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Experimental Film Making … Break the Machine by Kathryn Ramey, a review by the Editor

05 Nov

When I first saw this book I thought that it wouldn’t be my cup of tea, I’m not really into ‘experimental’ – that was until I started reading it! What an excellent way this is to teach young people the creative qualities of film. So many training facilities deal only in ‘digital’ and treat actual ‘film’ as an almost extinct poor relation.

I’m a bit old-fashioned in that I love film, real film – and, although I very much appreciate the boundless options which ‘digital’ offers, both in production and post-production, I worry that young people entering the business today haven’t been tutored in the fine art of using actual film stock. Not only does film require a creative mind, it needs the user to have an understanding of light, how it affects colour and how it can be used to best advantage, how chemicals react and inter-react and, even more important, how versatile the whole process is once you get the hang of how to use it. Film is a tactile, physical element – and the techniques you can learn from using film will carry through and make you a much better and more creative film and programme maker whatever medium you choose to work in. The author takes the reader through all the stages – from using footage which has already been shot and discarded to show how to create your own ‘collage’ film by deconstructing methods like cutting, scratching, colouring and then gluing back together. The clever thing is that each chapter is almost a stand-alone tutorial. If you know nothing about film processing or optical printing, you will by the time you read the appropriate sections. I love the diversity of this book. Have you ever thought about making your own microphone, speaker or headphones? You will once you’ve read Chapter 4! All in all, every educator of young people in the media business and every creative person, young or old, should have this book – hugely informative and, for any student hoping to make a career in production, great fun to read and put into practice – enjoy!

By the way, I’m not on commission from the Author!! 

Experimental Film Making … Break the Machine by Kathryn Ramey

 
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Posted by on November 5, 2015 in Cinematography, Feature Film Production, Uncategorized

 

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GIVE THEM A BREAK! … an Editor’s Thought

24 Feb
Wendy Laybourn - Editor

Wendy Laybourn – Editor

From time to time I’m asked to speak to young people about the realities of working in production. Although many won’t make it into the business, there are always the few passionate and talented individuals whose determination to succeed deserves a helping hand. So, if you’re involved in a production, why not make an effort to include at least one or two of these young people, even if it’s just for a few days. You may very well be disappointed – but it’s more likely that you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Everyone in the industry is very aware that there isn’t enough well-trained ‘new blood’ coming into production – and we all know that the colleges, universities and specialist schools can only go so far in the training process and that ‘on-the-job’ training is the most important aspect – but if the students, trainees and apprentices can’t get a ‘job’ how are they going to learn their skills and keep the reputation of British craftsmen and women at the forefront of the global film industry.

So, Producers, Directors and Heads of Department – take a chance and give these eager young people a break!

 
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Posted by on February 24, 2015 in Editor's Thoughts, Uncategorized

 

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HOW I GOT INTO SOUND POST-PRODUCTION … by Ben Simpson

03 Feb

My response to the question: “Oh that’s Sound Post-Production … what got you into that then?” – by Ben Simpson

It wasn’t so much that I was incapable of doing the work at A Level, it was more that I wasn’t in the right state of mind to make a good job of it. I know I can’t be the only one to ever feel this way – too much time spent being talked at rather than to. I suppose the insipid teaching is partly responsible. After I came out with two AS levels in Law and Psychology and an A level in Drama, I felt my time in education was over and so I went into full time work.

The monotonous tedium of jumping from job to job got old all too quickly and all I knew was that I wanted to be involved in music, creating it, producing it and making it sound like the tracks I’d admired for so long. I decided that now was the best time to ‘follow my dreams’ (kind of) so I enrolled in a BTEC course in Music Technology. Three tutors in particular were very encouraging and kept pushing my limits, which I loved because it gave me a challenge that high school never could. It was the best experience I’d ever had in education – apart from Reception because you could just mess around in the sand pit all day; you do that now and people think you’re odd.

It was during this course that I did my first post-production module and knew that I’d found what it was I wanted to do with my life. It had never occurred to me before that sound should be recorded separately from where the film was shot. It sounds silly to me now obviously, but not many people will believe you when you tell them that, for example, 98% of the sounds in ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ were created entirely separate from the filming. Foley and composition were the main parts of post-production that stood out for me. I got to write music and also create some natural effects with weird and wonderful techniques, such as kicking a bin in various ways with different things in it to create the sound of an exploding tank. It’s all about layers – like an ogre.

From here I managed to convince an award-winning director to let me compose some music for his short film ‘Grotto’. By this time the film was already picture locked and so I asked if he would give me a few days to compose something to it and if he didn’t like it, then at least he would know he made the right decision. From what I can gather, it is now being made into a feature length film, which is awesome. I wasn’t as confident with Foley back then as I am now and so I didn’t dare apply for that role too and potentially ruin it! Though with hindsight (being 20/20), it would have been well worth just trying to get involved in it somehow because although I wouldn’t have been able to contribute all that much, I might have been able to help now and again and would have learned a lot. Sometimes though, you want to make a splash when you do something for the first time instead of just wading in slowly from the shallow end and have everyone think you can’t do full lengths of butterfly. My plan was to get good behind closed doors, then kick it down like ironman with the sound effects to boot!

I worked so hard at college that I got the best possible grades, showing me at least, that not all intelligence is measured in academia, and the value of a person in society should not be forever coupled to the measure of how well they could regurgitate what they were told as a teenager. As Albert Einstein said, “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on how well it can climb a tree, it’ll go through it’s whole life thinking it’s an idiot.”

I chose to go on to University to do a Music Production BA, knowing I could specialise in post-production, and doing so for my second year as well as for my final year project. I have been taking every opportunity, which has lead me to talking to some of the top Foley artists in the industry for advice and insight, get advice from seasoned professionals by the sheer luck of going into the right church just to ask if I could record some Foley in there for the ambience, be the composer for a excellent final year film project for the Leeds Beckett Film School, be a Foley artist for a TV series pilot that is currently – at the time this is written – filming, record the Leeds Symphony Orchestra and write this article – all alongside my work for my final year. To get the composition job I used my old trick of “give me a few days and I’ll send you something over, I know I can deliver what you’re wanting.” This time it wasn’t picture locked so I couldn’t sync the music to the picture, I just had to capture the feel of the whole thing by reading the script over and over and listening to what the director and producer were saying they wanted. It works, for me, like an inverted mind map. The centre is the goal and I have to use my knowledge surrounding it to get there, as opposed to expanding outward endlessly.

University – although ‘expensive’ – has been one of the best ways to get to know people in the industry, so that’s the route I’ve gone. I was the antipode of a typical student, I think I went out ‘on the town’, so to speak, only once. To be honest though, I really dislike drinking, being deafened by endless dubstep and ‘dancing’ around sweaty drunken strangers anyway, so it worked out for the best!

However, I believe that because I’ve worked hard it has given me confidence in my abilities. I can demonstrate and discuss what I do and why I do it, meaning when I apply for positions and opportunities, I do so more positively and with more equanimity. That is one of the most important lessons I have learnt from University. The grade is mostly in the justification. If you can’t justify why you’ve done something creative then it can be confusing, but if you can, then it becomes more understandable and shows off your creativity in the light you intended. Think of all that modern art – an unmade bed was one I believe, as was a light switch and a bin full of make-up – it’s how it was justified that made it artistic.

