yes, Jeff, now we were just talking about the role of the operator, and I think that certainly most of the older camera members of the camera department deplore the death of operating, because many I've observed over The last few years that a lot of the modern generation of camera technicians tend to go from camera system to camera mode without the intermediate state of operator, and very few of them work and work on a Moy head, on a geared head. They simply can't do it. And I was brought up working with people like Jeff see home, cease Cooney, oh, Dennis coupe, as you know, working as an assistant with operators, and having the chance when they went off to have a plea to get on handles and work on handles. And it is a very specialized art. And I know the very first time that I went as an operator to Brighton studios to do a commercial for one of the soap powders. I could have been bears, I don't know. And I was put on this crane with a camera with a 75 lens on a handle, and I had to do this thing. And I've never been so scared in my life, because it had not by then, it was not completely instinctive. By now, it's completely instinctive. I can point a camera without having to think which the weather handles turn, which is what an operator, course, should do. But it does take a long time, and I have seen people, many people who could operate on or a slip head or friction head, who will never in a million years become operators on handles. And nowadays it's quite common. See, certainly on television. I mean, to have things on handles is rare. It's only on real, what I call real pictures, you actually find genuine operators who can work and who could work with continuity and with the director, and they know how things are cutting together. They're working as a very it's a very specialized craft, not related to camera technology. No, it's related to editing and directing. Yes, the fact you're looking through a camera, you might just will not be looking through a camera. That's not important. That's just the mechanics of it. It's the knowing how shots will come together and what is needed to make a story that is operating. But as I say to me, it's I feel very strongly on the subject, as do many of us in the guild of British camera trainings. We deplore the fact that people now, with the connivance of Act, are bowing to the thing that if you want to save money, it's the same way as a sound man. Can you know you, you really do need a boom sprayer, and you need a blow to run out the cable, and you really do the maintenance, if you you know, on a big on a big feature. But of course, if you want to, you can one man, you can stick neck mics or radio mics on everybody and sit there with your Naga there and do the whole bloody thing yourself. But that's not to my mind. That is not a development. It's not a good way of going about film making. But this is. A matter of opinion. I express an opinion, but that is it.

Speaker 5 1:50:03
Now, the other thing, how do you feel about zoom the use of zoom lenses?

Speaker 3 1:50:11
Very simple. There are two things. One is that the actual picture quality of zoom lenses is approaching the quality of prime lenses, but to my mind, has not quite got there. Years ago. It was hopeless. It's now miles better. Secondly, the actual aperture of zoom lenses, again, is approaching the apertures of prime lenses, though you're not, of course, up to the high speed lens. But thirdly, the most important aspect is that if you go from a medium shot to a close up or anything with a zoom lens, the it never looks right, because you are all you're doing, the perspective is never changing. So it gives it is not as if you are walking towards somebody, because all that happens is the image size changes without the perspective. And no zoom can ever replace proper camera movement. There is a use for zoom lens, and it can be used two ways. One is it can be used in combination with camera movement, so that the deficiencies of the change perspective are not seen because you're changing the thing, you're changing the viewpoint at the same time as you're changing the scale, that's one thing, or it can be used as a variable prime, in other words, where time is of the essence, and you do not need extremely large apertures, you can Save a vast amount of time in lens changing by using it from setup to setup and really changing using a zoom, not as a zoom, but as a variable focused lens. That is, to my mind, a perfectly valid use of a zoom lens, but I do not like using a zoom as a trombone. When every shot has the man has to do this with a handle, and it goes in and out, and you simply cannot have a shot sitting still. You've got to have somebody fiddling with a zoom, either a zoom motor or Zoom handle or Zoom yes, they can have these various controls on it. I do not like them, although I recognize their value in certain types of production for quick wham bam. Thank you, ma'am. Television things where you're working at high speed and there are certain effects that you want. In other words, if you are sitting on the top a high tower, there's a man with a radio mic standing down in a courtyard, and you've opened the shop, there's this little man half a mile away, and suddenly, on a 10 to one or 20 to one zoom, you can go in to a close up of his head, still talking. Well, no way, other than with a helicopter, could you get that shot? Not I think the shot is often necessary, but you can get certain effects which are nowadays accepted, but to me, they jar on my nerves when I see this lens going in and out, this image going in and out in scale, it doesn't relate to human beings, human beings sitting and talking to each other. I can get up and walk around, the walk to a bookcase and turn around and look at you, and the camera could be doing that with a lens, and it would be, it would be, it would be as I would see it, yes, but the moment I start zoom with a lens, then the mind automatically says something wrong. Some time ago, it would have seemed as obviously wrong. Nowadays, people have got used to watching television. They've got used to certain types of film, and they will accept a lot of things that were not accepted 20 years ago because the eye has become used to them. It's a convention that you that you see a thing as seen through a zoom lens, but just thinking when I see a film made possibly by an old fashioned director or old fashioned camera, it is sometimes more trouble to do it by moving a camera or changing a lens, but I think the end result is more peaceful and more conducive to the. Good filmmaking, but that, again, everybody to their own taste.

