The Formation of Pennine Films

The Formation of Pennine Films: Some personal anecdotes by Roland Whiteside

Around the year 1930 was an interesting cinematographic period for me. I was playing around the heart of the British film industry, fascinated with the work going on, and no less the capers the film industry was well-known for. I had my own wood brass-bound 35mm camera, hand-cranked of course, with one Cooke lens and one set of 400-foot wood film boxes; my activity consisted of shooting odd lengths of negative stock, or positive stock when neg. emulsions were not obtainable at the price I could afford! Processing was done at home in the back bedroom converted as a darkroom, originally for still work, to the worry of my mother who found lengths of film running to and fro along the house landing, dripping some liquid onto the carpet. I hastened to assure her that this was perfectly clean H2O! Dad only grunted, but there was a smile on his face.

Elstree around this period was making pictures sing and talk. Dufay was busy developing experimental colour materials down the road from BIP Studios (British International Pictures), wherein I poked my nose from time to time – “that bloke from Lancashire” I was called.

BIP Studios and their adjoining labs. were my main attraction and at the outset it took some time to get through the gates, but this was overcome by walking in a great hurry past the commissionaires shouting “Good morning – just going to see Mr. Parfery at the Labs.” (He was the Lab. Manager). It was an exciting period, for the studios were busy shooting Richard Tauber’s “Blossom Time” which was almost completed, and scenery was being erected for simple room interiors for a “quota” quickie.

During this period I made many friends connected with film making. One in particular was Maurice Redknap who was chief cameraman at Pathé, Wardour Street where "Pathetone Weekly" and the Newsreel "Pathe Gazette" were made. Pathé had a studio fitted out with the RCA Photophone System on the top floor of their premises, with offices and editing rooms on the lower floors. The basement contained full processing facilities. Maurice did not take part in the News section, but confined himself to "Pathetone Weekly", and this was a full time job. He was in fact director / cameraman and did everything except the art work titles, which were done by girls. Considering the size of the studio it was remarkable what material was produced there. By comparison to Elstree BIP, it was nothing less than a 'backroom'! But this experience showed me that the possibility did exist for eventual production back at home; and this indeed proved to be a realistic appraisal.

I had started producing a silent reel, "Land of Waterfalls", along with my newly-acquired partner and friend Eric Pollard, who lived at Spring Bank, Limefield, opposite the Fox and Grapes Hotel on Preston New Road. "Bunny", as Eric was known by many, was an ex-Marconi Radio Operator. He had a transmitting licence and call sign G5HQ (Five Harry Queenie). He transmitted from his home with occasional programmes by his father playing the piano, usually on Sunday mornings before BBC Manchester G2ZY and London G2LO began their transmissions. As he was electronically adept, I hoped that Eric and I could do something about putting sound to my "Land of Waterfalls". We experimented with disc systems but soon decided that we should have to do something about photographically recording sound on the film itself if we were to make any progress in respect of the professional cinema. The Majestic Blackburn (Exchange Hall) had had a sound-on-disc system put in by A W Harris of Church (Accrington), but it was obsolete very quickly as films progressed from disc to film tracks.

Eric said he could build electrical gear which he considered would work for recording, and it fell to my lot to design and devise some means of putting the modulating light which Eric would produce – by turning sound waves into a light of modulating intensity – onto the edge of the film. Most of the movies appearing at the cinemas used a modulated track of variable area, photographically recorded along the edge of the film. However, the Western Electric Co. of America had developed a much finer modulated track of variable density – occupying the whole width of the track area available. This we considered much more satisfactory. The Westrex System was heralded as producing the finest sound available and took the industry by storm. The Taylors of the Star at Little Harwood were the first in Blackburn to install the Westrex System, and for weeks on end they drew thousands from all parts of Lancashire to their cinema.

There was no doubt about the quality of Western Electric Sound. It was an example of quality proving itself as the means of attracting £.s.d. from the public – something which tends to get over-looked today!

