A Blast from the Past

My intertest in film-making goes back about sixty years. It includes not only making movies but being a small sponsor of the National Film School in Beaconsfield: being invited down to Pinewood as a guest of Reg Berkshire of Eon Films (producers of the 007 films) to see around the lot and watch Roger Moore during a shoot. And of course I managed London cinemas for a while in the days when we diod our own promotional stuff and had the stars along to entertain audiences. Fabulous times.
Just thought these photos would make you smile! Probably taken around 1969 in Tottenham, North London where I started making short films with a local group.

When I say started

that's not strictly true, for I remember taking my father's Pathe 9.5 wind up camera when I was about 8 years and making a very short film with a couple of mates in Birmingham. We borrowed some of our sisters tartan skirts and we did a fighting (of course) scene in the style of Rob Roy with wooden swords. The projector was hand cranked so if you didn't wind the handle at a regular speed the picture was all over the place.But that's another story. I can vividly remember that we had a couple of Disney black and white cartoons.There was hardly any TV in those days so this was really novel. In fact only one family owned a TV in the road I lived in!! But more of that on my personal blog coming soon.

But coming back to this photo, I can clearly remember how difficult it was. There was no computer trickery. Lighting had to be perfect. Sound was very tricky. But we made some good little movies. I think in this photo I was directing and you can see I was setting up the shot so the lighting could be arranged. These old lights burnt very hot and had a short life. The camera. from memory and looking at the photo was a 16mm Bolex, although it might have been 8mm. I did use 16mm for some movies but it was expensive film stock. Editing was easier.

Sticking short lengths of film together when editing was a strain on the eyes and could be very tedious. If you made a mistake or damaged some film that was often lost forever whilst today with video you can edit but you still retain the original. As for tricks I can see a short scene a friend made where he had a ghost. He had wound the film back by hand to the place he hoped he needed to re-film and took another scene. He could have used a 45 degree mirror but he wanted to see how well he could do it in-camera. I think he re-took the scene about 15 times.

Meanwhile, the Doll is coming along nicely. Carli, our Director, is up to speed with her planning. So fingers crossed.