WE ARE OBSERVED!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 543, 18 November 1949, Page 20

WE ARE OBSERVED!

\English Cameraman Looks at N.Z.

W English director-cameraman, Peter Hennessy, arrived in New Zealand the other day to spend three or four months looking objectively at this country through the view-finder of a. movie camera. From what he sees he will produce a 20 minutes’ film for the J. Arthur Rank review, This Modern Age, a monthly documentary which is designed | not only for British audiences but for | exhibition all over the world. Since it first appeared in 1946 This Modern Age | has turned out many films on a diverse | collection of subje¢ts ranging from housing to coal, from Palestine to Australia, from jet-propulsion to whale-hunting. "It is a fact that the film’s part in the spread of news and information is of great importance, because of the enormous numbers of people who attend cinemas, and because. of\ the ease with which people accept the combination of word and picture,’ said Mr. Hennessy in an interview with The Listener. "This Modern Age makes 12 films a year and the producers have found that facts, when presented accurately and_picturesquely, can be excellent entertainment. They attempt to be fair-minded and impartial, but as they have to deal from time to time with matters which are political, social or industrial, it is not expected that they can please everybody or that they never tread on anybody’s toes." Asked if it was the British film industry’s answer to the March of Time, Mr. Hennessy said that it was intended as no such thing and no description annoyed its creators more. Rank decided upon it when he saw a March of Time film about the world’s merchant marine which omitted reference to the some few vessels flying the Red Ensign. On his representations the March of Time undertook to alter their film, but when Rank discoveredethat they proposgd to show the original version in Britain, he refused to allow his cinemas to present it. This Modern Age worked under a es

different code, but in fact it owed much to the March of Time idea, just as it owed something to the wartime documentary films which kept up morale in England and bolstered British.-prestige abroad, particularly the short films made by Paul Rotha for the Government. But its producers insisted that it was different from either. They saw in the best of This Modern Age productions something which: the present mediocre run of British documentary films might even emulate. Logical Scheme _ Explaining the groundwork of the scheme, Mr. Hennessy said that This Modern Age films were made upon a line of argument, a chain of reasoning rather than a general description illustrated by photographs. The narrator developed the theme; the film sequences followed a’ logical scheme, illustrating, but above all lending suggestive power to the unfolding exposition. There was a statement of the problem, a thesis, sometimes an anti-thesis, and a summing up. The evidence for the thesis was presented visually, the audiences were left to draw their own conclusions and they became a jury. The writing ‘staff was led by novelists and dramatists and included journalists and trained research writers. Directors were seldom employed. The cameramen were trained both as camera technicians and as reporters, and in their approach to the subject they were nearer to the feature photographers of the pictorial magazines than to the ordinary cine-cameraman. The method was to decide the theme first, then to conduct the fullest researches and lastly to shoot the film evidence. Though older shots might be used to provide flashbacks to the past, the bulk’of the film preserved strict authenticity of time and place, The films seldom took less than three to six months to make; some had occupied a year or longer. They were the product of teamwork and it was hard to say (continued on next page) ED

which member of that team had contributed this or that, so no individual credits were given, said Mr. Hennessy. "Who chooses the subjects?" "The producers have a greater freedom than most other documentary film producers in their choice and handling of topics-a choice which is subject

merely to the approval of the production committee over which J. A. Rank presides, and whose members include John Davis, Lord Archibald, Castleton Knight, E. St. John, Dr. A. Galperson, and the producers, Sergei Nolbandov, J. L. Hodson and J. R. Gregson." No Interference "Are you ever hampered by censorship?" : "Our organisation has never agreed to send its writers and cameramen into any country or territory which insists on censorship of the material which we may film. The independence with which we approach our subjects is marked. Once the films are completed no alteration is made to \suit this or that country, sect or party’s point of view, though pressure is sometimes brought to bear. The producers stand or fall by what they have thought right to put on the screen and to say in their spoken commentary. Governments may ban a This Modern Age film; they may not censor it. A foreign language commentary is the only change made." The film which Mr. Hennessy is about to make will cover many aspects of New Zealand life-farming, industry, sport, Government activity, operation of medical services, and so on-giving a completely factual picture of this country, its people and how both workday and leisure time are spent.