The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

May 1954 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 89 ONE MAN'S RECOLLECTIONS In writing this amiable look-back over Documentary's twenty-one years, Ralph Bond emphasised that " a complete account would need a book. A lot of events and personalities must of necessity be left out." Despite omissions enforced by space limitation , Ralph succeeds in recalling some interesting episodes in the story of Documentary. WHEN I first joined A.C.T. in 1935 the documentary school of film making was almost exclusively confined to the G.P.O. Film Unit, which itself was the successor of the Empire Marketing Board film unit created by John Grierson and Sir Stephen Tallents. I was not the first from the unit to join A.C.T. — Roy Stocks had that distinction — but the two of us lured George Elvin down to Blackheath and before very long all the technicians became members. The studio at Blackheath was typical of those early rhapsodic days of documentary. It was formerly a girls' school, and had to be converted to our own requirements. At that time the G.P.O. film unit had just completed its first feature production — B.B.C. Voice of Britain. Stuart Legg, who many years later did such fine work for the Canadian Government Film Board, was the director under Grierson's producership. The material shot by Legg for this film, aided by Chick Fowle and Jonah Jones on cameras, led to a frenzy of inspired editing rarely known before or since. Eventually the entire unit was turned on to the job with Legg editing one sequence, Evelyn Spice (who also later went to Canada) on another, Basil Wright on a third and other members of the unit mucking in as and when needed. " Man of Aran " (193!,) The unit expanded rapidly and the local pub at the bottom of the road where we all gathered at 1 o'clock became one of the show places of Blackheath, and points East and West. Benjamin Britten, William Coldstream, the painter, and W. H. Auden, the poet, had joined the regulars, and Cavalcanti, straight from his avant-garde successes in Paris, allied his own energies and enthusiasm to those of Grierson. Some wonderful films were made then in that little studio, which boasted only one carpenter and one electrician. Outstanding, of course, was Night Mail, directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, with a poetic narrative by Auden. Everything new in the way of ideas was avidly seized upon and chewed over by what Grierson chose to collectively call " the gang." Experiment was the order of the day and if some failed others succeeded brilliantly. Len Lye came in with the then fantastic theory of making a colour film by painting direct on to celluloid. He was given his head (and a tiny room) by Grierson and the result was Colourbox, a film still relished by the connoisseurs. It was all too good to last. There was so much talent that the unit had to seek wider horizons or burst. Arthur Elton led the way by forming his own unit and making a documentary