The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

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98 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN May 1954 Kkn Gordon : For two years we lay dormant, then we formed the British Society of Cameramen. Some of the people in that were Percy Strong, Charlie Crapper, Jack Cox. Reg Groves : Would you say that the original society was mostly composed of newsreel cameramen? Alf Tun well: Right at the very beginning they were newsreel men, afterwards it became more concerned with studio people. I think I'm right in saying that first it was newsreel men, then we came to another phase of it when we were concerned with studio people. Mark you, newsreel men were always in the minority. Then the production men came into it. Ken Gordon : You must understand that in 1918 we were just cameramen doing any old job. There were then no distinctions between Newsreel, Shorts, and Feature cameramen. Henry Harris : It did not last long. It was more a social club than anything else. Ken Gordon : We had a very good party at the Cafe Royal where all the better types and governors were there, but unfortunately the collector of the funds had a mishap with them, and we had to go into voluntary liquidation owing to having no money to pay the bill. Giving the governors a good evening out at the Cafe Royal finished us! Henry Harris : Didn't we hold a lot of meetings at the Film Artistes' Club? Alf Tunwell : Yes, it was run by George Richwell. The period we are talking about now was around 1927. Henry Harris : It started up about two years after the Kine-Cameramen's Society folded, I think. I can tell you who was a great supporter of ours at that time, Pat Mannock. Alf Tunwell : Yes, he tried to help us. Ken Gordon : One moment. Another bloke who helped us in the old Society was the General Manager of Odhams. Our Press correspondent during this period in both Societies was a dear, delightful old friend, Jimmy Hutchison. He used to attend as Press Adviser and deal with reports, giving us good reports in the " Kine." He died a member of A.C.T., as a publicist. He was with us during all the phases — Kine-Cameramen's Society, British Society of Cinematographers and A.C.T. Reg Groves : Do you mean to say there was the Kine-Cameramen's Society, which went out of existence in 1922, and then the new British Society of Cameramen in 1925 or 1927? What about other sections of the film industry? Henry Harris : In other sections of the film industry we were absolutely without any official body of any sort, and that applied to every branch of the business with the exception of the E.T.U. Some of the studio employees were E.T.U., some NATKE and a lot of them nothing at all. Bert Craik : It was about 1931 that NATKE started organising in the labs, I think. They lasted about two years then faded out. Henry Harris : I would like to say that Bernard Knowles and myself at B. & D. Studios first had the idea of forming a real Society and one day he came to me and said, " I have met a bloke named Cope." Some few weeks later he came to me again with a paper saying we were to meet at the Blue Posts in Rupert Street. We thought ourselves a couple of conspirators and felt we were almost letting the side down by going to this meeting, but to our great surprise we found a whole lot of people there when we arrived and that very night the thing was formed. Ivor Montagu : Alan Lawson was at that first meeting and he agreed to become President. Captain Cope said the great thing to put us on the map was to have an acceptable person as President and he knew a Tory M.P. called Mitchell-Banks. I remember going with him to see Mitchell-Banks and trying to persuade him to be President. I was very much against it, because my experience has been that you don't do any good having people who have no connection with the industry; it is much better to find people from within your own ranks, but the meeting decided we should go and we went. Mr. Mitchell-Banks agreed to think it over but fortunately he was appointed a Judge just before he could do any damage. Harold Elvin : The real reason Captain Cope was appointed was because people like Henry Harris wanted an organisation, but they weren't in a position to go round from studio to studio getting support and Cope was appointed because he had the time to do this. Henry Harris : I think he was a friend of Knowles. We were both at that time chief cameramen at B. & D. Studios. He was the officer class. He had quite a way with him, a good military record, and we thought — this is the sort of person we want. He was a great worker and a great talker. Let's face it, if it hadn't been for him we wouldn't have got organised. We were all very conservative in the true sense of the word and very afraid of our jobs and the bosses. Ivor Montagu : The industry needed to be organised, we wanted to be organised; the fact that there were thirty or forty people at that first meeting shows the time was ripe and something would have happened sooner or later. Let us give Captain Cope his due. He crystallised it in a way no one else could have done. If one of us had done it somebody would have said " What's he getting out of it?" I don't agree with Henry that there <J) ,(UV^ *^V*M0fc >^ ^ coosAv Signatures to A.C.T.'s first ruh book, 1933.