History
In 1986, a group of workers in the British film and television industry set about collecting and archiving the oral testimonies of retired co-workers. They called themselves the BECTU History Project.
Fearing that the story of early British filmmaking would disappear forever with the passing of industry pioneers, the volunteers set about the task with urgency. In the space of five years, it grew into an archive of international importance in terms of size, and scholarly and industry attention. The Project is now a unique collection of interviews with the men and women who have made their working lives in the film, television, radio and theatre industries.
Among the famous voices in the collection are Lindsay Anderson, Richard Attenborough, Sheila Hancock, Karel Reisz and David Puttnam. But there are also interviews with hundreds of other men and women from all walks of life who have worked in our industry over the last 90 years. There are DoPs, film editors, hair and makeup artists, actors, projectionists, matte artists, writers, neg. cutters, electricians, dubbing mixers, costume designers – every craft is there. It is a vast store of knowledge and experience.
The interviews vary in length from 30mins to 15 hours! There are between 4000 – 5000 hours of material in the archive. The archive’s earliest memory records events in the British film industry in the 1910s. Roy Fowler the Project’s founder interviewed Adolph Simon, an early newsreel cameraman, who recalled filming in 1914. The interviews are very rich from the 1930s and 40s — before the days of television. It is an important legacy for current and future students and researchers – in fact anyone who wants to find out about the history of our industry and our country from those who lived and worked in it.