Cameraman tales: George Fleischmann

How often have you heard someone tell you a story which starts with the phrase “you are not going to believe this…” ?

Well, you are not going to believe this:

The period : The Second World War.

Cameraman tales: Ernie Christie

Kenneth Warr’s task was to find freelance cameraman able and willing to work for UPMT in their own countries.

When he reached Johannesburg, he met up with Ernie Christie.  Christie had been a competent still photographer working on news stories.

Cameraman tales: Alec Tozer: Italian prisoner of war

It is possible that all of my Cameraman’s Tales are apocryphal, but they were told to me directly or indirectly by the cameramen themselves.

Be that as it may, Alec Tozer, a Movietone sound cameraman was in “the thick of it” during the Second World War.

Cameraman tales: Paul Wyand

In 1928, Paul Wyand was working as a cameraman for Fox Movietone of New York. He was based in London.  He was cabled with some outrageous demands to obtain pictures that were virtually unobtainable.  He gives one example “Vital we have pix of Prince of Wales wearing kilt with close-up of knees”.

However, he did receive one demand that he thought he might be able to obtain.

Cameraman tales: Anon at Rediffusion

Sir Francis Chichester arrived in Plymouth on May 28th 1967, in his yacht, Gypsy Moth IV, after completing his epic single-handed voyage around the world.

He crossed the finishing line at 8.58 in the evening, nine months and one day after setting off from the historic port. Sir Francis was the first person to race around the world, solo, with only one port of call, and that was Sydney.

Cameraman tales: Peter Purvis: Coca Cola

Like a number of film cameramen who made a name for themselves in Australian Television, Peter Purvis started off as a press photographer.  He worked for the “Herald-Sun” group.

He told me the story of how he would go on location, shoot his pictures and then take them back to the office.  There he would go into the dark room where he would develop his negative and then print out his “proofs”.

Cameraman tales: Della Valle, the Pope & a close shave

Vittorio Della Valle was based in his native Rome.  He had been a cameraman with Fox Movietonews prior to joining United Press International Television.   His location meant that he would become a frequent visitor to the Vatican and, more often that not, be filming in close proximity to the Pope.   He became well known to Pope Paul VI.

Cameraman tales: Claude Meskens – out of focus

During our coverage of the 1968 Grand Prix at Francorchamps an interesting incident took place. While we were “walking the course” on the morning of the race, I met Claude Meskens who was our local freelance cameraman.  Claude was not part of my crew because I thought he would be there for the news service.

He told me that he had been “stood down” as freelance cameraman.  This was most odd since he had been the freelance cameraman in Belgium for some years.  His work was held in high esteem. He explained that he had trouble with his camera.  I asked him to explain the problem.

Cameraman tales: Jim Godfrey “The King and I”

In October 1962, Movietonews were commissioned by the Central Office of Information to film the State Visit of King Olav to Scotland.  After the two-day official visit, King Olav went to Dumfries to attend a lunch.

For the State Visit, we had six cameramen on duty, but for the unofficial visit, we were restricted to two.

Here King Olav was the guest at the luncheon at a great hall. Lunch was hosted by the Scottish-Norwegian Society. There were three hundred guests and we had a nice camera position on one side of the hall, about thirty feet from the head table.

Cameraman tales: Keith Medley – telephone bar

Some time after Keith Medley had taken over from Jimmy Humphries as Movietone’s cameraman for the north-west, he rang me to say that there was an interesting story to be shot in Liverpool.  In a bar/restaurant, they had introduced a mechanical method of ordering drinks.  Each table was provided with a telephone handset.  There was also an accompanying list of drinks available and for each drink a number was allocated.  The customer, sitting at the table could “dial” the number of the drinks they wanted and this would come up at the bar.  The waiter/waitress would make up the order and deliver it to the table.