By 1960 the production of documentary films had recovered from the difficult years from 1952 when production of films for public information purposes had all but ceased following financial cut by the Conservative government that came to power in 1951. The effect on Film Division had been severe, so much so that a brief time the division had been amalgamated with Exhibitions Division. The production of documentary films had been sustained by continuing work for the Overseas Information Services which, it seems, had not been subject to the financial cuts. While recovery had been slow, by 1960 it was virtually complete. The difficult issues of the 1950s with regard to the Crown Film Unit, the lack of work and the delays caused through the requirement to seek Treasury authority for each production had now passed.
The unit that produced documentary films for the Home Departments had a base of some 30 client departments. Films were made for a diverse range of purposes from the environment to health , to improvements in education and recruitment to the armed services.
A small anomaly was that it also included a few films for the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office. These were largely films not destined for use on television, but used by Embassies and High Commissions for invited audiences or for use with groups of opinion formers.
The role of the unit was to evolve during the next three decades. In 1960 it still largely acted simply as a bridge between the client departments and the commercial production companies who were contracted to carry out the actual production. This was the role laid down by government when the COI was established. Gradually the role changed (helped along by technology changes) moving toward varying degrees of in house production.
In 1960 the COI Film Division staff handling documentary projects were referred to as Production Control Officers (PCOs). The implication being that they controlled the production but did not make any substantial creative contribution. The implication was to an extent true but much depended on the individual PCO and the relationship they managed to achieve with the production company and the client.
Because the term PCO was a little obscure, the result was that many in the documentary industry were not at all sure of their standing or purpose. What was the exact role of the PCO in the production of a film, what was the role vis-s-vis the contracted production company? Some PCOs through force of personality and the ability to form good working relationships, were able to make sensible contributions above and beyond acting as a glorified postman. Creative contributions such as might be expected from someone who might otherwise be called a COI Producer. Some did not.
There was no doubt that this issue, the role of the PCO, in the production of documentary films, continued to cloud the perception of the client departments, the production companies and those who took an interest in the progress of the documentary film. The questions that had dogged COI since its inception what was it for, what did it contribute? continued until the 1970s. then gradually evaporated thereafter.
The most important tasks for those involved, was that the films that were made fulfilled three main criteria. First, the films that were made clearly carried the information message that the responsible department of government wished to convey. The films should be effective, memorable and convincing .
Second, they should be made on time. Third, they were made to budget.
The evidence of the finished products is that most of the films that were made by COI did in fact met these requirements. Moreover in achieving these requirements, the opportunities offered by the use of “moving pictures” were well used. That is they made good use of the medium of film..
For the most part, these films were not that well known or written about by critics or historians of film in the way that some of the work of the Crown Film Unit has been analysed. While Crown Film Unit is justly remembered for a number of films that have a place in the history of film, and by names that will be remembered such as Humphrey Jennings and Harry Watt. It is also the case that many COI documentary films were also made by talented directors. Film makers such as Hugh Hudson, Anthony Simmons, John Krish, Sarah Erulker, Robert Young, Peter Greenaway, Eddie Newsted, are among many others whose names should be remembered. It should also be remembered that it was COI Film Division who made the choices to ask them to make the films.
Looking back at some 66 years or so of documentary films made by COI Film Division it needs to be said, more than once, that as with any sponsored documentary film production company, the films that were made are those that it is was asked to make by the folk putting up the money: in this case departments of government. COI Film Division did not have its own pot of gold or even silver that it might use from time to time to make films that it might think were worth making. COI was there to make the films it was asked to make to serve a particular purpose. The constraints were the same as for any sponsored documentary film organisation. But that said, there were opportunities to make films that not only served the purpose of the sponsor, but films that were good pieces of film making, even exceptionally well made films, in their own right.
While many of the films produced might not be of much interest to the film critic or historian they all had to serve the purpose of the sponsor, whether it was the Building Research Station or the Department of the Environment concerned with lofty questions about the nature of society and the built environment.
In later years of the 1970s and 1980s research was commissioned from time to time to check on whether the message that departments wished to convey by the use of documentary film actually worked. That is to establish that the required messages were conveyed to the target audience and served their purpose. That the films were memorable enough that some of the audience, at the least, remembered the message(s) and were persuaded to acted accordingly. For instance that small children avoided throwing themselves into slurry pits or injured themselves in other ways on farms.