The way of the creative industries is that no one is “the best”. Ask a group of people who is the best actor is and I’d wager it’ll be a while before you get a repeated answer … unless it’s the morning after the Oscars when “Best Actor” has just been awarded – but again, that’s the opinion of a certain group of people – and why would their opinion change yours? What I’m trying to say by bringing up subjectivity and justification is that I’ve found that you can have sound coming from a spaceship whilst in space, you can have elephants shaking the ground with their steps and you can have longbows creaking when arrows are drawn, as long as it makes sense with the film.
I am confident that – with this work ethic – I can continue to be part of wonderful projects, each of them improving my knowledge and making me more and more pleased to have dropped out of work to go after what made me happy. So I tinker around on a piano making nice sounds for brilliantly creative films and it seems my journey through education has come full circle, because ironically enough, I spend a large number of my days messing around in sand pits after all … and I don’t care if people think I’m odd, I love it!

The author's self-portrait

The author’s self-portrait

 
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Posted by on February 3, 2015 in Sound Department, Uncategorized

 

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BEING A JUNIOR COLOURIST … by Aurora Shannon

04 Aug

I found going from Assistant to Junior Colourist very difficult as there was no set path. The leap from assisting on big films to grading is huge, at least 15 years of experience sat between myself and the colourists I had been assisting. I had already sort of taught myself how to grade, by watching the colourists, working through the manual, playing with the tools and grading shorts in my own time.

Aurora Shannon

Aurora Shannon

I first discovered filmmaking during a summer course where I wrote and directed a 16mm short called ‘Noise’. I had just left school with little idea of what I wanted to do except for a general sense of creativity and this inspired me to study BTEC ND Media Moving Image at Lewisham College and BA(Hon) Broadcast Post-Production at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication, as well as joining a number of young people’s filmmaking groups and courses, where I continued to experiment with filmmaking and animation throughout my studies.

The transition to post-production came very naturally to me, as I found the seemingly limitless possibilities of digital tools incredibly creative. During my time at Ravensbourne where I was, in effect, training to be an editor, I discovered colour grading on an old Avid Symphony. There were only a few basic tools – saturation, brightness and so on – but seeing how they could transform an image was inspiring and, after discovering how to key and change a colour on Quantel I, was transfixed.

Half way through my last year I decided to focus solely on colour grading and spent my work experience unit at Soho Images, as it was the only facility in London to have a laboratory for processing film, a telecine for grading rushes and digital intermediate for grading features, all in one location.

I worked as a Runner but spent as much time as I could sitting with the Features Colourist Rob Pizzey, just watching what he did and asking the occasional question. He seemed to be impressed by these questions and he asked me to stay on, so I was offered a four day a week Runner position in the digital intermediate department – which is now known as Company 3 London. I did this job throughout the last term of university and so, by the time I graduated, I had already stopped being a Runner and was Assisting in scanning and recording.

'Quantum of Solace' (2008), the first film I assisted on with colourists Stephan Nakamura and Rob Pizzey

‘Quantum of Solace’ (2008), the first film I assisted on with Colourists Stephan Nakamura and Rob Pizzey

A few months later I was asked to assist Stephan Nakamura, a Colourist from Company 3 LA, who came to London to grade ‘Quantum of Solace’, although in reality it was the other way round with him very patiently teaching me how to colourtrace and do other basic tasks! After that project ended I carried on as Digital Intermediate Assistant and had the privilege to assist some of the best Colourists in the business, Rob Pizzey, Adam Glasman, Stefan Sonnenfeld, Stephan Nakamura and Mitch Paulson, on over 70 features.

 

'Act of Memory: A Christmas Story ' (2011), the first short that I graded with director Jack Ryder
‘Act of Memory: A Christmas Story ‘ (2011), the first short that I graded with Director Jack Ryder

 

One of the most embarrassing things that happened while I was assisting and still learning the basics of grading, was when I was asked to do a grading test with a cinematographer I really admire, as the Colourist was unavailable. I was reassured that he would just tell me what he wanted me to do and it would be very simple – but every time he asked me to do something like ‘move the highlight towards magenta’ it would go the other way, the exact opposite – until he eventually gave up on the session. I then found out that there are two modes on the system, the Da Vinci Resolve – rank and vector. I was accustomed to using vector as it’s the default but the Colourist had his project set to rank, meaning that everything is the opposite like on the older systems – so I now double check before I begin!

'Arthur Christmas' (2011), the first film that I operated the 3D convergence for with stereographer Corey Turner

‘Arthur Christmas’ (2011), the first film that I operated the 3D convergence for with Stereographer Corey Turner

My proudest moments have always been when I’ve really pushed myself, which happens to some extent on every project I grade. The best yet was asking one of our clients if I could grade the short she was editing, when I hadn’t yet done any – and then watching it on Sky Arts with my family on Christmas Day – which was pretty special and extremely rewarding as it kick-started me into grading my own projects.

'Wonderful Pistachos- Get Crackin’ (2012), the first commercial I graded in affiliation with Frankenweenie

‘Wonderful Pistachos- Get Crackin’ (2012), the first commercial I graded in affiliation with Frankenweenie

A disappointing occasion was when I was approached to grade a really great documentary after the director saw some of my work, but I was unable to meet their deadline and had to pass it up and it went on to win an extraordinary number of awards – but then really surprising things can happen too, I met a friend of a friend at a pub and went on to grade both of his shorts and will be grading his first feature later in the year.

I found going from Assistant to Junior Colourist very difficult as there was no set path. The leap from assisting on big films to grading is huge, at least 15 years of experience sat between myself and the colourists I had been assisting. I had already sort of taught myself how to grade, by watching the colourists, working through the manual, playing with the tools and grading shorts in my own time.

'Snow White and the Huntsman' (2012), the first film I graded all the visual effect backplates for under the guidance of colourist Adam Glasman

‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ (2012), the first film I graded all the visual effect backplates for under the guidance of Colourist Adam Glasman

As my colleagues saw me doing this they began to give me little bits of work – or I asked and sometimes got a ‘yes’ – so slowly my confidence and their trust in my ability built up over the course of about three years until I was doing the video grades, trailers and affiliated commercials, cut changes, new shots and scenes, ‘outsourced’ shots with complicated grades, visual effect backplates and providing additional grading hours on big projects.

'Dead Cat' (released 2013), the first feature I graded in a lead role with Director Stefan Georgiou and Director of Photography Jun Keung Cheung

‘Dead Cat’ (released 2013), the first feature I graded in a lead role with Director Stefan Georgiou and Director of Photography Jun Keung Cheung

Eventually, as clients responded well and I demonstrated that I was ready to take on ‘proper’ work, I was promoted to Junior Colourist. The work is similar to what I did before but the grading side, which of course I enjoy the most, has increased significantly, along with the prestige of the projects that I get to lead on.

So, my advice to anyone wanting to make a career in post-production is to do as much work experience as possible whilst at university so you can find out exactly which aspect you want to pursue – be persistent, learn from your mistakes and, above all, be patient – there’s a lot to learn and there are no short cuts!

'Rush' (2013), the first film I graded the video deliverables for with Director of Photography Anthony Dod Mantle - and also provided additional grading for the main version and the trailers

‘Rush’ (2013), the first film I graded the video deliverables for with Director of Photography Anthony Dod Mantle – and also provided additional grading for the main version and the trailers

Aurora Shannon, Junior Colourist at Company 3 London

Aurora Shannon’s film credits include: Jack Ryan; The Counselor; Captain Phillips; Rush; World War Z; Les Miserables; Skyfall; Frankenweenie; Anna Karenina; Snow White & The Huntsman; Wrath of the Titans; The Woman in Black; The Iron Lady; The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; The Inbetweeners Movie; The Decoy Bride; Paul; Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time; Nanny McPhee Returns; Green Zone. Television credits: The Gruffalo; The Promise; The Special Relationship.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3381741/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

 
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Posted by on August 4, 2013 in Post Production, stereography, Visual Effects

 

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THE MAGIC OF MATTES AND MINIATURES by Leigh Took

09 May

On a location driven film when is it a waterfall and when is it a working model? When is a backdrop real and when is it a matte? This is the magic created by the skill and craft of the model and miniature effects workshop.