Eric and I considered these two methods of sound-on-film recording, and decided to abandon completely our disc-in-sync efforts. The variable area tracks used a galvo-style modulating light. A beam of light had to be focused onto the edge of the film, and we saw considerable problems with vibration with the equipment we had at our disposal; so we settled for a method of direct illumination of the modulating light onto the film. A sound 'gate' was made to fit into an old silent wood-built Williamson camera which I had, and in this 'gate' was constructed a tube into which we inserted a length of quartz rod which projected to within about 1½mm from the actual film surface. This end was coated with two or three layers of gold leaf. Then, with the aid of a scalpel, a fine hair line was scribed across the gilded surface which allowed the light to pass. This was a delicate operation and many attempts were made to get a clean slit : one which would allow enough light to pass through to fog the emulsion, and yet was fine enough to retain the quality of track image while the film passed at a speed of 90 ft per minute. The end of the sound head was then covered with a very thin cover glass of convex surface, so that only the centre where the slit was positioned actually touched the film surface.

I should mention at this point that Eric had mounted a neon lamp at the other end of the quartz rod, with a copper pipe which provided a housing for the whole assembly. Our problem was to excite the neon lamp sufficiently to adequately expose the passing film – consequently many slits in the gold leaf were experimented with, widening to the limit of sound deterioration. I called it "our problem" but Eric referred to this as my problem as it concerned the photographic aspect of the project. With tests on positive film, and much forced development, we still could not achieve enough illumination; using high speed panchromatic negative, however, a reasonable exposure was obtained – but as is common with high speed emulsions, heavy grain developed which was far from conducive to a clean and sharp track image. Nevertheless, we did hear "sound on film" from our efforts, albeit with a considerable amount of background 'mush' due to grain and forced development. Something had to be done.

We had heard that Philips of Holland had made a type of neon tube about the size and length of a radio valve, so Eric made contact and sent a detailed explanation of our problems and what we were aiming at. Back came a reply to say that they could make a tube with a high U.V. illumination content – which was, by its light value, very actinic to photographic emulsion. This sounded very hopeful. Philips sent over a tube which, with modification to our copper sound head tube, did prove to solve our exposure problem; but unfortunately this lamp modulated, according to the signal loudness, from high intensity right down to the light being extinguished on silent and quiet passages. Consequently we had a blank un-fogged track appearing at these low sound levels which was quite unsatisfactory. After further contact with Philips, and further experimental tubes, we developed a model which maintained a small amount of light at all times, provided the amplifiers feeding the tube were delivering a background. This tube, after further experimental work, proved satisfactory but we had to modify the electronics of the system considerably.

The tube was filled with Xeon gas, providing a high UV output. To retain a constant light emission this had to be fed with a 400 volt direct-current loading; this was the striking voltage to light the tube and thereafter had to be fed continuously to keep it lit. Over this voltage, a varying output from the amplifiers was necessary, and soon arranged by Eric. So we had a constant light as a background fog, over which modulation could be imposed altering the brightness according to the signals from the amplifiers which responded to the excitation provided by the microphones. The intensity obtained was, with a normal gamma development, very satisfactory on positive recording stock. So we had the quality desired at last – a clean, grain-free photographic image of modulating light.

This was a success and cinema test sound tracks were run at the New Central Cinema to everyone’s delight, not least that of Mr. Sanders, the then Manager. So in late 1932 and early 1933 a sound on film system was evolved which we called British Synchrotone S-O-F System; the track, as far as its visible image was concerned, looked very much like Western recordings – but needless to say had been arrived at quite independently. It was with the achievement of S-O-F recording that Pennine Films became a reality and a Company was formed in 1935.