People and Process:
In 1960 memory suggests that the production of documentary films was handled by a group 4-5 PCOs working to the Head of Documentary Films who, in turn, worked to the overall Head of Home Film Production also responsible for the production of Television Fillers and Television commercials as well as documentary films..
This was Frances Cockburn who had been a film editor before joining COI . She had joined COI in the mid 1950’s. She was a determined and forceful person who ran her operation with a firm control. She had a sharp eye for a good and not so good film. She possessed a clear understanding of the relationship between COI and the client departments. She had a good nose for what was politically acceptable and what was not. The latter attribute was very important. It was one not always understood by COI Film Division personnel, sometimes to the detriment of the organisation.
Frances was well known within the documentary film industry from her years of working within it. From the perspective of the industry she was “one of us”. This was important to COI since the production of documentary films, television commercials and television fillers, all of which were under her control represented a substantial amount of work and income to Film Division. Thus at times of difficulty any intervention by Frances carried weight. In many ways she was the ideal “bridge” with expertise grounded in a professional background but with a sensitivity to the needs of the Civil Service departments who were the clients.
In 1960 the Head of Documentary Films was Derek Mayne, with at any one time around 4-5 PCO’s working to him. While by no means a complete list, at various times these included Annis James, Phillip Dan, Peter Broderick, Nigel Wilkinson Graham Woodford, Jon Frankfort, and A S Brettell with an assistant PCO, John Parsons who worked to Annis James.
An example of one personality who clearly filled the role of a “COI Producer “ rather than the nebulous PCO was Annis James. She had joined COI in 1958 from BBC Casting at Broadcasting House. She exemplified the qualities that made for a good PCO/Producer. She was a quiet, very pleasant personality behind which lay a steely determination to ensure that events went to plan. She was always on top of what was happening and what should be happening, she knew what was necessary to make the correct things happen. She knew the difference between good work and indifferent work. She was the ultimate safe pair of hands. Moreover she accomplished all this by quiet force of personality. While she appeared to operate within the normal conventions that governed the relations of the PCO and the contracted production company, she was effectively a forerunner of the contribution that all COI Producers were eventually to make.
Some of the other PCOs, not all, were, no doubt, conscientious, but tended to be (because of the system) conscientious shifters of paper. They made the files go round and ensured that films made progress. While there was a value in making sure the files went around and were kept in good order, it was not a value that the folk in the sponsoring departments much appreciated or thought was worth the money being charged by COI in respect of overheads and the costs of the PCO. This was, for some people in some departments, a running sore which did the COI much harm.
In 1972 Frances Cockburn was promoted to be Director of Films Division on the retirement of John Bewg who had been Director since 1964. At that point she asked John Hall to make a sideways transfer, to take over from her as Head of Home Film Production from his then job as Head of Overseas Television Production.His brief was to gradually change the culture of Home Film Production Group to speed up the production progress and to ensure that more substance and more creativity could be seen to flow from COI personnel thus making a more useful contribution as well as helping to justify COI and its costs. The task was, in effect, to make sure that the COI PCOs gradually changed their spots to become COI Producers with all the attributes that the title was normally recognised as carrying within the industry.
Inevitably this meant changing or losing some of those involved, not an easy task given the Civil Service rules governing the conditions of employment of people who had been in their job for some time. Happily age and retirement, including opportunities for early retirement or transfer elsewhere, came along and assisted the process. It is an obvious truism that the quality of work and thereby the reputation of an organisation is determined by the people working in it.
An early but important change was that the two long serving budget and contract officers, notable for the slow pace of progress, were the first to move on. Their departure on retirement led to a major reorganisation of the budgeting and contracting section bringing together the hitherto separate sections for Home and Overseas Services under the control of one person . The person was Vivienne Moynihan recruited from outside the COI.She had a background in the film and entertainment business. Her appointment speeded up and made this part of the production process much more efficient and effective. (see below A Fair Price and Value for Money)
In the case of the PCOs, A S Bretell, Phillip Dann and Derek Mayne departed on retirement. Peter Broderick transferred to the Information Section of the Department of Trade and Industry, Nigel Wilkinson went to Health and Safety, both in effect becoming clients of COI and the contact point for any films.
In place of the PCOs new people now called Producers included, over time, Bruce Parsons, Mark Eliot, Leo Eaton, JNR Barron and Richard Smith.