Speaker 5 1:55:03
Well, again, I suppose really, you would probably agree then that the the the use of hand, you know, the hand held camera should be also be limited. A

Speaker 3 1:55:16
hand held camera is immensely useful, if in the ordinary it doesn't look like a handheld camera, like a wobbly scope, a camera, particularly using a thing like a paraglide or a Steadicam or one of these stabilization systems, enables you to do shots which would be impossible, or very nearly impossible to do with a camera on a crane or a dolly, then they are fine and used by a really good, steady camera operator, simply superb. But when you see the only time a hand held camera is valid is if it's meant to look like a handheld camera, if you've got a shot supposed to be a newsreel camera in Vietnam, or somebody in the middle of a riot, or something like that. Well, then you do not expect a camera to be dead steady and everything look as though it's beach hospital. Then that is a handheld camera giving the impression of a handheld camera. There's a reason for it, but unless that when that I don't I don't mind when I see a thing on the screen. If that picture, everything is cutting well together and everything the motion is smooth is meant to be smooth. I don't mind with the sense to Handel camera, how that camera is supported, but it's when it is badly used. And at one time, it just became a hallmark of cinema verite, or New Wave photography, or something like that, that you had to have everything wobbling about I don't, personally don't like it, but with the proviso, if it's used to create a shot that's meant to look like a hand held camera, or if it is put on a steady cam or paraglide mount, where it it is a help. It's something it's it's merely a tool to help you get your shot. Then fine. No trouble at all. But I detest wobbly scope and handheld the what I call New Wave things, where it to me, it is hard to watch. It's it detracts from the story. And you owe it once you're aware, once you're aware that it is a handheld camera, then forget it. It's bad if you're not aware of it, and this does happen, then it is fine. Yes,

Speaker 5 1:57:44
there was a period I remember in television documentaries as long as as long as it one would it must be good. Let's stop. Jeff, you know, I know you've worked as lighting camera in many fields. Would you like to give us a list of some of your credits? Well, I think

