see also:
The Developing Camera Shot
Personalities
Steve Jellyman
Whilst walking through ‘The Byes’ riverside walk in Sidmouth we came across this seat with plaque!
Memories of Crew 5 when I was in TC in the 1960s.
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A few months ago at a social event I was introduced to a lady who I was assured would have something interesting to say to me!
"You don’t know me", she said, " but you knew my late husband in the BBC TV Centre!"
With no clues I couldn’t guess until she mentioned Crew 5 and “I, Claudius”.
Yes, this lady was Jim’s wife Sally. After Jim sadly died too young, she moved from, I think, Co Durham to Sidmouth.
In 1968 I was earning £1032 p.a. on the Dolly Operator Pool. LWT, who were just starting, were advertising for a Camera 3 cameraman at £1742pa, and I got the job!
For my last days in TC, some ‘joker’ rostered me onto the opening programme in TC8: “The Year of the Sex Olympics”, with a crew I’d never worked with before – CREW 5!
“Look after my cable, son” was no doubt Jim’s reaction to me resigning from the BBC. I can’t remember if he also told me to get his lunch! If I remember correctly they were the only words he ever spoke to me!
My first programme for LWT was big LE show “Frost on Sunday”, 1 hour live with Eartha Kitt and Dudley Moore, on FOUR cameras! I did Camera 3, with piles of shot cards.’Jumping in at the deep end’ I think is the expression!
Bill Jenkin, Bernie Newnham
If you’ve not already seen it. YouTube rendering in 8 parts about “I, Claudius”. Jim features a fair amount.
https://youtu.be/og3J_s1-bHc
especially part six, about five minutes in :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNvwVyBHLGk
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John Bennet
That is amazing! I have fond memories of Jim and Crew 5 as a trainee in 1970. As his personal cable basher and coffee and tobacco getter for quite a while I learnt a lot about camerawork by just being there! He didn’t suffer fools gladly and was dedicated to his work. It never occurred to me that he had children as he never talked about his family. I guess Sidmouth was a favourite holiday location.
For more info about Jim Atkinson (and Crew 5):
http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/page45.html
and for info about Jim Atkinson, Crew 5 and “I, Claudius”:
http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/page74.html
http://www.tech-ops.co.uk/page75.html
Howard Michaels
My best Jim story is back in the early 1980s as a junior Camera assistant. Whenever I went to Jim’s crew it was always "get on the back of the Nike son", so he never knew me, except for one day – I had just parked round the back of TV Centre and I heard an old noisy van pull up behind me. It was Jim, he got out looked at me and said, "I hate f—–g cars son!" I don’t think he ever spoke to me again.
Dave Plowman
If it was his Morris Minor van, I remember it well. It had twin carbs from a Sprite – and Jim always wanted it to go even better. And paid me to tune it for him. But it was good as it was going to be, short of doing other mods.
So I knew Jim at home more than at work as I was never on his crew. He lived in Battersea then – quite close to me. And he usually forgot my name too. I think he was rather different outside work. Not so scary.
Doug Puddifoot
I remember doing a science fiction play when I was on crew 5. The main set was science lab aboard a space station. In the centre of the lab was a large bench on which there were half a dozen large bell jars containing specimens of alien life suspended in gloopy liquid. The plot involved an unknown force which gets into the station, and destroys the lab, a special effects extravaganza. Obviously no rehearsal and no retakes This was to all be shot POV of the “Force”, Jim on camera one with an optical effect bolted on the front to produce a rotating fuzzy edge to the picture. My part in this play was camera five on the gantry, no shots on this scene, but a perfect view.
It all started well, as Jim panned around the lab things exploded, shelves collapsed. Then came the bench. As Jim tracked along it, favourite wide angle lens, a couple of feet away, the bell jars smashed one by one…….and flooded the studio floor with six gallons of wallpaper paste. What followed was straight out of a cartoon, with Jim’s feet moving ten to the dozen on the slippery slime as he lost all traction. Of course, everybody involved in the production had gathered to watch including the studio attendant (remember them?), who then gallantly rushed forward with his broom to try and sweep away the tide, with cries of “Come on Jim, you can do it” but to no avail. The camera glided majestically to a halt, Jim in control as always, had to finish the shot with a pan. On transmission you would never have known anything was amiss.
