Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

158 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LEi'XER JEAK — A DOCUMENTARY CLOSE-UP OF A. E. JEAKINS The Story by Frank Sainsbury when I first knew Jeak, in 1935, documentary was very far from being the moneyed business that it is today. In the evenings the boys used to repair to Patmacs in Soho Street, one of the series of repulsive pubs that we seem to have a fatal knack for discovering. And as the directors, with their untold wealth of £8 and even £10 a week, crowded to the bar and expansively bought rounds of draught Bass at 4\d. a time and Whiskies (Black and White of course) at 8d. (or was it 9d.) we 35s. a week assistants hung respectfully in the background until we found out if we were in the round too. If unlucky, we would pair off and buy each other halves of mild. In this way Jeak and I often found ourselves buying each other a drink which was a little surprising, as Jeak was a full-fledged camera-man and camera-men were entitled to buy full rounds on their £7 a week if not quite so often as the directors with their private means. But as it turned out, Jeak hadn't got a regular job, he just did an odd day's work here and there at 30.r. or so a day, for the GPO or newly-formed Strand or the Travel Association, when they needed an extra camera on the job or their own cameraman was not available or the shooting was a bit tricky and likely to be beyond him. If he got 10 days' work a month I suppose he was lucky. I don't know how long he had been carrying on like that before 1935, several (he'd knocked around with the newsreels before) years, anyway, and finally when John Taylor did give him a permanent job at Realist about 1939 at first he was on a retainer and paid fully only for shooting days. It wasn't till 1940, I think, that he went on a full weekly wage, and could at last relax of 10 years of scraping a day's work here and a day's work there. The reason I mention all this is that a man who will go through all that difficulty and discomfort just to work a film camera must have his heart pretty well engaged in photography. And that is a sufficiently rare thing among camera-men. At first sight Jeak looks a typical pipe-sucker. He stands on the edge of the company firmly grasping his pipe, listening attentively to the philosophy and witticisms of the company and saying never a word. When, every five minutes or so, he is appealed to or volunteers his contribution to the discussion he sucks his pipe judicially, pauses, and delivers not (thank heaven) the profound platitude you expect from pipe-suckers but nine times out of ten a wisecrack and usually a very good one. Of all the camera-men I've PHOTOMICROGRAPHY LTD Specialists in Cine-Biology J. V. DURDEN in charge of production Whitehall, Wraysbury The Drawing by M. A. worked with I've always found Jeak in spite (or perhaps to a rattlebag like myself because his long silences the best possible company the job and off. On location I always had t feeling that Jeak would have liked his little bi; comfort, the good hotel and a five-course m? if he had his choice and no one can be stubborr than Jeak once he digs his toes in. But if helped the job for us to stop in an unemplo; mill-girl's cottage or a town that was be raided every night or in boozing trawlerme company, then Jeak would cheerfully acquie and make a very good best of it. In fact I've nei known him unreasonable at any time or in : way. If he thought a set-up needed four 2-k and a couple of arcs, and all we had (and it all we usually had) was four 500s and a photo-floods, then Jeak would set to and n the best of it. And never a told-you-so if . stuff was not so hot. Considering how " demands Jeak has ever made it may be a 1 surprising that the quality of photography he turned out year after year on features or inst tionals, is the very best there is in documer or indeed on the level with the best in the Bri film business. Jeak's secret perhaps is that he learner use his lean years of unemployment and employment. Sitting around at Realist day day with no work to do he never seemed b or at a loss. Usually he had a light men process of conversion to his own requirem the photo-cell covered with criss-cross bi adhesive tape. Or he'd be ploughing his through all the British and foreign tech journals for ATC abstracts or his own sati tion. Or sometimes, like the yokel — he'd ju: The result was that when you did go out sho with Jeak he was the quickest, best, easie: get-on-with camera-man I've ever worked The arty boys make a lot of fuss about ful cussion between director and camera-man z the exact purpose of the film and artistic me. of the shot and no doubt where most cai men are not interested in their trade or aonly to be directors that sort of thing is necessary. But with Jeak the barest word o and he's got the idea perfectly. It may be unusual in the film business, he can and does Or it may be that, as the merry company ba away, there's a lot going on in a quiet behind those pebble glasses.