Nick Flowers

A friend of mine interested in maritime affairs has sent me this link https://gcaptain.com/safety-concerns-for-hybrid-electric-ships/ When I was working, I powered my equipment off Lithium Ion batteries and even then (over ten years ago) there were severe restrictions on taking such batteries on aircraft. Do recordists still use Li Ion batteries for location recording - and have there been any nasty incidents using them?

I shot this with for BBC Nationwide in the mid 1970s with a Audio radiomic.

It is with great sadness that I report the passing away of Rene Borisewitz last week. Rene was Simon Kaye's maintenance engineer for many feature films until he became a successful sound mixer in his own right. He gave me a place on my first feature film. He is survived by his wife Ulla. His cremation service is on Saturday 5th October 2019 at 10.45 at the Golders Green Crematorium (West Chapel) [Hoop Lane, Golders Green, NW11 7NL] and there will be be a celebration of Rene's life afterwards at The Old Bull & Bush, North End Road NW3 7HE from 12:15.

Many years ago I worked with a mixer who was of an experimental frame of mind. Somewhere he got a plastic parabolic reflector, about eight inches in diameter, pushed a 416 through the hole in the centre and focused it by eye to a point behind the slots to see what would happen, the theory being that it would reflect the sound waves back into the slot in front of the capsule. Well, THAT didn't work!

I have just finished watching the film Joseph Andrews on YouTube. It was shot in Southern Britain during a very long, hot summer of 1976 and I was 3rd Man on the sound crew. Lady Booby (Anne-Margaret)'s final line was a reversion to her character's low origins (for the rest of the film she spoke in a curious mixture of bad posh English and faux-French) and for accuracy the director (Tony Richardson) insisted that this line be very authentic. The line was "What f***king next?" and who better to advise on the correct, Cockney way of pronouncing this than the electricians? For about half an hour the sparks clustered around Anne-Margaret coaching her on the correct rhythm, slurring and intonation so that she would pass unremarked in Bethnal Green. I remain unconvinced.

For what it is worth, probably 0, this is the way I went. First step was to answer an advertisement, for a tea boy in a little film production company, in the Evening Standard, one of the evening papers produced in London. Got the job making tea, sitting in for the switch board operator at lunchtime, running errands and any odd jobs. Any spare time I spent looking over the shoulders of the editors and the sound mixer. The camera boys were usually out on location, so at that point I couldn't see that side of it. After a couple of years of making tea (and coffee; there was no end to my skill) I was allowed out on location to see what was going on there. By this point I had decided that sound was to be the path I followed and so I had my eye open for opportunities elsewhere, as there would be no vacancies in-house where I was for the foreseeable future. I became aware of holiday relief work at the BBC, where in theory you stood in for someone on leave. I attended an interview at Ealing, where the BBC Film Department had its HQ and was successful in getting the job. I was NOT part of BBC staff. To be so was an exalted position and the technical grades went on a long course at Evesham to be made au fait with the highest standards. I was a filler-in of vacancies who could be got rid of very quickly. After a week operating machines at Ealing my place of work was changed to Alexandra Palace, in North East London, where BBC News had its base. I spent about two years there and I have to say that it was the happiest time of my life, making state of the art 1930s machinery work in the transfer suite and the dubbing theatre. But I became greedy, and I thought that after this time I ought to be considered for being made a staff member, not just a holiday relief technician. This was a step too far, I was told; and so I resigned in a fit of petulance. This forced me to seek free-lance work and I was successful in doing so, working for BBC and ITV as well as on documentaries and feature films. The more I worked the more contacts I made so things slowly got better and better. Just a footnote added later. I found cold calling to be unspeakably difficult - but it was and is an essential part of finding work before you have established yourself. Striking the right balance between being useful and pushy is essential too - try if you can to imagine what sort of assistant YOU would like to have. Cold calling I think was the most difficult part of finding work, but the amount of horror you experience in doing it will vary according to your personality. It has to be done, worse luck.

I recorded the sound on this. BBC dubbing put the cat squalling at the end, I don't think it improves things.