Leigh preparing a matte up an 80’ tower on the 1975 film ‘Last Days of Pompeii’ in Pinewood Studios

Leigh preparing a matte up an 80’ tower on the 1975 film ‘Last Days of Pompeii’ in Pinewood Studios

When I reflect on the last thirty years and how I arrived at this point in my career, the key drive has been a philosophy of enthusiasm and positivity – a strong and continuing motivation to work in film and an optimism that the British Film Industry (and in parallel, my own career) will continue to be successful whatever obstructions are thrown in the way.

Ever since I can remember I have had a keen interest in art (as I grew older this interest refined to painting, design and sculpture) and, of course, film. I was very fortunate to secure work experience at Pinewood Studios where I was able to marry my two great loves – art and film. Cliff Culley, who ran a matte painting company there, was impressed with the artwork I had taken to show him and employed me, along with four other teenagers. At that time, matte painting on glass was a very specialized thing with only a handful of people in the UK doing it, all of whom had ‘come up through the ranks’.

I decided to make myself indispensable to Cliff, managing to help out in every way I could, from making the tea to making sure there was always a clean palette and brushes for Cliff every day that he came in to paint. I became an apprentice and, as with any apprenticeship, the wages weren’t great – but without that initial opportunity I doubt I would be where I am today. Amongst the first films I worked on as a trainee were ‘Warlords of Atlantis’ in 1978 and the Ray Harryhausen film, ‘Clash of the Titans’ in 1981, combining matte work with building miniature sets.

clash of the Titans

‘Clash of the Titans’

Slowly, I got to do more drawing-up or delineation of shots, blocking in colours, steadily taking on more responsibility, until I reached the point where I could complete a shot from beginning to end, with Cliff adding a few dots and dashes to my work… after all, he was the boss!  When we weren’t so busy, I’d use any spare time I had to improve my abilities in storyboarding, designing fictitious sets, developing imaginative solutions, and ways of achieving in-camera effects and optical processes in film and multiple exposures – always bearing in mind the real world of business … budget limitations! All this was done before the introduction of ‘digital’ and it was essential to be flexible and imaginative enough to come up with new techniques for achieving the effects that were needed.As my responsibilities increased and I was completing matte paintings myself, I learned not only how necessary it was to put 150% into every job, but also to handle comments from clients – whether good or bad!  That feedback would always result in me wanting to do even better in the future – and I think that’s another thing that helps keep me going today, the desire to impress … basically, showing off!

Mutant Chronicles

Mutant Chronicles

Mutant Chronicles

Mutant Chronicles

After then working for several years with the master of special effects, Derek Meddings, on films such as ‘Batman’, I started my own company, Mattes & Miniatures, and embraced digital technology. We are fully functional with a matte studio and model and special effects workshops which allow us to combine traditional film techniques with digital post production.

After 30 years, the drive hasn’t diminished and I still feel just as excited when I’m involved in big films as I did as a teenager. After meeting Terry Gilliam on ‘The Imaginarium of  Doctor Parnassus’, I went completely mad for a few days, locking myself in the studio at Bray experimenting! Over the years I’ve built up a collection of equipment there – cameras, motion control, lights – everything needed to get creative! Ultimately we went on to build miniatures from his designs and had a fantastic time shooting them.

Angels & Demons model as seen on screen

Angels & Demons model as seen on screen

 

Angels & Demons model on set

Angels & Demons model on set

 

 

 

 

When bidding on a film, we are usually sent pre-visuals and storyboards, sections of script and a list of requirements. The fun starts with working out the best method of constructing a miniature – what it has to do, what scale to build it to – together with a breakdown of labour costs and materials. After the production has weighed up the methodology and costs, we wait for the go-ahead and, on receipt of a purchase order, invoice and, most importantly, money in the bank, it’s ‘all systems go’! Materials are ordered and technicians employed. Art Department drawings are provided in some cases and we are in constant contact with the director throughout the production. Terry Gilliam, as you might imagine, had a very clear vision in mind and so it was key to have his constant feedback as we were building the miniatures, as sometimes things that look OK on the drawing-board need to be modified once made as a 3D model (and of course everyone has to be clear of the budget ramifications of any changes to original specs).

Other times, particularly on lower-budget productions, rather than starting everything at the same time we design and make on the go, showing designs to directors and perhaps discussing ways to make models by ‘recycling’ things already around the Aladdin’s Cave that is the Mattes & Miniatures workshop in Bray. This was our approach on ‘Mutant Chronicles’.

Leigh Took and the finished model

Leigh Took and the finished model

Working on the model for Mutant Chronicles

Working on the model for Mutant Chronicles

Why bother to make miniatures at all? Why not just create the whole thing in CGI? Well – miniatures offer the opportunity to have a three-dimensional artifact which can be viewed by the camera lens as ‘real’ – and the model can be taken outside – there is no comparison to using actual daylight with a backdrop of trees and landscape in perspective with moving cloud patterns.

I hope these  highlights from my journey, together with a potted description of how I approach jobs, will be helpful to those similarly driven – those with a ‘lust for film’. At the end of my career, which I don’t envisage coming for a good 20 years or so yet (!), nothing would please me more than to have the feeling that, through my own work, I have encouraged and helped others to pursue the career of their dreams and be successful in doing so.

Leigh Took’s film credits include: Bohpal – 2013, The Wolfman – 2010, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – 2009, Angels & Demons – 2009, Inkheart – 2008, Mutant Chronicles – 2008, Stardust – 2007, Highlander, The Source – 2007, The DaVinci Code – 2006, The Descent – 2005, Ella Enchanted – 2004, Guest House Paradiso – 1999, Lost in Space – 1998, The Neverending Story II – 1990, The Rainbow Thief – 1990, Batman – 1989, The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen – 1988, Hawk the Slayer – 1980. Television credits include: The First Men in the Moon – 2010, Band of Brothers – 2001, The 10th Kingdom – 2000.

SOME USEFUL VISUAL PROCESSES:

FORCED PERSPECTIVE is a technique developed not only for miniatures but in the construction of full-size film sets – for example, in a street scene, the buildings will start to condense towards the end of the road and perhaps a ramp will be used to create a false horizon (readers take note of the comments on the Supergirl set in Terry Ackland-Snow’s article) It is a natural follow-on that this technique is used in building miniatures which means that a quite large landscape can be fitted into a condensed layered form so that, from the camera’s point of view, it looks like the real thing. The camera position might need to be locked off in a particular position but it gives an opportunity to create depth of field in a miniature.

LATENT IMAGING is an invisible image produced by the physical or chemical effects of light on the individual crystals (usually silver halide) of photographic emulsions; the development process makes the image visible, in the negative. Shoot a plate (a locked off shot of a landscape, say) then mask off the top half of the matte box on the front of the camera so you only expose half of the film. Take a small piece of that film to be processed then project that piece of film through the camera onto a piece of glass, then draw off the shot and extend it up and incorporate it with whatever is needed in the shot – eg castle or distant landscape or sky. Work on the matte painting and scrape away the bottom where the negative was projecting the plate footage, combining a painting with an unprocessed negative to create a final shot.