Still very much in place, because she had always been an effective and experienced PCO with all the attributes of a Producer, was Annis James. She clearly filled the role of a “Producer “ rather than the nebulous PCO . She had joined COI in 1958 from BBC Casting at Broadcasting House. She exemplified the qualities that made for a good Producer. She was a quiet, very pleasant personality behind which lay a steely determination to ensure that events went to plan. She was always on top of what was happening and what should be happening, she knew what was necessary to make the correct things happen. She knew the difference between good work and indifferent work. She was the ultimate safe pair of hands. Moreover she accomplished all this by quiet force of personality. While she appeared to operate within the normal conventions that governed the relations of the PCO and the contracted production company, she was effectively a forerunner of the contribution all COI Producers were eventually to make.
On occasion some Producers also came on short term contracts, something that was unheard of in earlier days. One such was Anthony Friedman who was to produce the remarkable "Nobody Told George" made to encourage the public to take part in the Planning Process for housing developments. His film used the conceit of street theatre as a means of explaining and engaging the public in the planning process.
Leo Eaton brought not only a keen creative intelligence but also a sartorial revolution. His mode of dress included a Mexican poncho and ethnic sandals. It says something about COI that not much of an eye was batted or, was anything much, said apart from a gently suggestion that for those meetings that involved Ministers perhaps he could give the poncho and the sandals a rest.
Leo Eaton was a breath of fresh air. He was particularly effective in finding new ways of dealing with old subjects and could be very effective in dealing with people. A measure of his effectiveness can be seen in his achievements after leaving COI. He went to the USA (his wife was from Texas) and made a huge reputation in Public Broadcasting becoming Vice President of the Maryland PBS Station before setting up his own very successful documentary production company.
The new team gradually adopting the title of Film Division Producers, brought with them an approach, reflected in new styles of documentaries such as "At Last It’s The Traffic Management Show (1980)" directed by Ian Morrison and produced by Annis James which was based in a television studio and employed as program presenter James Burke, then a well known television anchor.
Robin Duval who had later taken over from Jon Frankfort as Head of Home Film Production, produced a group of films "Habitat 76 UK (1976)" about planning and the built environment as the the UK contribution to the major United Nations Habitat Conference in Vancouver.
Richard Smith who joined around 1982 from the Science Research Council epitomised the gradually evolving change in the way that production took place from the late 1970’s. One change was that, while notionally, he was a documentary producer, as need arose, he also produced television fillers and some commercials. The other change reflecting more change in Producer responsibilities Richard Smith produced the video program "Minder (1985)" . This was an anti-drugs film with the well known television personalities George Cole and Denis Waterman. It was produced in-house with a Production Manager seconded from the Budgets Unit. It was a considerable departure from the normal process of the production of documentary films but was to become commonplace in later years.
It took a great deal of effort on the part of Richard Smith to persuade Cole and Waterman to do the film, and London Weekend Television to keep and let Film Division use the ‘Winchester Club’ set used in their television series. That the program was a success was down to Film Division in house capability and support for Richard Smith that got it signed, sealed and delivered.
A criticism of COI Film Division documentaries made for Home Departments was that of slow speed of production. Where this was true it was a consequence not only of some of the Film Division people involved and the administrative process, it was also a consequence of the decision making process within the sponsoring departments. Communication with the Home Departments and their decision making process was often protracted, with files within a department being passed around without any great sense of speed.
The following description of the stages of production indicates the roles of those taking part and the contributions they made.
The actual process of initiating a production was simple enough. A letter from a department (perhaps with a little prompt from COI) would refer to an item in the agreed medium programme (part of the Annual Estimates of required work) indicating that the department wished to get started. There followed a meeting between representatives of the department and the Producer nominated by Film Division that was to determine the objective(s) of the film, its intended audience, background information and so forth. The outcome of one or more meetings was an agreement on a “brief “ for the project that was a description of the purpose of the film, the intended effect on the audience, notes on where and with whom the film would be made. Effectively a plan for what was to be done and where and how it was to be done.