The Master!
Tim Healy
Here’s a story-
I’m on T.O.16 down on the river fishing – a lovely evening and I’m contemplating the beer I’ll have in the club later. A hairy stranger approaches and the dialogue went something like this –
“Evening.”
“Evening.”
“Caught anything?”
“Nope.”
“You’ll catch lots of fish down at the Smedleys factory.”
“That’s a mile down the road and I don’t fancy packing up and traipsing down there.”
“But you’ll catch fish down there.”
“I’m happy here.”
“There are lots of fish down there down there.”
“I’m happy here.”
This went on for a couple of minutes with us both getting crosser and crosser until I told him to f*** off and mind his own bloody business.
I never worked on Jim’s crew.
I learnt my craft on crew 2 under Frank Wilkins, he may not have been such a ‘pure’ cameraman as Jim but he was more fun and he knew your name, even if you were tracking the Nike. And as far as I know he never treated any of his crew as minions at his beck and call.
Sorry if this offends people but that’s the way I saw it then and still do.
Geoff Hawkes
I was put on Crew 5 for the first three months after Induction on T.O 18, in the autumn of 1963.
Jim had recently arrived on the crew as Dickie Ashman’s no.2 and thanks to him, the crew was beginning to build its reputation in Drama. I only worked with him in a very junior capacity and although I was glad to have done so as he was undoubtedly a great man, I never felt comfortable around him. He was the wrong sort of personality for me in the way that you and others have described.
Conversely, I spent three years on Frank’s crew and liked him a lot. He was fun to be around and although his humour could be cruel if you were the butt of it, he didn’t mind you answering him back. That helped boost my confidence enormously and I really grew up on his crew, both as an operator and as a man and have much to thank him for.
With so many larger than life personalities we couldn’t expect to like all of them or to be liked by all ourselves, but it was good to have been part of it and to be able to share our memories now.
Maurice Fleisher
In view of all the praise and lauding of Jim Atkinson I have not added my bit because he sounded like the almighty but it is interesting to now see some less than totally complimentary comments.
I actually left the Beeb before he got promoted up through the camera ranks and he was, in fact, one of my trackers for a period. We became very good friends and spent off-duty times together, sometimes chasing girls at the seaside. Then, after some years, his attitude started to change. It seemed to get worse to the point of totally ignoring me and to put it mildly he became somewhat obnoxious. If it was something I said or did I know not and can certainly not put my finger on why he changed to such a degree but we became miles apart.
It is with some surprise that I recently started reading such glowing reports about his ability as a cameraman and teacher as such (perhaps I had a hand in that to some degree) and I am not in a position to dispute it but I rarely have seen the same glowing reports about his attitudes. I too apologise if this offends so many, especially as he died at a comparatively early age. He was not yet married when I left so I never knew his family but I admit to a twang of conscience when I saw the plaque his family had mounted. Was it just me?
I also knew and worked with Frank Wilkins and we became friendly enough for me to invite him to join us for few days at Intertel AG in Europe during a winter sports programme in the early 1960s for ABC/NBC. With only four staff cameramen we needed more for big events and it usually fell to me to sneak into LG/TVC to convince my selected buddies to take some leave or DOILs to cover the periods required. Frank too died much too young. I was always jealous of his dark good looks.
Mike Cotton
I was guesting on crew 5 whilst Mic Weaver was on leave and on rehearsals there was a very wide shot followed by a tight shot on Jim. I whistled the boom down and ended up in Jim’s shot. The look I got …….I never went back to crew 5 for the rest of my time on the SA1 pool.
