Who is this nut?
Born in East London; dodged the Doodle Bugs; two missed me by 200 yards and listened in terror to the exploding V2 followed by the roar of its descent. Slept down in the London Underground at night.
Bought my first camera, a Coronet Cub, at the age of 12, then graduated to an Ensign Selfix and so to a 35mm. Contaflex SLR camera. Many of the early indoor humorous photographs were taken with this camera, using
home processed Ferrania reversal colour film. Does anyone remember that?
Sold everything I owned as a 27 year old and bought a 16mm. Bolex Cine Camera for the enormous sum of £175 from Wallace Heaton, Bond St. London, way back in 1958, in order to make documentary films.
As it was secondhand I wished to test run 100 ft. of film through it before starting to make documentary films. Having shot 25ft. of the road outside, and 2ft of Auntie Maud inside, what to do with the last 73ft.? (anyone checking my footages?)
My mother had a metal egg tray with 6 holes for holding the eggs. I drew some simple faces upon six eggs, a girl, a professor type, a simpleton, and a bully type etc., They were animated around in the egg tray and on the table to tell a simple story, and also to get some hands on experience with the camera. Eventually the bully chased a little egg off the table and it broke. Drama in my very first film, "Six Eggs." See it at Cinema 1 on this site.
Not having a 16mm projector, I took the film back to Wallace Heaton, and they ran it in their studio for me to see. They expressed an interest in it for their library, but instead I took it straight to a film distributor in Soho Sq. What a cheeky monkey!
As it was near Easter they sent it to BBC TV where it was shown within a few days. Not having a TV I stood outside a radio shop and watched my little film on a TV in the shop window for the second time.
So that was how I gave up documentary film making before ever starting, as this animation lark seemed to offer more possibilities.
Eventually went digital and editing on a PC with all the new of troubles which 16mm never had, although splicing
is much easier now!
I am not really interested in winning awards, although I do have my fair share of silver ware etc. My interest is in
obtaining audiences for my work. As I have frequently said,"Silver doesn't clean itself, audiences do!"
Now in retirement, I can wander about the countryside and towns with my little digital stills camera taking the oddball photographs shown in outdoor 'Seens,' whilst making films at home. Made mostly on the computer these days as is all the music for the films.
Have also written much poetry and original sayings. Here are some for your amusement......
“If the Buck stops here, how can the Doe go all the way?”
“Many folk are like Black Holes. They are self centred!”
“Never look before you leap. You may consider it’s too far to jump!”
“For moral fibre, take All Bra(i)n.”
“You are what was in your Mother’s genes and what was in your Father’s jeans!” .....My favourite saying of mine.
“Blood maybe thicker than water, but it can have more clots in it!”
“I once had Alzheimer’s disease, but I’ve forgotten all about it!”
“One small step for a man, because he has arthritis.”
“A clock threw seconds at me, which I lazily dropped
and they fell into the past, lost forever.”
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. ........Then beat them from within!”
“Philosophy is trying to understand why you are trying to understand.”
