Sponsored Documentaries
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Paddy found his way from BBC TV to the Film Producers Guild, a group of companies who specialised in high quality ‘sponsored documentaries’ for Government and industry, fore-runners to ‘corporate video programmes’. Here was the chance to travel all over the world, film fascinating subjects and meet extraordinary people, everybody from royalty to beggars in the street. The variety was tantalizing. But it was difficult to get on the first rung of the ladder. Paddy started as a writer. His first film was very successful and he attended the ‘shoot’ as a technical adviser. The director was Freddie Goode who had been second unit director on ‘The Dambusters’. On the first day there was a problem. The young man cast as ‘lead actor’ was no longer available. Who could do it? Suddenly the phone rang. It was the producer, "Paddy, get your hair cut! You’re on!" It was a useful and often difficult lesson to experience at first hand what an actor has to go through. As a result, Paddy has always been sympathetic with artistes and really enjoys working with them. There were a couple more films as writer and ‘technical adviser’ before Paddy became a director. |
Paddy and Graham Minassian under the Red Arrows.
Clearance? 1ft.!
| On one, a very dramatic flight safety film shot in Germany, the cameraman was Graham Minassian. He had brought his father, George, along as a ‘camera adviser’. What an adviser! George had been camera operator on the classics, ‘African Queen’ and ‘Red Shoes’! One afternoon Paddy was asked to set up a crash scene with the remains of a Harrier jump jet, 400 gallons of fuel, 300 gallons of oil, an old ejector seat and numerous other props. With a JCB and team of helpers, he laid out the ‘crash’ before the scheduled night shoot. George came to survey the scene. "Great," he said, "but look through the camera." He showed Paddy the pan round the devastated scene. "What’s wrong?" Paddy confessed it was not as exciting as he’d expected. "And d’you know why? Look, foreground, you need a foreground!" George picked up a piece of twisted metal and shaped it around the camera. On a pan round the second time, the background and middle ground were sharpened by the grotesque and jagged shapes passing in foreground. When the fuel and oil were ignited and the camera panned round for real to find the body of the pilot in his unopened parachute that night, the scene was incredibly dramatic. It was a lesson Paddy has never forgotten. Building ‘atmospheric’ foregrounds is now second nature to him. |
Paddy briefing a sequence with the Royal Marines
| Soon after Paddy had a lucky break, got his ACTT director’s ticket and put together two award winning films for the Royal Navy. ‘Hands to Flying Stations’ about the flight deck operations of the aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal was made on a shoe-string and just eight 400 foot rolls of 16mm stock and two 100 foot rolls for air-to-air and air-to-ship shots on a hand held Bolex. There wasn’t enough even for slate boards. It was "Turn Over!" and almost immediately "Cut" picking up fragments of action that would fit into a planned mosaic, night and day, sunshine and storm all the way back to Plymouth from Malta. Paddy got the camera into positions never before allowed. It was made from tiny rolls of film grouped all over the cutting room floor. With 1200 cuts in its 26 minutes, this very exciting film won awards all over the world, was shown in an aviation festival in Hollywood alongside Oscar winners and was selected for preservation by the National Film Archive, a great accolade. The subjects and locations diversified and the demands for Paddy as director intensified. At one stage he was juggling with ten films all at the same time - some in writing, some pre-production, one in shooting and five in different edit phases. Keeping all the balls in the air with subjects as diverse as accountancy and the story of North Sea oil was quite a trick. |
Party time! Seafood restaurant in Cagliari
| ‘Concrete Is……", a film written and directed by Paddy about architecture and shot on 35mm was made an official British entry in the European Biennial Sponsored Film Festival. It won the premier Gold Award. ‘A Tale of Two Jumbos’ for British Airways was the engineering story of an international airline. It was shot all over the world - Alaska, Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand. Unusually for a sponsored film it was shown on BBC TV several times at peak viewing periods. It was also another official British entry and won numerous awards. |