The Film Division Producer would consider possible suitable writers and/or production companies and discuss possible candidates with Head of Documentary Production. In some cases a free-lance writer would be contracted to research and prepare a treatment or script; alternatively a production company would be commissioned with the same aim. Commissioning at this stage was without any obligation to the whole project. It will be noted that the work did not involve any “tendering” process. (see below A Fair Price and Value For Money)
The script/treatment was contracted for an agreed fixed fee negotiated with the Film Division Budget and Contracting Office. When the script was received the Film Division Producer would discuss it with the Department to ensure that it met the departmental requirements and take on any comments or questions. Once the treatment or script was accepted by theFilm Division and the sponsoring department, the production company would be asked to provide a proposed budget and production schedule which would then be negotiated with Film Division Budget Office.
When an agreed budget and contract were in place, planning and production would be implemented. It was then the responsibility of the Film Division Producer to work closely with the production company at all stages to ensure the smooth production of the film. The Producer was usually present at most if not all shooting days, and viewed the film at the various editing and sound recording stages providing comment and guidance as necessary.
It was his/her responsibility to ensure that any production difficulties were ironed out. Effectively they were the eyes and ears of the department and the COI Film Division. A particular issue was where access to facilities were concerned. These could range from access to aircraft in the case of RAF recruiting films to research laboratories, to schools, to hospitals. Arranging and ensuring that agreed facilities were in place when shooting was planned was a particular responsibility for the Producer since any costs incurred by the production company as a consequence of facilities not being in place were chargeable over and above the fixed price contract. Such costs were one of only two areas of cost that production companies could recover. The other area was severe weather conditions.
The finished film had to meet the requirements of the agreed “brief” in terms of the message and work as a piece of film.
As might be expected the nature and input of the Film Division Producer was often variable. Where it was done well, successively carrying the film forward, the Film Division contribution was valued by both the departments and the production companies. A great deal depended on personal relationships. In the case of the production companies when relations between the Film Division Producer and the production company personnel were in harmony, in particular the relationship between the Director of the film and the Film Division Producer, the arrangement kept the show on the road while allowing the production company freedom for creative input.
The role of the Film Division Producer vis-a- vis the client department was also critical. A first hand illustration of the role of the Producer is provided by Robin Duval, who had been both a Producer and subsequently Head of Home Film Production. Reflecting about the relationship between COI and sponsoring departments he wrote:
Some departments were of course easier to work with than others. For instance Sheila May (Mrs SML May) who I think was at the Home Office was an absolute sweety, also Robin Goodfellow (an unforgettable name). The Ministry of Transport was more problematic with some dogmatic - and not very bright - officials who blenched at anything that deviated from their previous experience. Romola Christopherson, the SIO at Environment, was more helpful though, frankly, I never thought her heart was in the job,Romola tended to give us film-makers carte blanche…
My sense during the fillers and the documentaries periods was that the departments were divided between people who were glad to leave it to us (perhaps for an easy life) and others who resented the COI’s primacy. Occasionally, bright fast-stream people would be seconded to oversee a film who took a lot of delicate handling because (fairly fresh from their 1st Class Hons at Oxbridge) they couldn’t see why we didn’t just do as they suggested. I suspect over time the COI may have paid a penalty for this. I know that I was immensely protective especially of my documentaries and probably made a few minor enemies by my bossiness.
As a general rule, if you offered a department something different from their expectations, you had to expect trouble. Even if the information people were on your side, some higher official whom you would never get to meet might occasionally veto it. A few perfectly good scripts got junked this way. Well, perhaps not entirely. Now and again you might be able to recycle one for a different department.
There were also a few occasions when the film would be shown for final approval to an audience containing officials who were unfamiliar with the project - and arguments would bubble up between them. The Film Division Producer’s role at that point would be to stand at the front of the cinema mediating and if necessary suggesting alterations. As often as not (frankly), those alterations would be designed to create the illusion of change without affecting the integrity of the movie. The important thing was to persuade officials that their concerns were being taken seriously and acted upon. If you achieved that, it was not unknown for the same officials to modify their positions helpfully. All they needed was respect. I learned more about diplomacy on those sessions than ever before or since.
How many documentary films were made in the years 1960 to 1989?
The following figures are for films that were completed and released in a given year. They are almost certainly incomplete, probably understated, since the COI records were by no means complete when they were handed over to the National Archives and the National Film Archive in 2012.
Some of the films will have been in the production process for more than one year. Despite these caveats the figures are a useful indication of the way the number of films rose and fell from year to year either for financial reasons such as constraints on expenditure by central government, or in later years, because of advances in technology such as the introduction of light weight video equipment that enabled a number of departments to set up small, in house, video units.