Speaker 3 1:58:04
what I might do, of all the ones, there's certain ones that stick out in one's mind that were either amusing or unusual or something like that, because having worked on so many films as second unit, camera man picking up shots here, day here and a day there. It all paid the rent. But on the other hand, I did manage quite a lot of ones that were types of things I did. I mean, just talk it pointed to put them in chronological order, but I did do two films for British Transport films, which, which I found were three, in fact, that were intriguing. One was called Sea speed story, which was, again, the story of the hovercraft, which I found visually and story interesting. Did that one gain that was with an old filmmaker, Rod Baxter, dead. Regrettably, I did another one for them, although many for them, I found it probably more for them than most people. I did one which, in theory, was extremely boring, which was known as the techniques of driving electric auto. Motives you cannot imagine on the title anything being more boring, but in actual fact, it won a prize BAFTA that year for the best instructional film, or something like that. But it fascinated me because the director was a man called Ken Fairburn. Oh, yes, who? I mentioned another director later on, he was one of the directors I adored, because I detest directors who do not know what they want to shoot. I. And Ken would start the day, and he would have his script, and he would know that he needed 43 shots or 23 or 27 and he would tell you what he wanted and ask you through any problems, lighting wise or camera wise. Let you get on with it. Direct them. And having done 2743 or 28 shots, would say, well, now we're going to have a bear. That was the end of the day. He didn't suddenly say, Well, I think we'd better have this or that or the other, just in case he knew what he wanted. And it was shed a light to work with a man who knew his subject, knew the limitations of the camera and the lights, though he was not himself, a camera man trusted you. And the end result was that we made a film in two, three, or whatever, weeks. It was all around the Midlands, things like that. That was technically efficient, astoundingly cheap in the point of use stock ratios, and was a classic example, really, of a well made film with a definite objective, yes, yes, that was one. The C suite story was, again, ingenious, and I made several of them, line maintenance and a whole lot of films transport. I also did another items of an entirely different type for the coward on one of their series called mining review was again a thing never seen by the general public, made in mining villages in Cumbria in Northumberland, dreadful places, black and white, of course, items for mining review, which, again, you can't really put in a CV. They're not they're never going to be seen. People say, have we seen your picture? You say, Well, no, many, many people may have seen it. They interested me. They interested the audience at the time. There were those I made lots of odd films in Ethiopia where all of which have died and they've been long since lost. When I was recording what was then an unknown country for the Ethiopian government, one was made on what was called religious tolerance. The joke is, of course, there is no religious tolerance in Ethiopia. When I was supposed to show that the Christian Church, the Muslims, the Jews, the falasha and people like that, all tolerated and encouraged in this modern democracy. Well, it was, it was impossible to make because the subject didn't exist. But I did manage to make a film with a lot of incredible religious festivals in Ethiopia and many other films in Ethiopia. Gain all lost. I did a similar thing for Liberia, again, an unknown country, and I made a film which was virtually the life of President tutman, which included trips to America, where he went to see his steel mines in Bethlehem in America, not Bethlehem Israel, because that is one of the major exports of Liberia. And of course, he had a great interest. So we went there, and also to United Nations and the White House, and one thing they went around America made a fascinating film of a man now dead, of a country that is now nobody knows anything about. But in both cases, the interesting story is that I needed to, at one stage, a year or two ago, to get copies of these films. So I went to the appropriate emphasis, and was told rather in an Orwellian way, they were never made, I said, but I made them. Ah, yes, but you see, that was in the period before the present regime, or before we got rid of Haile Selassie, and all traces of that period have been destroyed. Now it's a terrible, terrifying story that you hear of Russia and places where, shall we say, Stalin's name is obliterated from everything, or Trotsky his name, or his even his picture is taken out of still photographs. But you could have these two very interesting countries where I filmed as the part of the exclusive contract given to this American producer who was actually a CIA man to make these films, and that period of my life, which it represents, several years of work have been lost, not lost as films get lost because they're a nitrate film and they rotted, or because they've the copies have been destroyed for because the company is brought up and bought up a play. They don't want the original play on film to be they've destroyed all the original name these have just been lost by this strange bullet. A cool thing I made, also films in Ghana, again at the time when Nkrumah, just after independence, was the president of Ghana, President, and when I took over a film from George Noel, because George was out there as the official tour. And I went out there. He left Ghana at the time, and I went out Rosie's film and television to make films about the Ghana police and Ghana industry, directed by one, directed by both effect, directed by another famous British film director, famous, but not famous. Brown salt, the Goon, famous, well man, great expert on animation. I mean films again, about the Garner piece lost, but films that might survive, I went, I was phoned to make a film, phoned by a man at what was then TVA. I don't think they exist on television advertising. They were called, and they had gone just about to go broke or go to liquidation or something. But their Managing Director, whose name escapes, he was a man, if he wasn't a colonel, he was a general, or he was a man, fairly important man. But knowing nothing about films, had, on a social level, agreed to make a film for the Duke of Edinburgh's award scheme and the company, having gone bust,

