Jenny was of many people who came to FilmMemories Divisionfrom a variety of directions and made a considerable contribution with their energy and enterprise which happily was recognized through promotion. Eventually Jenny’s contribution was huge.
Jenny writes:
My Career at COI:
I joined COI in 1971 as a props/production assistant in the design department, working under Wendy Hutton. This reflected my previous experience in the theatre. Two years later I was offered the opportunity to become a researcher/writer and by the time I left COI to join FCO (as Head of TV and Radio in Information Department) in 1990, I was an executive producer. In those 19 years I had an extremely interesting and varied career as a writer, director and producer on news and documentaries, mostly for the overseas television services. I worked on series such as ‘Pattern of People’, ‘Insight’, and ‘Perspective’, ran the New York News Feature Service for a couple of years and was start-up producer on the very successful television magazine ‘UK Today’.
While attached to the News and Facilities Section, first under Helen Standage and then Val Wake I also did some facilities assignments, getting an insight into how foreign television companies view Britain and how they get their information on newsworthy stories to cover.
This stood me in good stead later at the FCO. I was also privileged to be one of the producers ‘lent’ to John Houlton (Assistant Consul-General in Los Angeles) to help him produce his annual ‘Focus on Britain’ series, shooting in the UK but leading to two long sojourns in LA to work on the editing and final post-production. This was valuable experience in fundraising and sponsorship, as well as research, writing and marketing.
On the Home side, I was involved in the making of a couple of Television Fillers and some educational documentaries, for one of which I remember we had to burn a school down! And I was production liaison officer for the Single Market Road Show that toured Britain to encourage business in selling across the Channel. It involved a series of breakfast venues for up to 300 local entrepreneurs who were invited to a Q&A session with a Minister, a small exhibition and some practical ideas demonstrated on video. It took me back to my theatrical touring days with a vengeance, trying to get our set to fit into the hall and making sure the lighting worked, never mind getting the Minister there on time.
In 1990, when I was lucky enough to be selected by FCO to become their new Head of Television and Radio, I was very sorry to leave the COI, where I had worked in such variety and with some extraordinary people. I did continue to work with my old colleagues on some productions, but it was difficult as we were subject to very stringent tendering procedures and often COI was outbid.
In an Foreign and Commonwealth Office initiative to improve take-up of our programming, I accompanied the COI marketing team on their annual visits to television marketing fairs in Cannes, New York, Las Vegas and New Orleans, and learned a great deal from their professionalism. But the world was changing, people got their news from satellite and then the internet, there were fewer television chains willing to accept Government-produced material.
There was an increase in demand from Eastern Europe in the early 90’s as independent media established itself in the post-Communist era, but this was a short-lived phenomenon and quickly peaked. Looking back, my generation lived through the whole rise and fall of an industry, as it embraced and then rejected several technologies. My first years at COI involved crews of up to 12 people and the final product could take weeks to reach the end user as 35mm and 16mm film (sometimes still in monochrome) was shot, processed, edited, dubbed, copies printed and sent by air around the world, where it was still treated as ‘news’ up to 6 weeks later! Then I remember the excitements of my first video shoot in a gun factory in Birmingham in 1978, being able to see what you had shot while still on location, learning to add special effects at the time of editing, and the freedom that a light camera and a small crew brought to the proceedings. Programs were still edited onto cassette though, and sent off in bulk to the clients. Later, of course that crew came down even further, and satellite distribution meant that news could be shot, edited and sent out later the same day, with one or two people able to complete the whole cycle.
Now, with the internet and U-tube, everyone is their own director, editor and commentator, and we live war, famine and every possible news event as it happens. Sadly, I think much expertise was lost along the way, and many excellent and creative technicians were forced into redundancy. I consider myself immensely privileged and lucky to have seen it all through, and to have learnt my craft from some of the amazing and talented personalities who found a home at COI.
The Early Years
My first morning at COI was spent taking the inventory. This involved emptying a large steel cupboard and checking each item off against the list. I was told that I was now responsible for all these ‘props’ and would have to account for them annually, along with anything else that I might be required to buy for a production. There was a selection of old hats, some crockery, velvet drapes and cushions, an electric turntable for displaying small items, and other miscellaneous and mostly useless objects, all now owned by Her Majesty’s Civil Service in perpetuity. One thing puzzled me. On the list I could read ‘collapsible chair’ but there was nothing in the back of the cupboard that remotely resembled anything one could sit upon. I did not dare ignore it as I thought I might be blamed for its disappearance. On inquiry, a few small sticks emerged from a plastic bag that I had put to one side. These were the remains of a specially made balsawood chair that had duly collapsed as soon as it was sat upon in some comedy routine years before. I had to fill in a form to get permission to throw it out. I can’t remember what happened to the rest of the cupboard’s contents, but I know I did not hand them on to my successor, so somehow we got the system changed.
