Coventry Cathedral BBC interview

Today Friday, 25th May 2012 is the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration of the new part of St Michael’s Cathedral, designed by Sir Basil Spence, which forms part of Coventry Cathedral.

I have already written an article on filming the consecration of Coventry Cathedral.  Click here to read the article.

Newsreels In A Hurry

Newsreels have always been in a hurry to get their stories processed, edited, scored and on the screen.

Sometimes, great ingenuity was brought in to play to ensure the success of these requirements.

Jordan 1974 part 2 – tales of Lawrence

This is the second in series of articles about my trip to Jordan in 1974 to advise Jordan Television. Click here to read Part 1.

George, who was the Head of News at Jordan TV, took me off to lunch to meet Hassan Dal Lal, our local freelance cameraman.  We lunched in the open air in western Amman.

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.

“Filming for Analysis” article 1974

The following article was originally published in “The Photographic Journal” for the Royal Photographic Society in January 1974:

The use of film for analytical purposes is becoming increasingly appreciated in a variety of situations.  Terry Gallacher, who has been producing films for many years, explains how the technique he has developed can be applied in the realm of sport.

Colleagues: John Davies – Movietone

John Davies was a British Movietone News cameraman from 1955 to 1960.  He was born in Deri, South Wales in 1915.

His family later moved to London. His first job, in 1930, was with the G.P.O. as a telegram delivery boy. He later joined Kay Film Laboratories in the negative developing and film drying room. In those days, Kays shared the building at 22, Soho Square with British Movietone News.

Foreign language versions

At the end of the Second World War, much of the world was in turmoil.  Before the War, Movietone had been distributed, like the other newsreels, around the world.  It was advertised that Movietone was produced in 57 languages.  These would have been produced out of five centres around the world. Some of the recipient countries had, previously, been able to re-record their own language version of the sound track.

Cameraman tales: Richard Graff

In December 1964, I was asked to go to Frankfurt and Bremen to supervise a commercial we were shooting for Interflora in the United States.  The gist of the film was that Interflora were taking orders from relatives, in the U.S., of American servicemen stationed in Germany.  The orders were for a single plant, the Poinsettia, a plant that was completely unknown to me at that time.

The Cutting Room

A few weeks ago we started a website called “The Cutting Room“, it’s a collection of websites, articles and video clips relevant to documentary film making, newsreels, television and in particular the people behind the camera.

Colleagues: Ian Grant – Movietone

Ian Grant came to British Movietone News in 1962, he was my colleague until I left the company in 1964.  We remained friends until he died in 1981.  Ian James Grant was born in Edinburgh in 1917 and was called up for military service in 1940, initially spending two and a half years with the Royal Scots as a Lance-Corporal.  He saw action in Northern France shortly after his conscription and was at Dunkirk in June 1940.