FRONT PROJECTION – tiny reflective glass beads, which are an integral part of cinema projection screens, are used in front projection material. The actor (or subject) performs in front of the reflective screen with a movie camera pointing straight at him. In front of the camera is a beam-splitter – a one-way mirror angled at 45 degrees. At 90 degrees to the camera is a projector which casts a faint image of the background on to the one-way mirror which reflects the image onto the performer and the screen; the image is too faint to appear on the actor but shows up clearly on the screen. In this way, the actor becomes his own matte. The combined image is transmitted through the one-way mirror and recorded by the camera.

To see more of Leigh Took’s work, check out Mattes & Miniatures Visual Effects Ltd www.mattesandminiatures.co.uk

 
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Posted by on May 9, 2013 in Art Department, Cinematography, Special Effects

 

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THE EARLY DAYS OF NEWSREELS by Kenneth Gordon – from an 1950s lecture in London.

13 Mar
Kenneth Gordon 1890-1969

Kenneth Gordon 1890-1969

Ken Gordon 1890-1969 was employed on lighting duties in 1904 by Films Limited at their show at Hengler’s Circus in London and was soon working as a projectionist both there and at the Earls Court Exhibition.

Gordon wanted to become a civil engineer and studied electrical engineering whilst working as a stills photographer with Bolak’s Press Agency. He afterwards became a press photographer on the Daily Mirror and, in 1908, covered the stadium events at the London Olympic Games.

After a number of provincial jobs returned to London in 1911 to work in the laboratories at Gaumont, making the transition from press photography to newsreel work. He was the replacement for Brooks-Carrington and his first major assignment as cameraman was at the Coronation of King George V in June 1911.

In 1944 Gordon also covered the liberation of Paris and was instrumental in organising the Association of Cine Technicians (ACT), in conjunction with George Elvin. In September 1944 the ACT reached an agreement with the Newsreel Association over staff wages and the employment of ‘learners’, for which Elvin and Gordon received the credit.

German surrender on Luneberg Heath 1945

German surrender on Luneberg Heath 1945

In May 1945 Gordon filmed the German surrender on Luneberg Heath and the first demobilization of British troops in Belgium. After the war he spent six months in Germany, filming both the occupation and the war crimes trials – including the Belsen trial in September 1945, where he worked alongside Ian Struthers of Paramount. He also provided film for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953. Gordon officially retired in 1955, but was still filming for Pathé News in 1965.

Now read on……

Gordon 2

Queen Victoria in Dublin – 1898

The filming by Robert W Paul of the Derby in 1896 may be described as the first newsreel. This was followed the next year by the record of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The story of the late René Bull, the great war artist, building a rostrum of bamboo poles in order to film the charge of the Dervishes in the Battle of Omdurman – and the London Times’ report of filming the action in Crete in 1897 by the war correspondent, F Villiers, constitute the first coverage of war news.

The First Newsreel – The first regular news coverage was by the Biograph Company, an American firm which established laboratories in Great Windmill Street in London. Each subject was only 160ft in length and a single frame measured 2¾ins by 2ins – this will give some idea how short the subjects were.

In 1898 A J West inaugurated his combination of news and interest films of the Royal Navy which, for so many years ran in the West End of London under the title of ‘Our Navy’. Shortly afterwards came the era of Charles Urban, Will Barker and W Jeapes. Their firms – the Warwick Trading Company and later the Charles Urban Trading Company – dealt mainly in one-reel news events such as the Grand National, the Derby and the Boat Race.

A number of new firms were started to cover the great news events. Cecil Hepworth, whose pioneering work did so much for British film production, came into the picture. WS Barker founded the Autoscope Company and WC McDowell and A Bloomfield, two members of the Biograph Company, started British & Colonial Films. Each of these firms covered news as well as story pictures.

The Biograph cameramen, WKL Dickson and J Rosenthal, covered the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War. During the Boer War the two photographers carried their very heavy camera – which perforated the stock at the same time as the film was exposed – in a bullock cart!

Newsreel Equipment – Later came the newsreels as we know them today. Pathé Gazette was at first filmed here and then processed in Paris. It has been stated that the Gaumont Graphic followed only a few days later. Shortly after came the Warwick Chronicle (founded in 1903 by Charles Urban), Topical Budget (founded by Jeapes and W Wrench, the projector engineer), the Williamson News and the Éclair Journal. All produced two issues weekly at 2½d per ft (much less than a current 1p!)

The cameras used were hand-cranked – Pathé used their French model with outside boxes, Gaumont use the Prestwich (an English model) also with outside boxes. Moys, Williamsons and Éclairs were also used. Later, Topical Budget used Debries, and Warwick started using the first automatic Proszinski Aeroscope. This was run by compressed air and the first models were fitted with a gyroscope to keep them steady when hand-held.

The Provincial Cinematograph Theatres, whose cinemas were amongst the first to be built as such in England, had darkrooms in their main theatres. Local films were taken, processed in the local cinema and shown the same night.

The Prince of Wales Carnarvon 1911

The Prince of Wales
Carnarvon 1911

Speed of Production – About this time Charles Urban introduced the Kinemacolor and William Friese-Green was experimenting with a process known as Biocolor. King Edward’s funeral and the Coronation of King George V gave a great incentive to the newsreel producers. Many production records were broken with the laboratories working day and night. One of these speed records was made by Gaumont Graphic – they filmed the Investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarvon. On the pilot engine of the Royal Train were coupled a pair of large milk vans – these were turned into travelling darkrooms. The negative was developed, dried and rough cut – and a print was made on the way to London. As we sped along, every time we crossed any points the developer, hypo and washing water would splash over and cover us. The developer was so low when we developed the print that it did not cover the frame – but the movement of the train saved the day – and the resulting film, nearly 1,000ft in length, was shown the same night at the Electric Theatre in Marble Arch. The negative was re-washed before further prints were made.

News in Colour – It was the colour version of this film, made by Charles Urban, that put newsreels in the big money class. Kinemacolor was made on a black and white print, using rotating filters both in the camera and in the projector, therefore it was able to be processed in the same manner as black and white. The colour film ran for a long while at the Scala Theatre and many other key theatres throughout the world.

Charles Urban and Biocolor had some difficulties with patents. The costs of the resulting law suits rendered them both bankrupt. Gaumont brought out Chronochrome which stopped during the First World War.

About this time I had my first assignment in Turkey. This was during the Balkan War. My apparatus was an inside-box Prestwich camera fitted with 3in and 6in lenses.

The First World War – During the First World War the newsreel firms banded together and formed the War Office Film Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir William Jury. This enabled cameramen to work to a common purpose. One of them, JB McDowell, won the MC and the OBE for his work on the battlefield.

The Government bought up Topical Budget and ran it as an Official War News. I joined them after the war and went to Russia as a war cameraman. Jeapes re-purchased Topical from the Government and attracted the attention of many newspaper owners.

After this I went to Ireland to get some shots of the internal strife prevailing. The resulting films attracted bottles of ink when shown in the cinemas – some people even used my films of the Black and Tans for target practice with revolvers!