Unknown Speaker 2:06:44
the

Speaker 3 2:06:47
I don't know it would be the production manager, something who knew me, anywhere where I had been working for TV air commercials, rang me up and said, Jeff, this being like a Tuesday, can you on Thursday? Go to the Gambia. I said, Yes, he'd, have you ever been there before? I said, Yes. Have you filmed it after? Yes. Do you mind just grabbing a camera and going on your own? No. So he said, Well, look, grab it. He said, Go to savage. Get a camera. Get 2000 feet of stock. He said, You're going to make a film. About the stone circles of cantor. Oh, yes, tell me more. He said, Well, the Duke of Edinburgh scheme are sending 417, 18 year old boys out on a scheme, and they're going to dig up this archeological thing. There's an archeologist from the University of lagon in Ghana, going, there's a man called Derek Evans, who is the late he was either the chief secretary or even the governor. He might have been the chief secretary of the Gambia going, in charge, because he's now working at the Ukraine. He's going. And there's a wonderful man called Sir Percy Wynn Harris. Says, Yes, I know him. He said, who used to be the governor of Kenya. He has a yacht on the river, on the on the Gambia River, and you're going out to for about a month with these boys to film their expedition. I said, Well, that's fine. How much do I get paid? Well, that was a bit of a hum, but I said, Okay, fine. And then he said, there's one little snag. What is the little snag? He said, Well, the last expedition that went out to dig up these stone circles, they all died within the year. He said, There's a curse on them, because you've been disturbing the graves and there's a curse on them. Do you worry? I said, Look, you ought to know me well enough. I don't believe it in this coward at all. So he said, but nevertheless, we'll have to get a you insured. That's why it's okay by me. So of course, they went to Lloyd and they had to have special insurance of this thing. In fact, I did go out. I did make the picture. It was shown. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has died as yet. And many stories could go around it. But it was interesting to find out that when we dug up, finally, dug up these stone circles, we went out at dawn. We thought it was a primitive stone hedge. And one thing another, it turned out that they were, in fact, not of very great antiquity. There were matters of 1000s rather than 10s of 1000s of years old. And they were burial places, in fact. And it is all very interesting, but made an interesting little film, which would be on record at the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme somewhere down there. I showed it to film schools and things like that. Okay, but all these are part of being the type of camera sort of person, films I am. These are sort of films that came my way that would never come the way of a standard feature or documentary camera I did a similar one again, having films in e theofa, not only filmed in the. Ethiopia, but also been there in the army and knew the country very well. I was phoned by by a well known gentleman called Tom Stobart, who are particularly round over it was no personal friend, yes, and he rang me up one day and said, Oh, I lie. I've got the story back to front a firm called Graphic films, Countryman films. Graham farp Lean Thor had been pestering me for a very long time to go to Ethiopia to make a film, but they were always putting it off and saying, Well, we haven't got the money, or we've had trouble with getting permits, or we've got something that the films not going to go. And I was very keen to go, so one day they rang me up and they said, Jeff, you're off to Ethiopia on Monday. And I said, Well, I have news for you. I'm not going to do this on Monday, because I'm going to Tripoli. I'm going on a feature film. You film. Oh, they said, This is dreadful. You've let us down. Right? Well, I'm very sorry if you'd be buggering me around for a year or so. I'm sorry. Can't help. Well, we've got to have somebody said, Well, look, I tell you what I've got, I've got a camera for you. I'm sure I can get him. He's just finished the Everest expedition. He's writing a book and huge, I know he's very interested in this sort of film. I'll give him a ring. So I rang Tom sto part. I said, Tom, can you get me out of trouble? Go to Ethiopia. Sure. No trouble. So I said, Well, ring Graham Tharp, Freddy pithar, who was the man who directed the laser theater, who's your going to be your director? And that's that. And left it. I went to Libya, came back, but I got back. The phone ring. Was that Tom Stovall? I said, Oh, Tom, you phone him from Addis? He says, No, I'm phoning from the Middlesex Hospital. What do you mean? Phone in the middle Yes, I suppose you spoke to an ether. He said, Well, didn't you hear I said, No. What? He said, Well, the driver, who was an interpreter attached to us from the foreign office in Ethiopia, went berserk. Took a 45 Colt, shot the driver, shot the other driver, shot the director in the chest, and then he shot me in the leg and the shoulder, and his last bullet hit a metal bottle opener in my pocket, he said, otherwise he had my balls off. And he said, I'm in hospital with all these bullets in me. I said, Oh dear. Oh dear. Anyway, he recovered, not entirely. Mark, you humans had this Gabby leg through the shooting, you see, and they caught the murderer, and he BECTU In jail. And that was the end of that, beginning of that story. But then months later, the phone rang, and it was Tom stobar, and he says, Jeff, I'm going to get my own back on you. I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, look, would you I want you to come to East Pakistan to make a film about man eating tigers. Okay, by me, so I want you to find an assistant. He said he was a zoologist. And so I went out and made a film called Tiger Trail, which was shown on BBC, which we spent three and a half months in the day in the forests of the Baghdad, what then became Bangladesh. We got caught up in the middle of the Bangladesh War, and finally escaped in samphams. I was the last person to get out across the river into India with our equipment. We were arrested by the Indians, and we got out. But the film was finished. We lost some rushes. We sent off with we had an Italian priest who was a sort of assistant director. He was captured by the Bangkok dishes, and we we think he was killed, but the rushes turned up three months later in London. We never know. They were pretty worried by that. But the film was made, and this is a film called Tiger trailers again, and it was shown on the BBC, and a book was written about it by Tom, okay, another film. I made films. I went out to South America to film, but I didn't know. I didn't finish that film that was only on my own women's expedition. I made a mess of small advertising, commercial documentary films. But they've all been not things basically, oh, they've been made for companies like Saab and caravans International, basically, documentary films. Oh, I made one for Shell, which is long film I again, went round the world to make a film called load on top, directed by Alan. It was a film about the way, or. Bill is dumped at sea by tankers. I went all around the world 27 weeks on tankers for shell games in the or in the shell library, and I made lots of films for people like CO I about clean milk and how you use your doctor. They're all very boring films, but they they all paid the rent, and in between that I'd be doing, operating on second units for feature films and quite a lot of those, and operating and on television series, like I did a mass of those ones at El st but they made really bad ones, like dial 999, Martin, Cain, private investigator, Mark, what's the one called something saber? I can't they made it the dancing Mark saber dancing