I see that a lot of current mixers have bar graph meters and I'm wondering how the readings are weighted. My favorite mixer was a Filmtech which had BBC type PPM meters, quite large so you could read them with ease while glancing down. Are the up to date meters programmable or are you stuck with what you have bought?

At the time it seemed not to be too much trouble. On location you could power 4 Brutes off a 1000 Amp mobile generator - so that accounts for 5 sparks; one to each lamp and one to the genny. Plus of course all the other sparks you needed for the other requirements. There was the delightfully titled 'Practical Sparks', who would be in charge of all the domestic lamps in shot - to me it implied that all the other sparks were IMpractical; hopeless dreamers probably walking aimlessly around in circles spouting Keats and Shelley - rather far from actuality! * But this was in the days of four man sound crews and strong unions - overmanning was an indelicate subject to raise. *To quote Stephen Potter: "Petrification of the implied opposite."^# ^ An example of "L'esprit de l'escalier"# # Two examples of showing off. Why do I do it?

One little bit left over from the days of recording on film rather than on tape. When I was starting out I was rather puzzled by older, grizzled members of the sound crew referring to the PEC Switch on a Nagra. Pretty quickly I saw that they meant the Tape/Direct switch but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they were calling it the PEC switch. Eventually I asked and the answer was that PEC stands for Photo Electric Cell. On a optical recorder this was placed near the light valve and responded to the amount of light falling on the film. So you could listen to that and be confident that at least everything was working that far. Of course with magnetic recording light valves and photo electric cells were redundant, but still among the older soundies that name kept on being used.

A story now that does not reflect well on me, but it also shows the unintended consequences of a moment's inattention. The film was Absolution, and starred Richard Burton. The director (Anthony Page) wanted to hear the last take back and Richard Burton had retired to his caravan. I thought I was playing back the last take on the Nagra to a pair of heaphones that the director was wearing, but due to a moment's lapse I had not put the Tape/Direct switch in the correct position and what in fact the director was listening to was a live feed from R. Burton's still connected radiomic. It is unfortunate that at that moment Richard Burton was slagging off the director in no uncertain terms, but not a flicker of expression passed over the the director's face and he took the headphones off, thanked me, and walked off. Only later did I hear what had happened as a result. Page, the director, had confronted Burton with what he had said, and there was a minor row. Burton was of course incandescent with wrath that what he had thought was a private conversation inside his caravan had been overheard and he complained to my boss, Peter Handford. Peter stood up for me and said that an actor as experienced as Burton should disconnect his radiomic or ask for it to be disconnected when he went off set. My dismissal from the crew was suggested but Peter said that if I went, the whole sound crew would go. It all calmed down but it was a nasty shock for me, and you can be sure that I checked the Tape/Direct toggle switch after that! Another illustration, if it were necessary, of what a first class boss Peter was.

AKG D25 windgag, Beyer DT48 headphones, Raindirk Mixer, Sennheiser MKH 805 windgag + Napoleon's hat.

Brilliant! Thank you Stacysound for posting it. I particularly like the popcorn gag!

Here is a picture of a Brute, a carbon arc lamp and its associated resistor. They were common enough on all the films I worked on, but recent reading on the web suggests they they are no longer used. Is that right?

On the re-make of The Corn Is Green (K. Hepburn) the director, George Cukor, was of advanced age, and while he was OK to walk on firm, level ground, he was a little unsteady on his pins through the orchard in which we were shooting. So he had a couple of minders, one at each shoulder, to support him as he walked through the rather low apple trees. Their attention was fixed on his feet and they did not notice that a low branch had somehow inserted itself into his mouth, and as they coaxed him forward, so the branch was twisting his head back. His diction was somewhat impaired by all this and his cries of outrage went unheeded by his helpers, who pressed forward. I was very amused to witness all this, but all good things come to an end and eventually his supporters became aware of the situation and removed the offending branch, to be rewarded with a stream of invective.