Productions that were not included in the above figures, were those projects carried out in conjunction with COI Exhibitions Division from whom there was a regular flow of work. The major events were for large international exhibitions or trade fairs where the United Kingdom had a presence, often in the form of an elaborate Pavilion. The use of film in these settings might range from a single film to be shown in a small cinema to a film with a number of shorter films shown on monitors scattered throughout the Pavilion.
An example of such a project was the Expo 1967 World Fair at Montreal in Canada. The theme of the exhibition was the use of film and other audio -visual as devices in public communications. Film Division provided numerous monitors throughout the British Pavilion displaying short film loops together with major documentary film on the arts in the UK entitled “Opus”. (See more about this film at Documentary Films Produced 1960 to 1969) Another example was the Expo at Brisbane in Australia in 1988. The centrepiece of the British Pavilion was a huge number of television monitors of different sizes grouped and hanging in the form of a crystal. Each of the monitors was playing a loop of an aspect of life in Britain. It was a stunning and memorable spectacle.
Another series of productions not included in the figures are what came to be known as “Audio-Visual Presentations” which were fashionable for a period in the latter part of the 1970s and early 1980s.
These were presentations by Ministers or Senior Civil Servants often to conferences or groups of businessmen as part of a campaign on a particular subject. The “audio-visual” element was provided by the use of a number of slide projectors often with a separate synchronised sound track with a commentary. Such sound tracks accompanied sections of the presentation illustrating specific facts or statistics. These sections could be interspersed throughout the presentation. The purpose of breaking up a lengthy speech in this way was to distinguish the main policy issues, to be delivered by the speaker from the underpinning evidence, the statistical or other facts which, though necessary, might be difficult for an audience to take in without the reinforcement of the presentation. See separate section Audio Visual Presentations
In time, changing technology superseded slide projectors in favour of computer controlled video clips which again, tended to be produced by Film Division in-house.
A Fair Price and Value for Money: Negotiating Contracts
As a "media factory" COI employed a range of creative skills many of them commissioned from a range of large and small companies. The ethos of spending public money, as understood in the COI, was to arrive at a "fair price" for a piece of work. Fair that is between COI and the organisation or individual undertaking the work. Arriving at a "fair price" did not imply beating the contractor into the ground. It meant what it said, a fair and equitable price for doing the work. Apart from all other considerations COI needed to produce work of good quality not something that looked bureaucratic or cheap, possibly very unconvincing.
In the of Film Division underlying the budget process for documentary films and for all productions was the absence of "tendering" that was the normal process for procuring goods and services where public money was involved. This departure from normal Civil Service practice , indeed from practice in other parts of COI, was partly justified by the presence of the Budget Officer reporting to the Divisional Administration Officer and partly by by the particular issues arising from the nature of film production. However to provide against the possibility of corruption in the absence of the tendering process any production company looking to obtain work had first to gain financial acceptance with COI as to its financial strength and reliability through an auditing process . This was a fairly expensive and sometimes time consuming process. Acceptance meant that a company was placed on the COI "approved contractor" list.
This process was a line of defence enabling Films Division producers to have a reasonable degree of flexibility in the choice of production companies, creative people and facilities against the reasonable worries of finance Division about probity in the use of public funds. Inevitably there were often uncertain factors that could impact on the eventual cost of a film. The concept of the "fair price" was to arrive at a figure that would recognise this uncertainty.It was not always an easy result to achieve. It required knowledge of all aspects of the production process and negotiating skill to agree a contract price.
Early in the 1960s the retirement of the two long serving budget officers together with issues arising from the increase in work for the Overseas Television Services where the Executive Officer in charge of costing and contracting had got into such a muddle that the services ran out of money three months before the end of the financial year. The solution to both these problems was to recruit from outside the COI someone with direct film or television costing and contracting experience. The successful candidate was Vivienne Moynihan. She was a tough no nonsense lady in her middle years who came from a career in the entertainment industry. she had worked for some time for the Brian Epstein organisation who managed the Beatles as well many other interests in the creative industry. She had considerable skill as a negotiator and a formidable knowledge of costs, moreover she moved with speed backed up with an able assistant Sylvia Barker so that the work was carried out quickly and efficiently.
The Budget Unit was in charge of costing and contracting for all production work that was documentary films, television fillers and television commercials.