Terence Gallacher 1928 – 2014

Terence Michael Gallacher died on the 3rd October 2014, almost 69 years to the day he entered British Movietone News for the first time in 1945, he was eighty five.

Fashion Programme – “Style”

In April 1984, we were due to go to MIP in Cannes once again.  For some years, the company had gone to MIP, taken a display stand, but offered no additional product. All their customers already received the news service.  I had persuaded UPITN’S President, Kenneth Coyte, that we should go with something to sell.   I had pondered the problem for some time after the previous MIP.  I came to the conclusion that the missing programme should be concerned with fashions.  At that time, there was no regular programme concerning fashions among the major broadcasters in the world.  There were also few specialist women’s programmes that might include fashions.

Mrs Thatcher visits Foley Street

In the early eighties, UPITN, who had been housed within ITN House since 1969, moved round the corner into Foley Street where they had much more room.  I had been based in the building since 1979 as Head of Commercial Productions, where I had an office together with the accounts department of UPITN.  In 1982, the building was renovated and internally re-designed to take in the rest of the UPITN staff.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

I am not an expert on Weapons of Mass Destruction, but, over the years I have witnessed events that have given me an idea of what is possible in the detection of the building of such weapons.

Much of this information I have shared with millions of others, some have been particular to my work in making documentary films.

Colleagues: Sir Mohinder Dhillon

Having worked in the film and television industry for over fifty years, I realise that I have been privileged in having worked alongside some of the finest technicians the industry has produced.

I have worked with some of the best cameramen, great men, talented, dedicated men who would be embarrassed at reading the comments that I make.

Outstanding, even among these gentlemen, is Mohinder Dhillon, now Sir Mohinder Dhillon.

This is Your Life: 1969 – 1985

From 1969 to the first half of 1985, I handled almost all of the overseas shooting requirements for This is Your Life.  Thames Television always shot their United Kingdom excerpts using their own crews, but to shoot in many locations overseas would have been at a prohibitive cost.

From guest contributor Derek Evans: Visnews Part 2

It was on my return to London that I was approached by Benidict-Lindand a production company run by Ali Cameron who along with Tony Wall asked me to join them in setting up Network News London. It was 1982 and I became a director of the company along with Ceri Smith with experience in making documentaries and Lynne Osborne from Contact Middle East.  NNL the company offered camera crews, equipment, research and production and post production facilities to  London based foreign TV correspondents from the smaller companies that did not have their own set-up in the U.K.  It was during the Falklands War that round-the-clock editing was provided for Venezuelan correspondent Richard Izzara who went on to win several awards due to his imaginative reporting from London on the war by using graphics made by Cedric O’Reilly on the Flair system as pictures from the war zone had yet to be received.

From guest contributor Derek Evans: Visnews Part 1

In 1971 I received a telephone call from Fred Tucker Head of Film at Southern Television asking me to contact Peter Marshall, News Editor at Visnews as it may be of interest. After several interviews I was appointed Chief Film Editor – News Division. My responsibilities included the management of a team of film editors working on a shift basis, day and night, seven days a week and for the professional standards of cutting room output. It was to be a challenging and rewarding period working in a changing environment for nearly twenty years.

A Case of Cities UPITN

In the early eighties, I came up with an idea concerning stock footage to be offered to our clients.  Even in 1983, broadcasters were short of up-to-date stock material of locations around the world.

The scheme was, additionally, to show what we were capable of.  To show that with, by now, our line up of top class cinematographers, based around the world, we could bring in quality film pictures from around the world.  I thought that it might boost the client list of UPITN Productions, I settled upon providing clients with a collection of stock material, recently shot, on the main cities of the world.  These would be provided in a specially built case or container which would enable the material to be handy for an editing room to use quickly.

King Khaled State Visit to London, Paris & Madrid 1981

In June 1981, King Khaled made a State Visit to London. I, as Head Of Commercial Productions at UPITN, was asked to produce a documentary film on the visit as well as providing daily video coverage for satellite transmission to Riyadh.

The itinerary was such that I had to find nine cine cameramen and nine video cameramen.