National Film and Television School - A Stuttering Start
A look back at the first few months of the National Film and Television School - by Roger Crittenden.
Beaconsfield Studios (1927) by NFTSNational Film and Television School
The formal history of institutions can hide a different story. In the case of NFTS the record shows that it opened as the National Film School in September 1971. In fact, as openings go, this was hardly an engine firing on all cylinders, or a plane ready for take-off.
Take a closer look at the writing on the roof of Beaconsfield Studios. It says "Talking Pictures Studio, Aeroplanes Please Keep Off"
NFTS Stage 1 by NFTSNational Film and Television School
For sure there were premises, and twenty odd students found their way to Beaconsfield Studios on that auspicious day, to be met by the founding director and a hand-full of staff, but there was neither a programme nor any facilities to greet them.
Colin Young NFTS Car Park by NFTSNational Film and Television School
It was as if Colin Young was taking inspiration from Napoleon who insisted he always created his strategy on the bodies of his sleeping soldiers the night before a battle. So these twenty carefully selected students would be partners in the creation of a living entity.
NFTS Main Building and Car Park by NFTSNational Film and Television School
That entity would be fit to confront the enemy in the shape of a largely sceptical film industry, already assuming that the project would fail – sooner rather than later. After all, as the sceptics said, you can’t learn to make films in a school!
NFTS Car Park by NFTSNational Film and Television School
At least Napoleon’s soldiers had tents, weapons and ammunition. Whereas the film school in 1971 began in derelict buildings, unused for filmmaking for seven years and only used in that time to convert cookers to North Sea Gas. The roofs leaked.
NFTS Edit Corridor by NFTSNational Film and Television School
The studios were unsafe. The wiring was hazardous. Windows were cracked, Doors hanging off hinges. The plumbing unsanitary. Truth is that today Health and Safety would not have approved the site for occupation.
NFTS Projection Room Pic 1 by NFTSNational Film and Television School
But those students could dream – each had a canvas ‘director’s chair’ some even etched their names on the back as they sat in their overcoats – there being no heating, between the buckets catching drips from the roof of stage two as the portable projector whirred on showing classic films chosen from the limited list available on 16mm.
NFTS Dubbing Theatre by NFTSNational Film and Television School
They could dream as they toured the facilities – the old cutting rooms, the rushes cinema, the dubbing theatre – each with no equipment. They could dream as their feet stirred the deep dust accumulated in stage one – imagining the magic between ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ on the sets for which there was neither materials nor carpenters or painters.
Dina Hecht (1972) by NFTSNational Film and Television School
The young are never known for patience but these students were glowing for a while in the knowledge that they were pioneers and the chosen few in this National enterprise meant to match the legendary equivalents abroad: La Femis in Paris; CSC in Rome; Lodz in in Poland; VGIK in Moscow – not to mention those famed institutions in California at UCLA and USC.
Colin Young and Lord Eccles NFTS Contact Sheet (1971) by NFTSNational Film and Television School
Despite everything that might have suggested delaying opening the School would have been prudent, waiting for the next academic year in September ’72 would have allowed reconsideration by the Conservative Government which had not been the original promoters of the idea.
Colin Young and Lord Eccles NFTS (1971) by NFTSNational Film and Television School
Securing the mortgage on the studios through the Rank Organisation probably gave the necessary impetus to strike while the iron was hot. Crucially we must remember Colin Young had come from running the UCLA Film School and was ready and eager to put the first bricks in this new edifice.
NFTS Equipment Store by NFTSNational Film and Television School
At the same time there were severely limited funds for capital expenditure. Those of us saddled with the responsibility to run each craft department – camera, sound and editing - found ourselves becoming negotiators with equipment manufacturers and suppliers trying to argue the value of getting in early to an institution that was going to be a growing customer in the future.
Steenbeck at NFTS by NFTSNational Film and Television School
Each decision had ramification for the others. For instance if we were seriously going to ask the students to shoot on 8mm, because 16mm stock and processing would bankrupt the school in months, how would that relate to sound and editing? If the new Nagra recorders were the only serious contenders for sound how could they be synchronised with 8mm cameras?
NFTS Edit Suite by NFTSNational Film and Television School
What could students learn in editing if they had to wind manually though an 8mm viewer to decide when to cut? And in all of this were we seriously going to send 8mm films through the post to Kodak and wait for a week or so before the processed rolls could be viewed and edited?
Alexander Mackendrick and Terrence Davies (1971) by NFTSNational Film and Television School
These and many other concerns made that first period one of considerable anxiety for staff and students alike. Gradually the fabric of the studios was made inhabitable; sufficient equipment was acquired to work with; support staff was hired and crucially students began to produce exercises and short films.
Pictured here on the right is Terence Davies, NFTS graduate and director (A Quiet Passion, The House of Mirth and Distant Voices, Still Lives) as a student, taking part in a workshop run by director Alexander Mackendrick (The Ladykillers, Sweet Smell of Success), on the left.
Roger Crittenden and Brian Huberman - Informal Tutorial How Long is a Cutaway (1971) by NFTSNational Film and Television School
The short films confirmed the students' potential and justified the commitment the Government had made. Walking on to the site now it is hard to imagine the faith that was necessary to build such an institution from nothing. The pride of those of us who saw that birth is hard to describe. We were lucky to have been part of it.
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