Bernie Newnham

We were asked a good time back to help with a film about the Iranian embassy siege. I think my initial request got passed around a long way, and people who were there at the embassy helped out with technical info about trucks and cameras etc.

See
6 days: The siege of the Iranian Embassy in 1980
6 Days
 
 

The film is out now, on Netflix in this country, and I’ve just been watching it.  It’s one of those films where, even though you know what’s going to happen, is very tense.  It’s only let down by the woman who plays Kate Adie, who is too glamorous and can’t do impersonations.  Still, the film is well worth a watch.

If you stay to the very end of the credits – after the lights have come up and the man is clearing up the popcorn, you’ll see the "Thanks to" bit.  I’m there, but I knew I would be, but it may be that other names there are familiar to you and don’t know that the film is out and they’ve got a credit. If so, please pass this on:.

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Ian Hillson

I’m so glad Tony Carter got a credit – he gave their London crew a lot of info.

I suspect that might be his "BBC TV News" plate on the side of that Marconi, or a copy thereof….

Nice to see too, that Golden Age got some work out of it.

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Tony Carter

Yes it’s the actual silk screened aluminium plate that I’d kept in the attic for 35 years knowing that eventually it would come in useful! For some reason there wasn’t a proper panning handle for the camera, hence the rather strange "holding on" posture by the "cameraman". That Mk. 8 has been bodged to make it look like it works; there is a webcam looking through a tiny hole and a small LCD screen fitted into the original viewfinder. The webcam and screen are powered from a battery inside the camera. The original camera cable adds to the authenticity but does absolutely nothing!

The other quite interesting thing was that if you go back to the exact same spot at Princes’ Gate, even on a Simon hoist, you can’t see anything now. The trees have grown so big in the intervening years that the identical camera shot is now totally obscured. That’s why the filming ended up on the Embassy side of the road junction rather than the Royal Albert Hall side where we were originally.

Slightly irritating that they got the spelling of my name wrong on the credits. Two people from GMZ films emailed me asking me to confirm there was no ‘H’ in the spelling of my name – which I did – and STILL they got it wrong!!

Ian Hillson

From the trailer for “All The Money In The World” and spotted by someone more eagle-eyed than I am!

CMCR9 aka ‘North 3’, I presume.

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