The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

102 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN May 1954 from our fortnight's holiday, wc worked Saturday and Sunday. Bill Allan : At B.I. P. you could start work at 2.30 p.m. and finish at 6.0 a.m. the following morning. W. Sharp : In 1933 I should say Lab conditions were deteriorating badly. We heard about these various Societies and were wondering when somebody was going to come along and organise us. Alf Tunwell : In 1933 I was with British Movietonews. As you will know, of course, they had come into Sound in 1929. From a newsreel point of view things weren't too bad, although we weren't organised and working all the hours God sent. At the same time I will say that the newsreel conditions then were very much more advantageous as far as I was concerned to what I had been accustomed on production. But although we were doing fairly well in 1933 on account of Sound coming in, making the newsreel right up to date, and although the money was better, we worked day and night. Certainly we were looking for an organiser to come along. Frank Fuller : I remember, although I think Bert will correct me here if I'm wrong, I think the majority of the first people in the labs who took a personal interest were the developers who saw a threat to their craft in the new processes. I think that was largely the reason why the developers seemed to take a main part in organising A.C.T. in the labs. Henry Harris : In this period, called the " quickie quota" perinri, I was making films with Red Davis and Pinkey Green and I remember working right through the week. Because you must remember in those days you had a certain amount of work to get through during the day and if you weren't finished at 6.0 p.m. you worked until it was done. We worked all through Christmas except Christmas Day itself and we never had a penny for that. We literally worked ourselves out of a job. The only people who got any overtime then were the electricians and this rankled very deeply with all of us because we thought if they could so should we, particularly as when we had finished a film we might be out for weeks until another " quickie quota " came along. So you can see conditions were ripe for an organised body. Sid Cole : It was slightly different in the Cutting Rooms. You were expected to wait around while the production was being shot until any hour of the night. They might decide to see the cut stuff. so you would wait. It might be 9.0 or 10.0 p.m. before production was over. Then maybe, trade shows would be arranged with the result that the boys in the cutting rooms would be told that there had to be a married print three weeks after the pictures came off the floor which meant you worked night and day until the complete thing was through. Often you didn't go home at all for days on end and you got no overtime. During the couple of years I was there I cut six pictures for about £5 per week — no overtime. And I'm not sure if Henry is right about the 2/6d. supper money. I think it was extorted as a rather reluctant concession or it may only have been l/6d. Anyway it all went back to the company because it was in the Studio Canteen. Henry Harris : They did make one concession to us and that was that a bus would take us back to Marble Arch. I lived at Croydon at the time and I just had to get there the best way I could. T<> ma great surprisi there were a lot of other peoplt there . . ." Henry Harris recalls thai first Foiiiulinii iiuitiiiii. Harold Kb in anil Ken Gordon an m tin background.