Photograph by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.
This photo is of Bill Bohanna, who was the manager of Film Unit at Pebble Mill. The photo probably dates from the late 1970s.
Tag: Film Unit
Juliet Deane Recording Session – Peter Poole
Recording copyright resides with Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.
This recording session was in Studio 3 probably in the late 1970s. This was a drama studio but it was often empty in the evenings. And back then the BBC made it available free of charge for this private recording. At that time I was working for Film Unit as an assistant film recordist. So Roger Seward from Audio Unit booked the studio and supervised the session. Roger is a bit of a legend in the Audio Unit and and great character! He was great teacher and gave me a quick “driving lesson” of the studio. He then left the recording and mixing to me.
Juliet worked in the film unit office and welcomed the chance to record a few songs. We soon got a few other members of Film Unit to back her. They were Eurwyn Jones, piano, Andrew Godsall, drums and Steve Saunderson, guitar. The folk songs were recorded with Steve playing guitar with Juliet’s live vocal. Eurwyn and Andrew recorded the backing tracks for the other songs. On another session Juliet added her vocal to produce the final mix.
This was my first experience of music recording in a professional studio. We all had a very enjoyable time and I learnt a lot about music recording.
Peter Poole
More Film Unit photos
photo by Steve May
photo by Steve May
photo by Jim Gregory
Photos by Steve May and Jim Gregory, no reproduction without permission.
The first photo features Pip Cooper; editor, Nigel Evans; and Shirley O’Mara.
The second photo features Imelda Stevens and Shirley O’Mara.
The third photo taken in Pebble Mill’s Telecine, show Nigel Evans (background), with Shirley O’Mara and Pip Cooper, ready in their fancy dress for ‘Children in Need’.
Film Unit Office
Photos by editor, Steve May, no reproduction without permission.
The photos are of the Film Unit office. Film Unit was responsible for booking PSC (portable single camera) crews for programmes, and also for booking editors. All the bookings were put up on huge notice boards, so that it was easy to see who was booked to which programme. These photos are probably from the early 1990s.
The first photo is of Shirley O’Mara, and Pip Cooper (?).
The second photo shows Pip updating the Editing noticeboard.
The third photo shows Imelda Stevens, and colleague. Mel used to book the camera crews.
The office was on the first floor at the back of the building, just by the edit suites, and handy for the crews loading up their kit.
Memories of Peter Snow from Paul Vanezis
(Here are some memories from Paul Vanezis of Pebble Mill film editor, Peter Snow who died recently).
You know, I knew Peter so long ago it’s weird looking back and remembering the man. He always seemed older than he was for some reason. I can tell you he was a very accomplished film editor. But like many of the editors in the early days of portable single camera, he adapted to videotape editing faster than some of the VT guys who started as engineers. He had a pony tail and we would often meet up in the canteen for lunch at 1pm with everyone else. In those days, lunch was lunch. If you worked in VT you’d spend it in the bar. If you were Film Unit, you’d be in the canteen from 1pm, have lunch and then have a walk over in Cannon Hill park (spending Friday lunchtimes in the bar).
I used to race Peter up the main stairs at Pebble Mill; it was his idea. He reckoned that if you started suddenly, raced as fast as you could and didn’t stop until you reached the top, you wouldn’t feel tired. He was right… the tiredness in the legs kicked in around 3pm if you weren’t careful (and there was no way I could do it if I’d been in the pub the night before). It of course we were first in the queue for the best the canteen had to offer…
One thing that he worked on which I think people have forgotten about was the Kegworth air crash coverage. At the time flight safety was very much in the news because of the Lockerbie crash three weeks earlier. I am sure Peter told me that he was working at BBC Nottingham in news at the time (January 1989) and he had to travel to the crash site, walking over fields so he could retrieve tapes from the cameraman; or he was with the cameraman and had to walk the tapes back. The M1 motorway was shut, the tail of the plane had clipped the ground as it tried to make an emergency landing at East Midlands airport.
I recall he was very intelligent, well spoken with a dry sense of humour and a really very nice man.
Paul Vanezis
The following comment was left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Liz Munro: ‘What a Lovely tribute to Peter. He was a very accomplished editor, softly spoken, and lovely to work with. I’d arrive in the edit suite completely frazzled from a mad dash down the M6 to get the lead story to air. He’d be a sea of calm and all smiles.’