Of course we had to be careful spending public money. We never forgot that principle and it imbued everything we did. But the television screen is unforgiving in uncovering a cheap act, and above all we had to be believable. So when one of my first assignments was to build and dress a hospital bed in the studio I did it properly, hiring all the correct equipment, bedside props and gowns. Everyone was very pleased, and Tony Thompson, producer of ‘Tomorrow Today’ came and congratulated me. That was until he got the invoice for a whopping £50 from the hire company. We worked out a compromise and I promised to try and be more economical without sacrificing reality. The presenters benefited too, because I made an arrangement with some trendy West End shops to loan us wardrobe items, and every week I took the on-screen ‘talent’ to be kitted out in the latest look. I took to making a lot of props, although I never could believe how some of them made it to the screen. Head of Design Wendy Hutton, scenic designer Roger Beck, and I faced some interesting challenges in those pre-digital times - one of the most interesting was the construction of a model African village that had to be filmed from above and look like the genuine article. We spent weeks making tiny houses thatched with leaves, handcarts and wells and even animals, but the finished project was a real work of art.
I spent two years doing props, costumes and production management, until an annual career interviewer asked me what the next step might be and it was decided I should be given a trial as a researcher. That led to working for the biggest practical joker I ever met in my life and was also an introduction to office politics that I will never forget.
Of Mice and Men
Odran Walsh was an Irish TV producer with a long list of credits, brought into COI to make a new series of visual portraits of ‘typical’ yet ‘innovative’ people who could be said to embody the British character and show off British industry, art, medicine and technology. It was to be called ‘A Pattern of People’ and I became his junior researcher.
Despite having been at COI for two years, I had no real idea of how a script was put together – I had always been given the finished version and then had to sort out what was needed on the day of filming. So when the senior researchers in my new office told me that my job was to read the national and technical press every day, marking stories of interest to them, and then do preliminary enquiries on selected items, preparing potted biographies and background information, I was more than happy to comply, and was delighted when some of the subject matter I had presented to them was chosen by Odran for further work and possible filming. It was not until he asked me to stay behind one night that I thought something might be wrong. And when he complained that I was not pulling my weight and had done nothing worthy of his attention, I realised I had been completely duped, and that the others had passed off all my work as their own, without acknowledging any of my contributions. Not only this, but they were claiming overtime for reading the papers and doing preliminary research out of office hours. He was understandably furious, and redressed the situation at once. I was then given a business card from a marine designer, sent to Glasgow to research a possible story on him, and so wrote my first documentary script, ‘Clydeside Computer’.
Odran had a wicked sense of humour, which often came out in practical jokes, some of them quite outrageous. He always signed his letters with a drawing of a mouse, and his nom de plume was Mr Mus. Any written jokes had a little mouse hidden somewhere, but you had to search hard for it. He once managed to hold up an airline departure by producing some ‘Royal’ telegrams that he said had to be read out to the passengers. He could mimic voices perfectly, losing all trace of his natural Irish accent and his composure was so confident and perfect that officials always believed him. At this time, most of the researcher/writers at COI sometimes acted as accompanying officials and fixers for visiting foreign television teams, and we in his office were no exception.
I had been working with a German crew, recently departed, when Christmas came around and we all went our separate ways for the few days of the holiday. On Christmas Eve, just as I was finishing my preparations, my phone rang at home. I heard the voice of the German producer from a few weeks previously, wishing me a happy Christmas, and telling me he had liked London so much he was actually spending Christmas in the city, with some friends. We got chatting, I offered any advice I could give on what to do and see, and it gradually came out that their accommodation had gone wrong and they had nowhere to stay. Eventually it got to a stage where I had invited 6 Germans to come and stay in my small flat, along with providing them with Christmas turkey and all the festive trimmings. My head was spinning with the arrangements I was going to have to make with my family who were coming to dinner. Then Odran, for of course it was he, broke into his normal Irish brogue, to thank me and wish me joy. By then I was almost disappointed it was a joke – I was all ready to show our foreign colleagues what the Brits could do in the way of hospitality to strangers.
All in all, after a bad start, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Odran,