“We” – as in Tech Ops …

Bernie Newnham

A chap called Billy Smart  posts on another forum. He’s a university lecturer and is big on old drama, such as we worked on. . There are a number of pieces on his website about this stuff:
         
and so on …

I can’t decide whether it’s pretentious bo**ocks, stylish criticism or what, but it could turn out to be the history that is written.  I worked on “Strife”, in which Nerys Hughes stood in at the very last minute and did rather well, and John Henshall demonstrated the very first “camera on a long arm” –
         
but those who look back see something different.

Excerpt:“…James Cellan Jones’ production of “Strife” emphasises dialectical oppositions through camera technique, achieving its effect through the arrangements of shots within a space. The tragic dynamic of this play is focused on the intransigence of the Chairman and the miners’ leader. Cellan Jones stresses the separateness and isolation of these figures within the group through his use of the studio space and his choice of shots taken from the multiple studio cameras.

This approach is particularly pronounced in the play’s first scene, an elaborate naturalistic realisation of a board meeting, a scene with an innate dramatic structure and pace marked through the formal rituals of such assemblies; the reading of minutes, the invitation of speakers to address the board, etc. Cellan Jones uses the time taken by the reading of the minutes to establish the size of the room, the different men seated around the four sides of the table, and their responses, running opening credits over the scene…”

Roger Bunce

I too worked on “Strife”. I’m so pleased he noticed that my camera technique was intended to emphasise dialectical oppositions, (That does mean cross-shooting, doesn’t it?) and who can deny that we arranged our shots within a space?

It probably is pretentious bo**ocks, but it’s nice to know that someone cares.