Still from WWII footage

Still from WWII footage

Newsreel War – In England at this time a newsreel war was developing. The main cause of trouble was the granting of exclusive rights of the various sporting events –  the Grand National was an example of this. This was the end of the ‘closed season’ for unemployed cameramen – all who could stand were certain of work, either as a ‘pirate’ with all expenses paid, or in the official party. One stranger, a ‘pirate’, was looking around for a position – I carried his gear, installed him and left him quite contented – but ignorant of the fact that I had left a ‘minder’ with him to see that no film was taken!

At the last Cup Final at Stamford Bridge, the flats at one end of the pitch was the position of one Pathé camera. This had been spotted by Topical Budget, who had exclusive rights to this match, as was intended. Topical planned to fly a balloon in front of the camera with a banner hanging from it in an attempt to stop us ‘pirates’. They did as they had planned but we had another camera already in place which was put to good use, much to the consternation of Topical. This was the time the Debrie ‘Sept’ automatic camera was introduced – it would run only 15ft of film. I managed to get shots of the King inspecting the teams, a fair coverage of the game and, by good fortune, the only goal – which was a penalty. Every roll was taken back to the office by messenger as soon as it was ready.

Exclusive Rights – Then Gaumont entered the war, buying up all the rights they could, some of which they shared with Movietone. Pathé lost the rights to the Grand National by being outbid and we had to become ‘pirates’ at this fixture. Pathé used scaffold towers and fights took place around these, although they were outside the racecourse. The towers were built at the last minute – on our stand were Jock Gemmell, with his range of long focus lenses and myself, with the slow-motion camera. Then the fight was on! Our opponents got hold of the rope which we used to lift our gear and started to pull the tower over. Just as this 60ft tower was about to topple over someone cut the rope and we just managed to get our cameras lined up – the race had started – then we were attacked for a second time. Fireworks were fired in front of the cameras, which frightened the horses causing the favourite, Golden Miller, to fall in front of our slow-motion camera.

That season’s cricket test matches brought out balloons, heavy netting and many other tricks to stop filming. The balloons were punctured by airgun fire and the pictures stolen!

Later the Newsreel Association was formed and agreement reached on the conditions of exclusive rights. By competitive bidding the price demanded for the exclusive film rights had risen out of all proportion to the earning capacity of newsreels.

Footnote – An unnamed radio & television presenter, in his thanks to the lecturer said ‘….there is still a tremendous vigour and enthusiasm in the newsreel business and, wherever and however the film industry develops, the newsreel men will be right out there in front. Newsreels were there to see the twentieth century in and will still be in the picture when we see the century out….’ 

 
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Posted by on March 13, 2013 in Cinematography, How It All Began

 

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Film Production Technique …. from a talk given by Alfred Hitchcock in 1948

27 Nov

Alfred Hitchcock 1899-1980

The filming of each picture is a problem in itself. The solution to such a problem is an individual thing, not the application of a mass solution to all problems. Film production methods of yesterday may seem out of date today and yet, tomorrow’s problem may be best solved by using yesterday’s methods. The first rule of direction must be flexibility.

Nothing should be permitted to interfere with the story. The making of a picture is nothing but the telling of a story and the story – it goes without saying – must be a good one. I do not try to put on to the screen what is called ‘a slice of life’ because people can get all the slices of life they want out of the cinema. On the other hand, total fantasy is not wanted because people desire to connect themselves with what they see on the screen.

Those are all the restrictions I would place on the story. It must be believable and yet not ordinary. It must be dramatic and yet lifelike.

Having decided upon our story, we must next develop our characters and the plot. When that is done, are we ready to go on to the floor? I maintain we are not because our picture is going to need editing and cutting – and the time for this work is before shooting. The cuts should be made in the script itself, before a camera turns and not in the film after the cameras have stopped turning.

Script Cutting

My objection to the more conventional method of cutting is twofold. First of all, it is wasteful. The tragedy of the actor whose entire part ends on the cutting-room floor is not entirely a personal one. His salary, the sets he acted in and the film on which his acting was recorded all represent expenditure.

More important, if each scene is filmed as a separate entity out of sequence, the director is forced to concentrate on each scene as a scene. There is the a danger that one such scene may be given too great a prominence in direction and acting and its relation to the remaining scenes in the picture will be out of balance, or again, that it may have been given insufficient value and, when the scene becomes part of the whole, the film will be lacking in something.

The ‘extra shots’ made after the regular schedule is completed are necessitated because, in the shooting of scenes, story points were missed. The extra expository shots are generally identified by an audience for what they are – artificial devices to cover what had been overlooked in the preparation of the film.

How can this be avoided? I think it can best be avoided if a shooting script is edited before the shooting starts. In this way, nothing extra is shot and, most important, story points will be made naturally within the action itself.

If we do not edit before we shoot, we may be faced in the cutting room with one of the most difficult of editorial problems – the unexplained lapse of time. The passage of time may be essential to the plot but it may not have been made clear in the sequences that have been shot. There was a time – long since passed – when one would simply have photographed the words ‘one week later’ in transparency and caused them to appear on the screen in mid-air during the second scene.

The lapse of time can easily be indicated by the simple method of shooting one scene as a day scene and the next as a night scene – or one scene with leaves on the trees and the next one with snow on the ground. These are obvious examples but they serve to point to the need for script editing before production commences.

Camera Movement

Ingrid Bergmann and Cary Grant in ‘Notorious’ – 1946

A director tries never to go on the floor without a complete shooting script but, for one reason or another, one often has to start with what is really an incomplete script. The most glaring omission in the conventional script, I believe, is camera movement.  The director may decide on the floor how he is going to film a sequence – but I maintain that the time for such a decision is in the preparation of the script.

Here we encounter once again the fact that the tendency today is to shoot scenes and sequences and not to shoot pictures. The angle from which a scene is to be shot ought to flow logically from the preceding shot and it ought to be so designed that it will fit smoothly into whatever follows it. Actually, if all the shooting is planned and incorporated into the script, one will never think about shooting a scene but merely about shooting a picture of which the scene in question is a part.

Shooting in Sequence

The object of these remarks is to emphasize that I favour shooting pictures in sequence. The film is seen in sequence by an audience and the nearer a director gets to an audience’s point of view, the more easily he will be able to satisfy the audience. The satisfaction of an audience has been deprecated as an aim of picture making and I think that is a very grave mistake. There has been a tendency to sneer at audiences, to regard them as a tasteless mass to whose ignorance phenomenal concessions must be made by producers and directors.

Why is this? One reason is that a director hears comments about his work constantly and these comments come, for the most part, from people associated with the industry. It is laudable to seek the applause and approbation of one’s co-workers but, once one begins making pictures for their satisfaction, it is only a short step to condemning lay audiences for their lack of appreciation of cinema craft.

This is a dangerous point of view. Of course, it is a fine thing to make a picture whose technique excites admiration from people who indeed understand technique – but these are not the people who pay the costs of production!

Audience Groups

A picture-maker need not try to please everyone. It is important to decide at what audience one is aiming and then to keep one’s eye on that target. It is obviously uneconomic to shoot for a small audience and a motion picture costing some hundreds of thousands of pound, which has taken the efforts of perhaps one or two hundred men, cannot direct its appeal towards people with a special knowledge of film-making or to a certain section of the community.

To approach a cinema audience with contempt invites contempt in response. The great playwrights, Barrie and Pinero for example, rendered more than lip service in their respect for their audiences. They wrote every line with a conciousness that it was designed to entertain adult human beings and every line they wrote shows it. By the reasoning of those who maintain that intelligent drama cannot obtain a mass audience, their plays should all have been artistic successes and financial failures – but we know that they were well received, that many of them were terrific hits and we should profit by that knowledge.