Speaker 3 2:15:54
Robin Hood, sort of freedom, all these ones. I mean, I made a lot of money, just operating on these on television, black and little black and white television series, working for such names to conjure with us, Harry Allen towers, the Danziger brothers and people like that, all the and Harold Bane was another one. I think I've worked again, strictly liable as I think I worked for every spiff producer of the British velvet but they were all perfectly all right. And they would ring you up and say, Jeff, I've got a few days on that film, so and so. You say, Yes, come on up to the office and see. When you go and see Harold Babe, you have a big cigar. You give me a big cigar. You say, Well, there's the camera. You have an old Newman secretary. There's the stock. You have a whole pile of short ends of 20 and 30 feet. You say, Well, you go off. You're going off to sometimes. What about the assistant? Oh, you know the sister. Look, you know, I'm sorry, Harold, hand on heart, but you know, you know a CT, I can't do it. I'm all right. Then, you see. And then he'd say, Well, of course. I mean, screw me, but he if you paid for he paid you. He always paid me, yes, but working with these people like Harold babe, and as I say, Harry Allen towers, the name but two of them, it was you were living on a knife edge all the time, but it was all experience, and working on television series you were doing, certainly the Austrian ones, you were doing two working on there were two crews, a studio crew and an exterior crew, and you were in and out, or you sort of chop and change. You do both, but you'd have two crews, and you'd make two pictures a week. You spend two days in the studio, two days out, and one day sort of changing over. You turn out a feature, you know, a half hour picture a week out of those things. But all that was good grist to the mill. And you managed to work you I mean, I worked with people in people who were directing those days, people like Jerry Anderson, who became the sky trick, whatever store was, he's a sky trade, Sky whatever it's called, Star Trek. Penny Richards used to direct them. Bernie Knowles used to direct them. Harold Lester used to direct them. Harold on that Harold Lester. Bloody name, Peter John Dick Lester. Dick Lester. Dick Lester, yes, yes. So I had the chance of working with lots and lots of cameramen, lots and lots of directors on the lower level features. But as I say, I've managed to keep going through the years and been all over the world at various places. As I say, forgotten about most of them,