I was in the habit of booking 2 weeks leave early on and as soon as the list went open I would put a week either side of my 2 weeks, much to the disgust of my fellow SA1s who didn’t think ahead. This meant we had 4 weeks away in the caravan. One year we were up in the very north west of Scotland and I found a phone box to check with Maria about the next week’s duty and was told that as they were only "standby homes" not to bother to come in. Nearly 5 weeks away and I have the pictures to prove it.
Dave bought in a bottle from a 3 week wine kit. The general opinion was that in another 5 minutes it would have been drinkable.
Chris Woolf
Jim wasn’t as hard to understand as many have made out. I did a stint on the crew in the late 1960s and bashed for Jim. He would do all the old tricks of going missing during a rehearsal so that you had to do the shot for him. It was nerve-wracking at first but you soon got to know when he was going to do that, and that he would always miraculously reappear when it was something difficult that would reflect on him if it was done badly, or you might have to admit that he wasn’t behind the camera.
He wasn’t overt in how he showed his regard for what you did, but you quickly understood whether he thought you an advantage or an arsehole. And he was very, very good at a craft that no longer exists.
Paul Kay
I was Jim’s No2 for a short while. He was truly great!
David Bowden
Jim was undoubtedly a skilled Cameraman, who I remember, often knew the lines better than the actors he was shooting and would often lean around the camera to prompt!
As a youngster I learned a lot from the brief times I spent on crew 5.
As a trainee, I remember spending many a day on a big play, sat on the back of a static Nike crane waiting for the one or two shots that were going to happen at some time during the six days!
When Jim said to me one morning, you can do Camera 5 on this scene Son! Of course I hadn’t really paid attention and learned all the characters’ names, so when, on the shot card, I had to find a particular actor emerging through a door, I hadn’t got the slightest clue who they were and missed the shot!
Suffice to say, Jim’s words were, " You had your chance, Son, and you muffed it!"
A valuable lesson learned.
Jeff Naylor
My "Jim" story was turning up from the Pool for a TOTPs and being given cables to do.
But then I heard a bit of muttering in the teabar and someone asked me where I lived and how I got home. Jim’s car had broken down and he lived just up the road from me in Tooting Bec.
Not only was I suddenly promoted to operate one of the Ped cameras, which was a great privilege at that point in my career, but at the end of the recording I got to skip the derig to take Jim home. Unfortunately he was not impressed with my tatty soft-top Triumph Spitfire, and in particular how low it was for getting in and out of, so my sudden career break came to a grinding halt.
Most of my contemporaries have a story like that about Jim. Alan Bayley’s "Don’t be the cause of me losing my temper ever again Son" is recounted at least once a year in a pub in Beaconsfield.
Graham Maunder
My ‘amusing’ Jim story.
Having been put under the guidance of Pete Ware and company on crew 13 when I arrived at TVC (an absolutely brilliant place to start my career in my opinion), I had been operating since literally my first day (a “Panorama” at TV Theatre) enabling other crew members to partake of ‘earlies’.
When I left crew 13 and went onto the camera assistant pool I found a variety of different methods for dealing with us, one of which was Jim on crew 5.
On my first day with him he asked me to make him a tea (using the kettle in the props store – “not from the tea bar, son”). In chatting with the folks in there I obviously wasn’t concentrating and ended up presenting Jim with a tea made without the advantage of boiling (or even hot) water! Needless to say I was therefore relieved of that chore for life.
On another occasion, working on a 3 day play alongside Chris Miller (who had trained with Jim on crew 5) we were approaching dinner break on the first day when Jim came over to us (on the ‘yellow bar’ as I recall) and said the immortal words “if you two want to get off early you can go now and miss the traffic’.
Stunned that Jim was even contemplating letting us have an ‘early’ we quickly made our way to the gallery, sneaked in and got our bags and coats and duly drove home (in the traffic) to Wembley where we shared a house.
A good evening ensued down the local pub as we amused ourselves with Jim’s ‘traffic’ line, totally unaware that we were being searched for back at TVC. No mobile phones in those days luckily! Of course, what Jim actually meant was that we could beat the ‘traffic’ in the canteen and go ‘early’ to dinner!