I had made a short film of shots of Blackburn and in Eric's house we made a wild sound track consisting of "voice-over" with intro. and closing music from discs. The film was entitled "Blackburn Calling". This little effort was then printed and screened at the New Central Hall with an introduction indicating that it was a sound test film which had been made in the town. It was this film that started negotiations with Mr. Cuthbert John Cayley. He approached us, being quite excited about the possibilities of film making with sound and very soon proposed the formation of the company with a nominal capital of £3,000, together with premises in Tontine Street which had formerly been a shuttle making factory, and could be adapted for use as studios and other necessary accommodation. Neither Eric nor I had any hope of producing much in the way of cinema material ourselves. We were both occupied with our individual careers; our film interests were entirely a hobby, but with a possible future prospect in film production. Pennine Films appeared to be the answer, so the three working directors established themselves in Tontine Street with C.J.C. taking a full time unpaid position as Chairman and Production Director of the company. He appeared every morning at the studio along with Falco, his Alsatian dog, who became a trade mark in a number of Pennine travel films. As a businessman with far more financial capability than either Eric or myself, he contributed greatly to establishing an excellent partnership. C.J.C. was an artistic individual. He was interested in music, a writer of short stories, and keen on the theatre and cinema. He was a collector of musical boxes and kept many valuable specimens in his home on Alexandra Road overlooking the Corporation Park.

It always seemed to me that, as a cotton manufacturer mainly producing quality bedspreads and embroidered goods along with his brother Digby Cayley, he was unhappy within this vocational environment. Also there was the general depression of a declining textile industry prevailing at this time. Late one evening Cuthbert telephoned me and said we should go over to meet his parents early the next day at Carham Hall, Coldstream, near Berwick-on-Tweed. I should take my Debrie camera and some film stock and we would shoot a few feet of the River Eden which passed through the estate. He arrived early in the morning, as arranged, in his two-seater open Ford V8 and we set out for the journey. The whole idea, I discovered, was to impress his parents of the possibility of commercial film-making and of his exit from textile manufacturing. During this week at Carham his decision was made to embark on such a career and at the same time the film material shot was to be the start of one of the firm's most successful productions, 'This Other Eden'. It was on this occasion that Mr. Cayley Snr. was filmed fishing the Eden, a sequence which was to remain in the film and to be seen throughout the U.K. and abroad. 'This Other Eden' was later screened at the New York World's Fair and became the award winner for the British Short of the Year.

Pennine's main output was of one-and-two-reel travel and documentary-style films for which there was a ready demand as fill-up material for the then single-feature programmes. The renters of Wardour Street required sets of three films which could be 'block booked', and trade shows were held in London, Manchester, Glasgow by the renters. As Pennine became known as independent producers a young man approached us who had just left Manchester University and was keenly interested in camera work. As I was unable to give full-time to cinematography we took him on the staff. The studio and projection facilities together with processing darkroom were fully active, and we had a complement of three on the staff within seven months of opening — a secretary-typist, the newly-appointed camera assistant Douglas H. J. Hardy, and our handyman / caretaker Stubbs, who was a fine character and one time coachman for the Cayley family and had many tales to tell!

Cuthbert wrote the scripts and commentaries. The first recording he did was the commentary for "Land of Waterfalls". The renters did not approve of the voice, much to his disgust, and insisted on a re-recording, saying 'the commentator has an irritating monotone through this picture'. We then approached one or two people for voice tests, among whom was John Lambert, a journalist at the Northern Daily Telegraph. His interest in the theatre and the cinema, and very acceptable voice, resulted in John being our regular commentator. Moreover he brought to the job a wealth of journalistic experience, which went down well with renters and public alike.

In one corner of the studio, which was on the top floor of the premises, there was a toilet built into the wall. This was commandeered as a suitable booth in which to put the commentator. By fitting a heavy door, knocking out some bricks, and putting in double glass windows it provided excellent sound proofing. Most recording was done late in the evenings or in the very early mornings – all night sessions – to avoid any external noise, in spite of the fact that the whole studio, walls and floor were covered with 2" thick carpet underlay felt.

Studio lighting was provided by overhead units of 1,000 watt street lighting bulbs, mobile banks of three floods and a 1 kilowatt spot light. Warm it was, with our 1,000 watt street lamps and flood lights; we had to have the street up, to provide cables for our electricity load and three phase supply. The motor drives for the recording camera, projector and also the DeBrie picture camera could all be operated in synchronization, thus allowing post-sync recording to mute picture, of direct recording (lip-sync) with recorder and camera; all in all, a versatile set-up.

As and when required, music was provided by local talent – the O’Malley String Quartet and Mr. Harold Berry’s trio.