Filming Technique 

I turn now to the actual techniques of picture-making. I have a liking, for instance, for a roving camera because I believe, as do many other directors, that a moving picture should really move. I have definite ideas about the use of cuts and fade-outs which, improperly handled, can remind the audience of the unreality of our medium and take them away from the plot – but those are personal prejudices of mine. I do not try to bend the plot to fit technique – I adapt technique to the plot. A particular camera angle may give a cameraman, or even a director, a particularly satisfying effect but, dramatically, is it the best way of telling whatever part of the story it is trying to tell? If not, it should not be used.

The motion picture is not an arena for the display of techniques. An audience is never going to think ‘what magnificent work with the boom!’ or ‘that dolly is very nicely handled!’  The audience is mainly focussed on what the characters on the screen are doing – and it is a director’s job to keep the audience interested in that. Technique which attracts the audience’s attention is poor technique. The mark of a good technique is that it is unnoticed.

On the set of ‘Rope’ in1948 – the first colour film for Hitchcock

Maintaining Interest

Even within a single picture techniques should vary, although the overall method of handling the story, the style, must remain constant. It is, for instance, obvious that audience concentration is higher at the beginning of a picture than at the end. The act of sitting in one place must eventually induce a certain lassitude. In order that this lassitude should not be translated into boredom or impatience, it is often necessary to accelerate the progress of the story towards the end – particularly of a long picture. This means more action and less dialogue or, if dialogue is essential, speeches ought to be short, a little louder and more forceful that they would be if the same scene were played earlier in the picture.

It is sometimes necessary to encourage artistes to overact!  Of course, it takes a certain amount of tact to induce a good actor to do so and this is another argument in favour of shooting pictures more or less in sequence because, once one has edged an actor into overacting it is, sadly enough, entirely impossible to edge him back again!

Direction is, of course, a matter of decisions. The important thing is that the director should make his decisions when the need for them arises and operate with as few rules as possible.

Alfred Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899, in Leytonstone, London – the son of greengrocers William & Emma Hitchcock. After graduating from the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a cable company. During this period, he became intrigued by photography and started working in film production in 1921 in London as a title-card designer for the London branch of what would later become Paramount Pictures.

In 1920, he received a full-time position at the then American-owned Islington Studios and their British successor, Gainsborough Pictures, designing the titles for silent movies. His rise from title designer to film director took five years and, by the end of the 1930’s, Hitchcock had become one of the most famous film-makers in England. Alfred Hitchcock made in excess of eighty films and several television series

 

 
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Posted by on November 27, 2012 in How It All Began

 

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Motion Picture Photography

03 May

Motion Picture Photography, from a lecture in 1949 by Freddie Young OBE BSC

You have to consider the relation of the cameraman to the director. Some directors are technically wise and help the cameraman sympathetically with his difficulties by arranging action so that it was possible to light speedily, or possibly arranging for a cut in order to avoid an otherwise complicated lighting problem. Nevertheless, the director must have the final decision, since the ultimate responsibility for success or failure of the film rested with him and all the technicians – even the stars – must bow to his judgement.

An experienced lighting cameraman will have learned ways of saving time and will not be experimenting in the same way as a beginner – but he must be careful to avoid turning out stereotyped photography, without artistry or meaning.

Not every picture gives the cameraman the opportunity to show artistic ability. Often he is put on his mettle to demonstrate his speed of working and yet is still required to produce a photographically acceptable picture.

Natural Lighting

Some cameramen strive for naturalistic lighting, the light appearing always to come from a correct source. Others seem to ignore this requirement and allow the light to fall from any direction, providing only that the general effect is satisfactory. I prefer natural lighting so that, when shots are edited, there is a feeling of smoothness and correctness over the entire sequence.

However, this requirement introduces a number of problems. A star often looks better with the key light directly in front and not at all satisfactory with cross-lighting – compromises are often necessary. Front key lighting is flattering to most faces but it can be uninteresting to see an entire picture with the principal characters lit from the direct front, regardless of where the scene is located or the time of day. Some producers maintain that it is necessary only that the stars should look attractive but good lighting is noticed, even if only subconsciously, by the audience.

Questions of mood and atmosphere must not be ignored. Such factors help to make a scene convincing and to maintain a sense of reality with which no film can be considered an artistic success.

Black and White vs Colour

In lighting for black-and-white photography one seeks to obtain a stereoscopic effect by a separation of the planes of the subject, so giving an impression of depth and roundness. A frequent method of producing this illusion is by the use of back-lighting. However, it is not always correct to have light emanating from the back of the set and the use of back-lighting has, in the past, been overdone.

There is an infinite variety of methods of securing contrast in light and shade. A patch of light on a wall will throw into sharp relief a dark mass of furniture standing in front of it. A cunningly placed shadow makes the perfect background for a light object. The cooperation of the art director is valuable in the careful selection of colours and in avoiding placing dark objects one in front of another.

Colour photography is, in some respects, less exacting as colours will separate from each other naturally – one would obviously avoid having a navy-blue dress in front of navy-blue drapes. All such factors will be appreciated by a trained artist and it would be an excellent thing if every cameraman had some art training in order that he might appreciate the laws of perspective and of light and shade.

Light Sources

Just as it is necessary for an artist to have a variety of paints and brushes of all sizes, so must a cameraman have lights of all shapes and sizes. Powerful lights for the broad strokes and smaller lights for the fine detail. Every light has to be controlled and spill or leak light must be kept from illuminating the shadows. All the units must have their barndoors, diffusers or ‘goboes’

Lighting in a low key, such as moonlight or firelight, calls for great skill and judgement. It is easy to under-expose and so lose contrasts. It is desirable to have somewhere in the picture one highlighted point – moonlight, a street lamp, firelight or even a streak of light under a door. Reflectors must be used to give a soft radiance without any definite light source – but as a general rule there should be one highlight in the picture and one area of deep black.

The Light Meter

A light meter is used to obtain a consistent density throughout the film. The negative is developed by sensitometric control and only a small latitude is allowable for incorrect exposure. If the laboratory were to be able to work to a constant gamma and obtain a fixed density throughout the entire negative, the cameraman is compelled to use a light meter.

It would be foolish to try to judge by eye a quantity that could be indisputably measured by means of a light meter. On the other hand, the cameraman must never allow the meter to become his master but must use it as a servant to assist him technically to accomplish the final artistic achievement.

For interiors I prefer to work at low light levels and a wide lens aperture, which more closely approximates the characteristics of the human eye. This also lends reality to practical lights used on the set, such as candlelight, oil lamps or electric lamps of low wattage which, if a high key lighting were used, would be unnaturally dimmed.

Problems of Movement

In cinematography, an entirely different set of problems is presented from those of still photography. The motion picture cameraman has to allow for the movement of his characters. If, for instance, an actor moves towards the key light, the brilliance might increase from perhaps 100 footcandles and serious over-exposure would result. Dimmers must be provided to control the intensity of light throughout the scene. The dimmer controls must be checked by the cameraman with the aid of a light meter.

Shooting in the artificial rain on ‘So Well Remembered’ – 1947 in Denham Studios starring Sir John Mills and directed by Edward Dymytryk.

Examples of quite different looks were screened for the audience. In ‘Goodbye Mr Chips’ made in 1938, there is a mellow atmosphere associated with a traditional English school. In contrast, the ’49th Parallel’ made in 1941, has an atmosphere almost documentary in style. It was photographed during the early stages of the War, most of the exteriors being taken in Canada – these exteriors set the key which had to be matched in the shots taken in a British studio.  The 1947 film ‘So Well Remembered’ was set in a town in the North of England and, to create the atmosphere of squalor, artificial rain was freely used.