Speaker 5 2:18:40
but which which of the, which of the directors you know in on the feature side. I mean, we'll take in television series in there, if you like, has impressed you the most. I

Speaker 3 2:19:03
I think strange enough that impressed me most as a as a film maker, a Powell, somebody who really was Otto Preminger and I went out, not funny enough, on the camera crew, on the publicity for on Exodus and seeing directors at work, I think Otto prabridge impressed me more than anybody. He was a man I happened to get on with, well, but ruthless, but a great man who, again, knew exactly what he wanted, and that is the one thing I value in directors I worked with, and again, this bit terrible to name them, certainly documentary, whereas worldwide, I'd work with directors who, when you thought you'd finish work, would then say, Ah, now they're uncertain. They'd want to shoot everything, five ways to cover themselves. And that, to me, is the mark to my mind

Unknown Speaker 2:20:06
directly,

Speaker 3 2:20:09
because I did work worldwide, a lot of films, because I was again, only act as an operator with the Ronnie Anscombe, the cameraman there, and working with their directors. Jimmy Hill was one now, and also I did, worked on two pictures for children's film federation with Henry Geddes, who was the was the dead the head. But I sort of those days have doubled up as sort of second year that came in an opera. One was called Eagle Rock, which was the one in the Lake District with, I doubled up the Johnny cock on that one. And also, I've done, oh, by the way, I've done quite a lot for American world of sport. Oh yes, I did there one in Scotland for them, and one which, these were metal worlds for. I don't think they even had titles. I did one in there, one Scotland, one in Africa for them, on the big game. And, oh gosh, what others were out there, out there, it suddenly starts coming back to you, all the ones you think through, sometimes you go through, you know, oh, bags of stills. Yes, remember, I've done that one. But also I could go over ours, but it's really no, as I say, my, I don't I'm not a bullshitter. I've been making claims. I just can only say, this is 1937, I have been working continuously on all aspects in the film business, doubling up on all these different jobs. And as such, I've enjoyed it, and it's enabled me to have a very wide knowledge of the film business, very wide knowledge of technology and things like that. And it means that nowadays I can go work on things from BKs and work for guild of British cameramen and worked on committee, because I happen to know the pattern can still be of some use, although with modern pop films, although I've rather lost my value as I mean, I can't go out and sort of do pop problems or anything like that. In fact, frankly, on features nowadays that the work is so small. Yes, that. And, you know, there's a handful of people worked on it, and so I've abandoned that. But anyway, it's all in the past. What the hell?

Unknown Speaker 2:22:34
Thank you, Steve. You

Biographical

Married to Kitty Marshall

Geoff Hermges

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