The next day, I drove in and dropped Chris at the Centre whilst I went to try and find a parking spot. By the time I arrived, Jim had vented all his anger on Chris in a 15 minute diatribe and just greeted me with a, "Don’t do that again, son”
Chris explained the misunderstanding and offered to drive in future!
30 years on though, it’s Pete Ware’s voice I hear in my head as I’m framing my shots or holding the pan bar “like a bloody spitfire pilot – relax”!
Geoff Fletcher
The best ped cameraman I ever saw anywhere was Pete Ware – he was easily as skilled as Jim but without all the attitude. I only worked on Crew 5 once – it was not a happy experience.
Patrick Heigham
My memories of Jim A and Frank W. I was on crews with both these legends.
One schools programme, TC2 or 5, I was tracking Jim on the Vinten Motorised. We had to start at the very far corner of the studio – tracking in on a curving line to hit a ladder which we would progress up and down for the rest of the show. Rehearsal was fine, but on the recording, I got it wrong and put Jim at least two foot wider. No zooms, then, to adjust shot size, so JA was properly apoplectic afterwards.
Frank’s dark good looks has been mentioned and he always thought that he had ‘droit de seigneur’ of any fancied female in the studio. Until a young Mike Fash appeared on the crew, who being equally good looking, in a young greek god sort of way, was immediately viewed by Frank as a rival. His way of dealing with it, was, if there was a gantry or tower cam to be operated, Mike was assigned to that, with a safety harness and line attached to a scene hoist, very tightly. Frank only let him down at meal and tea breaks!
Much later, when freelance, I joined up with a lovely soundman – Sandy MacRae, ex- BBC Glasgow and Film Unit, whose Lighting Cameraman business partner turned out to be Mike. Sandy always said that Mike would never ever give me, as boom op, any trouble with lighting, because he knew I could tell him how to do it as well as he could, thanks to BBC training!
Tim Healy
Frank tried to get personable young trackers and dolly ops on his crew (not me I should add) – he called them groundbait.
Peter Neill
Frank was the SC on my very first crew, Crew 2.
I can’t vouch for this story, but I heard it from more than one source so it must be true.
Apparently, Frank was working with Barbara Windsor and, during a break in rehearsals, approached her with a tape measure. “The lads are having a bit of a bet on exactly what your measurements are.”
Babs shot her arms in the air and said, “Go on then, measure me.” Frank, somewhat taken aback, duly complied.
A little later, Barbara came up to him with a ruler. “Now come on, Frank. Fair’s fair!”
John Vincent
My first real appointment to a camera crew was Jim Atkinson’s crew 5.
I didn’t know what to expect and spent a couple of years holding his cable, going to get his car into the car park and getting his dinner. Only respite was driving the Mole with Rod Taylor on front and John Dailley swinging. We threw it around like a ped on many major dramas. I thought it was all the norm.
I finally escaped to spend time with Pete Ware (hard on the wallet buying your round!, Frank Wilkins, Garth Tucker and Dave Mutton. I finally realised how much Jim had influenced me. It was how not to run a crew!
All this election talk (following the May 2015 General Election (07/05/2015)) has made me realise how lucky we are not to live in a dictatorship. Jim would never listen to any other view other than his own.
Alec Bray
In my last years of work – as a Software Development Tools Consultant – I worked with many different software teams across many different industries. What was obvious was that the software teams were often “self-selected”. Some teams in some companies were trusted to know what they were doing – in other companies, the managers would not trust the development teams one little bit – and generally the teams recruited to themselves developers of a like mind set.
This “pattern” was clear in the 1960s BBC Tech Ops. TO people who liked “Drama” tried to get to work on crews 2 and 5: those who liked Light Entertainment more than anything else tried crews 3 and 13 (as I remember). I was happy working on the general crews – because every crew got at least one regular programme that they could make their own, filling in with “Panorama” and “24 Hours”, “Play School” and the racing results.