 

Some of the comments from the Q&A session following the lecture:

Q: What do you think of the use of the t-scale compared with the old f-value?

A: f-calibration is not definite enough and great errors have been found between different lenses whose f value marking is the same. The new method of calibrating lenses by transmission values will, I’m sure, be welcomed by all cameramen. Difference in aperture can still be due to play in the iris of the diaphragm.

Q: Can you expound on a simple formula for high-key and low-key lighting in footcandles?

A: If the director wants great depth I might set my lens stop at f5.6 and use 300 footcandles, whereas in the low-key set I would work at f2.8 with 80 footcandles, depending on the colour of the set – that’s a most important factor. For a high key of light, the ordinary fair face with normal makeup would demand 100 footcandles at f3. If you wanted the face in a dingy light you could work down to 50 or 60 footcandles at f3. 

Freddie Young (1902-1998)

Building a set at the Shepherd’s Bush Studios. At the Debrie camera are Freddie Young (left) and St. Aubyn Brown

 

Freddie Young entered the film industry in the silent era and, in 1917 he started working at Shepherd’s Bush, gaining his first credit as assistant cameraman on ‘Rob Roy’ directed by  W.P. Kellino in 1922.  By 1928 he was chief cameraman and, in 1929 Herbert Wilcox, largely ignorant of the technical aspects of film craft, placed Freddie under contract to his company British and Dominions, leading to his first solo credit in 1930. Any visual flair in Wilcox’s films of the 1930’s was allegedly due to Young’s inventiveness and technical skill. his first use of Technicolor was in one reel of Wilcox’s ‘Victoria the Great’ in 1937.

He worked from 1922 to 1985 on more than 130 feature films and several television productions. His many awards include an OBE in 1970 and Oscars for ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – 1963, ‘Doctor Zhivago’ – 1966 and ‘Ryan’s Daughter’ – 1971, as well as the ASC International Award, a BAFTA Academy Fellowship, four BSC Best Cinematography Awards and a Golden Globe in 1963. 

He invented  the process of pre-exposing colour film (pre-fogging) to mute the colours, giving the ability to alter the look of colour photography to suit the subject. This was first used on ‘The Deadly Affair’ directed by Sydney Lumet in 1966 and was the first British cinematographer to film in Cinemascope.

 
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Posted by on May 3, 2012 in How It All Began

 

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The Sound Editor

03 Apr

Eddy Joseph using his trusty DAR work station on ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone’

After more than 40 years in the Film Industry and 30 years as a Supervising Sound Editor, I have learnt this – if you want to make the Film Industry your career, talk to as many professionals as you can, always display keenness, never be late, never complain about having to work ridiculous hours, learn the basics before you even try to get a job, be humble (you may think that you can do the job better but don’t forget they already HAVE the job) and, above all, learn to make a good cup of tea! Best job in the world!

This is from an article published in Network Nine News written by Eddy Joseph – if you want to subscribe to the magazine contact info@network-nine.com or go to the www.network-nine.com ‘Publications’ page

I left school at 17 with a smattering of ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels but no interest in further education. It was thought that, as I was good at mathematics, I would make an acceptable accountant! After less that two years commuting to London and wearing a suit, I left and wandered – somewhat aimlessly – making pork pies, injecting plastic lipstick cases, training as a clerk for the Inland Revenue (oh, the stories I could tell – but I signed the Official Secrets Act!), delivering for the Victoria Wine Company and studying for an HND in Business Studies (didn’t finish that either)

Eventually my Dad, film producer Teddy Joseph, said in exasperation, ‘What DO you want to do?’ Now, I have to say that I had also failed as a singer/songwriter, although I had appeared with Tom and Jerry (later to become Simon and Garfunkel) in a Folk club in Chesham, so my artistic ambitions were severely dimmed. ‘Wouldn’t mind getting into the film industry Dad, like you’.

In June 1967 I was employed as Production Runner on ‘Salt and Pepper’ at Shepperton Studios at £12 a week plus overtime plus holiday credits. It was BRILLIANT! Only problem was, what to do when the shooting was over? A friend I had made in the Shepperton Bar (where else?) called Peter Keen – incidentally a superb sound editor – told me that there was a 2nd assistant picture editor’s job going at MGM Studios in Borehamwood with Archie Ludski and David Grimsdale on Ivan Foxwell’s ‘Decline and Fall of a Birdwatcher’. I turned up not having much clue what a 2nd assistant did but, knowing that I wanted to work in the film industry more than anything else, it was a stepping stone. Whilst hanging around the cutting rooms and reading the script a union organiser (ACTT then, BECTU now) knocked on the door and asked to see my ‘ticket’ (Union card). So by lunchtime on the first day of my new job I was ushered out of the studios. The rule  then was ‘you couldn’t get a ticket without a job but you couldn’t get a job without a ticket!’

Another friend I had made at Shepperton told me that Illustra Films, a successful commercials company in Soho, were looking for a trainee assistant editor and, by training in the cutting rooms, I would eventually get my ‘ticket’. Illustra didn’t need a trainee but they did need a bookkeeper! I agreed to sort out their books provided that, when an opening arose in the editing department, I would move across. After a couple of months this happened. I was trained up to assist, to cut Sunday Times commercials, to run around Soho and generally have a great time.  A year later I got my ticket, forgot about working on the production side and got a call from John Taylor, a music editor on a TV series at Pinewood Studios called ‘Strange Report’, telling me that they needed a 2nd assistant picture editor. On that series I worked with a wonderful man,  Keith Palmer, who later took me as his assistant on both picture and sound projects.

In 1974 I assisted Leslie Hodgson on ‘The Odessa File’ and subsequently, an ITC/RAI TV series ‘Moses the Lawgiver’ starring Burt Lancaster. When all the editors had left, Roger Cherrill (the owner of the Post House) asked me to be the sound editor on the re-cut feature version. The main editor was Gerry Hambling. I assisted him for a few years on films such as ‘Midnight Express’ and ‘Fame’. Then in 1981 Alan Parker asked me to be the sound editor on ‘Shoot the Moon’. That was my first film as Supervising Sound Editor and sound editing has been my life for 30 years.

WHAT QUALIFICATIONS ARE NEEDED?

I progressed through a form of apprenticeship. I don’t think that there were any film courses when I started. Unfortunately, the editorial structure has changed since 35mm magnetic and not many sound editors now have the luxury of an assistant – but I learned from watching over the editor’s shoulder and absorbing the knowledge by a form of osmosis.

There are many courses now at film schools and universities that flirt with sound editing and design and some, like the National Film & Television School, which specialise. The problem is always how to leap from the confines of education to the élitism of the cutting room. Luck, application, hard work and more luck are needed – and it is still ‘who you know’ more than ‘what you know’.

To answer the question. There are no specific qualifications required to start sound editing. It would be useful to have a technical background and a working knowledge of ProTools or a similar sound editing tool. A degree, HND or BTEC in some area of sound could be an advantage but is not necessary. Indeed one of the foremost sound designers in the UK left school at 16 and started straightaway in the cutting rooms.

HOW DO YOU HAVE TO INTERACT WITH OTHER DEPARTMENTS?

