The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

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May 1954 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 103 Harold Elvin : I was in the Art Department at B. & D. from 1930/1935 and all the others— painters, plasterers and carpenters worked two shifts while we had to cover the whole 24 hours on a weekly salary. We were often there all night, sleeping there; and in the summer, sometimes camping out. Ken Gordon : I can talk only about the newsreels. I used to do editorial on Saturdays if I wasn't working for the Pictorial. We ran two then — Pathetone Weekly and Eves' Film Review. Pathe Pictorial staff of three had to act in the pictures as well as be directors and cameramen. We used to get the last pictures on Saturday night, then develop the negatives, and at 12 midnight or at 1.0 a.m. or 2.0 a.m. the stuff would be sent down for Monday's issue. Most of the newsreel was edited on Saturday night and that happened without overtime pay every week. Bill Allan : I have actually left London on a Monday morning and worked Monday to Sunday night and got home to find my son born! Ivor Montagu : As far as conditions are concerned, I started with fee jobs and I never cared about working late and never noticed I was working late because the sooner I could get one job done and on to another the better. So I got into bad habits of working as long as there was a job to be done. At GB, a notice was put up to the effect that if you didn't want to be represented by a lousy thing like A.C.T., you could be represented by an organisation set up by GB for its own staff. A meetingwas to be held — after time. Everybody was there. Nobody from the management turned up. After ten or fifteen minutes people began to get annoyed. They had started something they didn't dare go on with. We decided to give the management five minutes to come up otherwise we would disperse. The five minutes elapsed, they didn't dare to come up, so we dispersed. This was such a defeat for them that a few weeks later Boxall said " Look here, I feel the best thing would be to put it on a stable footing, let's have an agreement " and he was the first one to give us an agreement. Bill Allan : When the Agreement did come, it was 500 per cent better than the conditions we were experiencing before. This was in 1935. Percy Knights : I started at Gaumont British Labs. 1 was told that there had already been an organisation trying to make recruits in the labs. Those responsible had been called into the projection room and those in the Association were asked to step forward. The six who did got sacked. I picked up from there and I had a tough job. This was about 1933 in the Labs at Shepherds Bush. We had our meals standing up and conditions were really bad, and wages were low. We did get overtime but I can't remember how much. They were very poor rates anyhow. Anthony Asquith : l started in films, of course, long before A.C.T. was thought of. I go back to 1927. I remember in 1932 working for Micky Balcon for a whole week all night at Harringay and all day at the Arsenal, but you did it voluntarily. I am not complaining. I liked doing it. I joined A.C.T. in 1934. I was at Walton Hall. Harry Kratz signed me up, I remember. Fred Swann : After everyone has said everything I don't think there is much more I can add. I started in the industry in 1929 with British Schrifton Processes and I remember in my first days at B. & D. working four days and four nights without a stop, without taking my shoes off. I don't think the canteen there ever closed. I'm sure there was more work done at night than in the day time. As our friend here has said, he doesn't look back on those days as being sweated labour. I don't know but the whole spirit seemed to have been different. Then we were pioneering and probably there was a little more glamour attached to it. We were a lot younger and beer was very much cheaper. Sid Cole: There is a point behind some of the remarks which, I think, would be true of a lot of us. Apart from the fact that people felt overworked, and the contrast with the E.T.U. boys, who got overtime, there was a growing feeling that this was not the way to get the best results; and that if you were going to shoot or cut a picture you just had time, working day and night, to do the job at a minimum level. You didn't have time to do it as a craftsman and I think that was a very important element in the growth of A.C.T. Wages and the hours, were important in themselves for reasons of health, but there was also this other thing — that if we were ever going to get reasonable productions with craftsmanship you couldn't do it that way. Fred Swann : In those days, with the enthusiasm of youth and a new medium, you tended to look at it in a different light. You didn't mind doing overtime voluntarily but when you found you were expected to do it as an accepted thing you began to think. Anthony Asquith : I quite agree. When it was a voluntary thing, an exceptional need, it didn't seem so bad, but when it was expected, taken for granted, that was different. Fred Swann : Many years after when I went to Islington as First Assistant Director we used to work six days a week. We finished at 5.0 p.m. On Saturday we had supper money, and I am sure it was 7.25 when the Production Manager used to come and say you are working on tonight. You had half an hour break, you got your 2/6d. but you got no overtime. We worked every Saturday. As a First Assistant, I used to finish on Saturday nieht, be given a script to read over the week-end so that I could start another picture with a new Director on Monday morning. A very salient point in the history of A.C.T. was that meeting when George first joined us, when we discovered there was no money in the kitty and six or nine of us undertook personally to find the finances for the A.C.T. to continue for three months. I always felt that was the turning point of the Association. With the appointment of George Elvin as General Secretary, and with leading members taking greater responsibility, A.C.T. had in fact reached a turning point, though few realised it at the time. There were eighty names on the books then, only about a quarter of them fully paid up. The membership rose slowly, reaching 1,289 at the end of 1937. Now, 21 years after, with 5,830 members, it represents virtually all film production and process technicians.