On the re-make of The Lady Vanishes we were on location in Austria. One evening the whole crew was dining in the hotel when a waiter appeared and called out, in heavily accented Austrian English, the best approximation of an English name that must have been spelled out for him: "Phone call for Mr. Slow C**t." Dougie Slocombe was indeed not the fastest cameraman, and equally it was not unknown for him to be referred to in such terms. But to hear it shouted out like that ensured that much childish giggling erupted in the Sound crew and it has to be said the camera crew as well.

It must be a bleedin' great camera that lot is running! Probably 3 strip Cinerama!

I was thinking that as the years roll on, those of us who used rotary converters to power the camera will be growing fewer and fewer, so perhaps it might not go amiss to set down what our jobs entailed. My first feature film was called 'Made', and we had a four man sound crew, of which I was the fourth man and pretty green too. My prime job was to set up and connect the camera (a Mitchell BNC) to a three phase power supply. If there wasn't a handy supply from the mains - in which case I would connect the camera via a transformer and a start box so the camera boys could turn over themselves - it would be my responsibility to connect the rotary. This derived its power from two twelve volt lorry batteries, which powered a 24 volt motor, which in turn rotated a three phase alternator. My memory fails me as what the voltage was between phases, but it was connected to the camera via four pin EP Canon plugs. The controls on the rotary converter were an on/off switch, a battery voltage meter, a meter for each output phase and a FRAM frequency meter, which consisted of about ten reeds, each cut to a critical length so that when vibrated by the common source the one which was vibrating the most would indicate the frequency of the supply reaching the camera - in Europe 50 Hz. On cold days it could take quite a few seconds for the rotary to get the camera up to speed and the clapper/loader could not put the board on until I shouted out "Speed", when the meter settled down at 50 Hz. There was another output from the rotary to allow a reference pulse from an ATN to feed into the Nagra. Rotaries and their batteries were not light weights and sometimes getting them in place involved a degree of physical exertion which I doubt I could summon today. We were much to be pitied. I expect I have forgotten quite a lot, and I used a rotary only on one film as Panavision cameras came into general use soon afterwards.

Shooting in Sweden, and the crew is up in the battlements of the Royal residence to do a lovely shot of the King of Sweden drive into the courtyard and walk into the front door. Just one chance to get the shot, as there is beautiful unmarked snow lying on the ground and the director wants to have the Range Rover carrying the king to be making the only tyre marks. And His Majesty won't do second takes. The car rolls into the courtyard, the King gets out but slips and falls a*** over t**. Undisguised amusement from the crew, one of whom mutters something about the king being a c***. A royal flunky minding the crew says, in outrage:"Who called the King a c***?" to which the instant response was: "Who called the c*** a king?"

I remembered just now an occasion when we were shooting a news story on a council estate in Brighton. It was quite frosty outside and we were glad to enter the house, which was quite warm. In the living room we saw the reason why: a railway sleeper (I think that they are called ties in the USA) was poking out of the fireplace and into the room. The end in the grate was blazing merrily away, and as it was consumed the sleeper was shoved in further. We averted our gaze and went about our business of shooting the interview.

No, not as exalted as that - there are probably many Princes of Darkness out there. Alas, I can't remember this particular one's name, but I'm sure that it is not Gordon Willis. While I'm here another recollection has just come to me. During a very long, slow panning shot the boom operator came into view from the right and exited frame to the left. He was admiring the view and was unaware that the camera was running. The cameraman's voice can be heard saying: "Hello David" as he passed through shot; which suggests that the recordist knew what was going on but couldn't be bothered to alert his assistant. A spark based at Maidstone was called 5 Watt, because he was not very bright.

There was also a cameraman whose penchant for lighting every scene very gloomily got him the nick-name The Prince of Darkness. Gladys, the sound recordist who I mentioned up-thread, had the entirely understandable habit of bring a screaming cushion along. When the cameraman or director proved to be more bloody frustrating to the sound department than usual, Gladys would retreat to the unit vehicle, a six seater Ford Transit in those days, cover his face with the cushion and scream his impotent rage away. He would return refreshed and able to do his duty.

There was a reporter at TVS by name of Mike Rowbottom. This soon was changed to Micro Bottom (laughable in itself, as the gentleman had a fat arse), and then to the symbol μ.