We couldn’t operate without a close relationship with the editorial department. In fact, it was always the picture editor who chose the sound editor. That isn’t so much the case these days as sound editors can be appointed by the director, producer – or be a part of a post-house package . The sound editor’s loyalty, however, must always be to the director and the picture editor.

We should be able to take the editor’s working track, which may include sound effects that we have already supplied and start from there. The picture assistant should be encouraged to liaise with the sound department whenever changes are made to the picture.

ANECDOTES – PROBLEMS – PRIDE

I was interviewed in the mid 90’s by a director who was looking for a sound editor for his high profile project. ‘I shall expect alternatives for the sound effects’ he said. ‘Oh’ I said ‘you’d better look for someone else. I don’t lay up alternatives’. ‘Why ever not?’ he questioned. ‘Well, when I track-lay the effects that I feel are right for the particular scene, I move onto the next scene. Surely you should employ someone who is confident in their creative ability?’ I got the job, didn’t lay alternatives and was never asked for one!

Using a synchroniser on ‘Angel Heart’ in 1986 at Elstree Studios

 

During the crossover period between magnetic and digital sound, we realised that the new technology was really not tried and tested. We were the guinea pigs. One of the problems was how to keep the projector, the 35mm recording master and the digital play-off tracks in sync. On one film the re-recording mixer and I were so concerned about sync slippage that we transferred out all the dialogue premixes onto 35mm and I spent all night re-cutting those premixes so that they were perfectly in sync with the picture.

‘Angel Heart’, directed by Alan Parker in 1986, was a wonderful film to work on. Apart from it being a fascinating film for sound design, most of the post-production was done in Paris!  Although we started the premixes in Elstree, we finalled in Los Angeles at Warner Hollywood Studios. It was my first experience of mixing in Hollywood! 

MENTORS ETC

One of the reasons I moved over to sound editing was having the privilege of working with Alan Bell. In 1969 I was the 2nd assistant picture editor on ‘I Start Counting’, a thriller directed by David Greene. The editor, Keith Palmer, brought on Alan Bell two weeks before the end of principal photography to do the sound. This practice has long gone. It is now considered perfectly acceptable to start the sound department after the film has been locked, rarely leaving enough time to think the project through. Alan was a stocky, heavily bearded ex-Merchant Navy man with a penchant for roll-ups and drink. Many drank then – in fact it was normal to have a couple of pints every lunch-time. It didn’t seem to affect efficiency and creative perception! An early scene in the film featured a teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) going into the woods to play in a deserted cottage. In the corridor near Alan’s room I could hear strange bird coos and wing flaps. What Alan was doing was laying pigeon sounds as if they were emanating from the roof of the porch so that whenever Jenny (or anyone else for that matter) went in or out of the cottage the birds would be disturbed. I realised then how important ‘sound’ was to story telling and that one sound could create or destroy a mood.

TECHNIQUES & TECHNOLOGIES

I started working on 16mm and 35mm (both picture and sound), editing in mono on Synchronisers and Moviolas. Sound accuracy (on 35mm) was to one sprocket or 1/96 second. When the mix was complete an Optical 35mm Negative would be shot, processed overnight and, after the print had dried, played back the next day. The last mono film I worked on was ‘Another Country’ in 1983, although I had track-laid and mixed for 6 track Magnetic and Dolby Stereo on ‘Pink Floyd the Wall’ in 1982. The Dolby 2tk Stereo was a fantastic advance which I enjoyed using on ‘Birdy’in 1984.

On the Todd mixing stage in Los Angeles for ‘The Commitments’ in 1992. Alan Parker in the foreground with Eddy 2nd from right

The first ‘digital’ film for me was ‘Damage’ in 1992. Louis Malle’s sound recordist, Jean-Claude Laureux, decided to record the production dialogues digitally on a DAT machine. Louis requested that the dialogues should be edited digitally. I was offered the sound editor’s job by John Bloom provided that I learned to use a Digital Work Station. I only track-laid one more 35mm magnetic film after that. My first DWS was a DAR 8 track and I stayed with DAR until ‘Cold Mountain’ in 2003 when Walter Murch suggested I should use a ProTools system.

When I started, I was taught how to scrape the magnetic oxide off the track to reduce clicks, sibilance and to create fades. How different it is now! There were also a maximum of 3 sound editors on a film. The sound effects editor supervised with a dialogue editor and a foley (footsteps) editor – each editor had an assistant. Now there can be as many as 10 editors but only 2 or 3 assistants on the big films and there is much more specialisation. There are sound editors known for certain facets of sound for example, vehicles, guns, animals and atmospheres. There are usually 2 dialogue editors, one for production dialogue and the other for ADR. You may get a foley supervisor and several foley editors and, of course, specialist sound designers.

After more than 40 years in the film industry and 30 years as a Supervising Sound Editor, I have learnt this –  if you want to make the film industry your career, talk to as many professionals as you can, always display keenness, never be late, never complain about having to work ridiculous hours, learn the basics before you even try to get a job, be  humble (you may think that you can do the job better but don’t forget they already HAVE the job) and, above all, learn to make a good cup of tea!  Best job in the world!

Eddy Joseph’s credits include: Green Zone – 2010, Nowhere Boy – 2009, Last Chance Harvey – 2008, Quantum of Solace – 2008, Casino Royale – 2006, United 93 – 2006, Corpse Bride – 2005, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory – 2005, King Arthur – 2004, Cold Mountain – 2003, The Life of David Gale – 2003, Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone – 2001, Enemy at the Gates – 2001, Angela’s Ashes – 1999, Lost in Space – 1997, Evita – 1996, Michael Collins – 1996, Interview with a Vampire – 1994, Little Buddha – 1993, The Commitments – 1991, We’re No Angels – 1989, Batman – 1989, Angel Heart – 1987, Birdy – 1984, The Killing Fields – 1984, Fame – 1980, Midnight Express – 1978, Sunday Bloody Sunday – 1971, Salt & Pepper – 1968

 
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Posted by on April 3, 2012 in Sound Department

 

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Editor’s Thoughts

11 Feb

… it is almost forgotten that it takes a team of many people with talent to make a motion picture …

I must say, from the feedback I receive, there are so many areas where it’s felt that there is inadequate information and training available. The industry needs young people who are prepared to put in the time and effort to learn the skills and techniques which have been developed and perfected by the professionals who have spent their careers entertaining the audience with their storytelling abilities. 

It’s probably not ‘what have we done wrong?‘ we should be asking but ‘what more do we need to do to put things right?’ in those areas where specific training for the film industry is needed. Quick answer to that is – if you are running a course at whatever level then please enlist the help of industry professionals – individuals, guilds or organizations – to either advise in the initial discussions on course content or attend as guest tutors. 

Perhaps we shouldn’t limit skills training to those who work creatively – production grades coming into the industry may benefit from taking time out to learn about the responsibilities of the crew they going to employ.  An experienced crew member can prevent a great deal of wastage on time and tantrums if they are used efficiently as they will have the ability to read the mood in the meeting or on the floor and change, alter, move and re-invent as often as the director wants with the least amount of fuss. 

Initial decisions on crew, methods and equipment which are based purely on cutting the budget to the bone can eventually become very expensive, as mistakes made due to wrong or ill-advised choices can have a disastrous impact both on the bottom-line and the quality of the finished product.

Keep the feedback coming – I need your thoughts, ideas and comments so that I can make sure that the ‘News’ is covering areas of most interest.

Go to www.network-nine.com and click on the ‘Guilds & Associations’ page to access some of the industry organizations.

 
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Posted by on February 11, 2012 in Feature Film Production

 

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