The Cine Technician (1935-1937)

August, 1935 The Journal of the Association of Cine-Technicians 35 The News-Reel War Continues " Use the Fleet Street Rota System," says Paul Holt, Daily Express Film Critic Mr. Kenneth Gordon, who asked me to contribute to this magazine, has a genial exterior which does not behe his personahty. So far as I can discover, his main interests in hfe are good Hving — and the welfare of his colleagues. I think he frequently allows the latter interest to affect the former. Considering his aptitude for enjoying the good things of this world (not forgetting a good joke, and a good glass of beer), he is to be congratulated ; he certainly has plenty to worry about. It occurred to me while he was speaking to me on the subject of this magazine the other day, that the only thing I could usefully write about was the so-called "News-Reel War." It is not a war ; it's a ramp. News-reel cameramen know that they are being asked to behave more and more like comic opera bandits, and less and less like pictorial journahsts. You only have to think for a moment of an incident that occurred at this year's Grand National. Tliere was a forty-foot tower erected outside the course to enable the "pirates" to secure pictures for the great British public without paying too much for the privilege. Now I do not mean to suggest for a moment that the gentlemen who cut the ropes securing that temporary structure, and rocked it in a laudable endeavour to spoil the apparatus and maybe the necks of the gentlemen above them, were in the wrong. Anyway, they were acting under the instructions of their masters, who felt that they were entitled to have what they had paid for. But just imagine for one moment what would have happened if Mr. Gordon had been on that tower. That piece of light-hearted commercial rivalry might have been turned in an instant into a national disaster. I am not one of those people who refuse to believe that there was anybody rocking that tower ; who insist that Mr. Gordon was on top of it, and hiccoughing slightly in a high wind. But do you not see how farcical the whole affair is ? It boils down to this. There are five major news-reel companies in this country competing to get the best pictures to put on the screens. But to-day it does not seem to matter a hoot who gets the best pictures. What should be a matter of open competition has become a matter of commercial contract. The very livelihood of the news-reel cameraman is being jeopardised by the refusal of certain companies to agree to a steady rate of contract. Gaumont say in effect, "Let's all charge the same for our news-reels, and thus stop the fight." And others reply, with good logic, "If we can rent our news-reels cheaper than you, and still show a profit, why should we fall in with your plans ? " So the war wiU go on. The danger to the livelihood of the news-reel man will increase steadily. It is not so much a danger of life and limb ; the news-reel man seems to take that as a matter of course, and I admire him for it. There is a good deal of danger in his job, but still, it is a good job. The danger is this : — Somebody let off flares at the Grand National, and there was a serious suggestion in the Press that those flares might have interfered with the jumping of Golden Miller at that vital fence where he unseated his jockey. There were £2,(H)(), ()()() of the public's money on that horse, and if it had only been proved (which it was not) that those flares luid anything to do with the refusal of Golden Miller at that fence, the public would at least have been "violently prejudiced" against news-reels. They would have demanded heads on chargers — and it is the working man's head that alwavs finds its way to the charger when a crisis comes. I was at last year's Test at the Oval and I spent the day with the Gaumont people, who had rights to the ground. Throughout the morning we had a very happy time chasing suspicious characters through the crowds. But we did not catch much. The gentlemen from Pathe, who passed us on their way into the grounds, raised their hats politely, knowing perfectly well that we couldn't do anything to them. I enjoyed myself enormously, and it made a good story. Eventually the situation whittled itself down to a concentrated attack upon a hole in a small circular window on the top story of a school outside the grounds. We were certain that a pirate camera had been placed behind that hole, and we were quite probably right, because I could see more than one pirate camera openly erected on the roof of the same building. Anyway we got our searchlights to work and shone them with all our might, and the natural result was that before play had been in progress for ten minutes the crowd on the other side, who were getting just as much of the glare of the searchlights as anybody else, started to barrack. Eventually the umpires stopped the game, and a solemn policeman came to tell us to put our lights out. So then we just settled down to enjoy the play ourselves. It was great fun, but nobody seemed to realise the terrific risk we were running. Supposing for a moment that the light had been shining across the pitch when a wicket fell and the batsman had complained. There would have been the devil and all to pay. And anyway, there does not seem to me to be very much point to it all. However hard the official news-reel teams try to prevent pirates from securing their pictures, the pirates always do secure them, and put up a surprisingly good show too. At the Cup Final at Wemble}' this Spring they had the infernal nerve to fly a plane over the stadium with a hundred-foot streamer behind, advertising a pirate reel. They said they would get the pictures, and, by Lucifer, they did ! Of course, there is only one solution to the wliole problem. That is a round-table conference of the news-reel heads. And if they still cannot come to an agreement about prices, the matter should be put to arbitration. Eventually it is inevitable that all reputable news-reels should have an equal opportunity of securing the best pictures of national events. Where it is impossible for more than one reel to get in — like a ceremony in Westminster Hall for instance — news-reels should adopt the rota system used by Fleet Street photographers. In Fleet Street we take our turns to cover such jobs, and everybody gets the pictures. The same pictures, the same quahty, at the same time. That seems to me to be the only civilised way of running the business. It is particularly important now, as I am firmly convinced that the future of news-reels is immeasurable. Before you know where you are, you are going to have televised reels, and Heaven knows what, to make the news-reel cameraman's job perhaps the most important in this amazing film business.