Former Kodak Director of Engineering, Hollywood.

After graduating in Chemistry from Edinburgh and the Heriot-Watt University, and with his interest in radio as GM3PSP, Alan joined the Research laboratories of Kodak Ltd in Harrow and became involved in motion picture film processing and sound track projects. Alan joined the Processing Technology Laboratory which, apart from fundamental research in the chemical processing of film and paper, also provided technical support to the company's sales departments including (in Alan's case) the Motion Picture Sales Department.  Most of Alan's work concerned Motion Picture Film. This is a simplified schematic of the various motion picture film stocks and how they relate to each other. Colour negative film (of various types and speeds) after exposure in the studio or location is processed and printed to give rush prints for immediate evaluation and workprints for editing. After editing, a duplicate negative is made in a two-stage process via a master positive and printed to give many hundreds or thousands of release prints for projection in the cinemas.Film sound tracks are recorded on magnetic tape and after editing are transferred to black and white sound negative film as one or two narrow strips of variable width at the edge of the film. This is then printed with the picture negative to give a composite print for projection. he Motion Picture Sales Dept provided technical support to customers such as Rank Film Labs (later Deluxe Labs) for example when they had had problems with film processing and Alan made a number of visits there.Alan's first move was from the Research Labs to the Marketing Education Centre in Hemel Hempstead. After a while in Photofinisher Training he became the Manager of the Motion Picture Training Group, providing training courses of up to 4 weeks to customers and Kodak staff from all over the world. One field course was to Jos in northern Nigeria to run a course on the processing of 16mm Ektachrome reversal film for news gathering for the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) Trips were made to Eastern European countries to present technical papers at photographic conferences and to staff the Kodak stand at exhibitions. A visit was made to Barrandov Studios in Prague where the movie 'Amadeus' was being shot in a mock-up of a concert hall built inside the studio.Alan's next move was to the European Region of the parent company, Eastman Kodak Company, in London. His job was defined as making two technical trips each year to customers and Kodak houses in each of the 16 countries in western Europe which proved to be impossible in spite of being away from home for two weeks out of four for over three years! One day in London, Alan's American boss, who was about to return to the US, asked Alan if he would like to come back with him. It wasn't a difficult decision, and after choosing the right moment to ask Alison, Alan moved to Kodak Office in Rochester NY where he became Director of Product Planning for Motion film products. Attendance at motion picture conferences and exhibitions was a frequent duty, now in New York City and Los Angeles. An important industry organisation is the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) which among other things is responsible for setting motion picture technical standards, in which Alan became involved on behalf of Kodak. After about five years in Rochester (with its arctic winters) Alan moved to the Kodak Hollywood office and became the Director of Engineering, working with the top technical people in the industry, particularly the laboratories, sound  houses and post-production houses. The Kodak Hollywood office was located on Santa Monica Boulevard on Route 66.At that time there were four major motion picture laboratories in Hollywood -Technicolor, Deluxe, CFI or Consolidated Film Industries and Fotokem. Technicolor was conveniently located right next to Universal Studios and with a nice view of the famous Hollywood sign. Kodak maintained a close relationship with the camera rental companies, in whose cameras their film would be shot in the studios. An important test for any new film stock was how much noise it would generate when the camera was running in a sound studio. Alan would arrange tests at Panavision in a sound-proof room with a sensitive directional microphone, measuring the sound level every 100 feet of a 1000ft roll of film. An early lesson learned was always to conduct these tests in the morning as after lunch tummy rumbles would give full-scale readings on the most sensitive range! s the principal users (and choosers) of Kodak camera stocks, the members of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) were most important contacts. 

During Alan's time the Kodak Theater opened on Hollywood Boulevard and the Oscar ceremonies were moved there. The Academy Scientific and Technical Awards better known as the Technical Oscars, with a ceremony held two weeks before the main Oscars. It was Alan's responsibility to coordinate the Kodak entries for these awards every year and to attend the ceremonies.Alan retired from Hollywood in 2005. Instead of returning to Scotland immediately he actually returned to Rochester for a few years, while waiting for the poor pound-dollar exchange rate to improve. Rochester is a very interesting place for everything photographic and Alan was invited to become a part-time lecturer in the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman House.A major project in Alan's last years in Hollywood had been his work in the Dye Tracks Committee whose objective was to convert the world (!) from using silver sound track to cyan dye tracks on colour release prints. This was achieved and eventually the committee was honoured with a Technical Oscar.