Happy Birthday Geoff Glover - 10 May. Celebrating our GBCT Retirees

Happy Birthday to Geoff Glover, one of the founders of the GBCT and 91 years young! Geoff, Mike Fox, Terry Cole and John Deaton were at Pinewood doing nights shoots on Superman and, during one of those quiet moments, discussed forming a non-unionised organisation, focussing on the training and welfare of camera crew. This was agreed at an open meeting at 10am on the 6th November 1977, at the old Caernarvon Hotel, Ealing Common. BECTU saw them as competition and resisted vigorously, but eventually backed down and forged an amicable acceptance.

Geoff was an avid photography and film fan and set his heart on working in film as soon as he left school at 16. This was before BECTU’s time and the A.C.T. (The Association of Cinematograph Technicians and Kinematographers) was a closed shop. This meant that you couldn’t work in the industry without a Union Ticket, which you couldn’t acquire without a job in the industry, as explained to him by a doughty Beryl Cook figure in a kiosk, fag dangling from her lips and knitting needles clicking vigorously. Undaunted, Geoff found his first job at Dufay Chromex Colour Processing, which manufactured 35mm colour film. He was paid the princely sum of 4 pennies a week. National Service for the RAF intervened, after which he re-applied to the ACT and met the legendary Bessie Bond, who assured him that they wanted people. Shortly thereafter, he received a telegram from MGM requesting his presence at 5.00 a.m. on a Sunday morning for a 2nd Unit shoot. The Focus Puller was Tommy Fletcher, generous with his help, encouragement and expertise with time sheets. This led to Geoff working at Brighton Film Studios as a clapper loader and tea-maker – some things never change! He moved on to Nettleford Studios, subsequently Hepworth Studios, then Walton Studios before it was demolished in 1961 in aid of the housing boom. He spent the next three years learning his craft on over 20 episodes of “Robin Hood’ and various films, including Otto Preminger’s “Saint Joan”.

Geoff’s first foreign location was Bermuda in 1956, working with DOP Wilkie Cooper on Lewis Gilbert’s “The Admirable Chricton”. Bermuda’s pink sand beaches were a sharp contrast to his second foreign location 2 years later. He’d moved up to focus pulling by this time and spent three months in the jungle in India, living and working on “Harry Black and the Tiger”. The tiger was named Lakshmi after the Hindu goddess of wealth, good fortune, prosperity, and beauty. She was an ex circus tiger from the local zoo and allegedly well trained. Nevertheless, she had Diva traits and was docile and purring until lunchtime, when the sun was at its hottest and she became recalcitrant. The area was netted off and the camera crew poked their lenses through the mesh, never venturing nearer than 8 ft. By

the end of the shoot, she’d become used to the crew and Geoff, still pursuing his photography, lay down with his 16mm camera in order to get some good stills. He was within 6 feet of her and only wearing shorts. Doubtless, wishing to ensure he got her best side, she ambled over to lick his back, as the crew laughed supportively and Geoff did his best to look nonchalant. He survived unscathed and John Wilcox, the DoP asked him to work on his next project “Carve her Name with Pride”, one of his all-time favourite films and the start of a seven year working relationship. They worked together on 20 films in total.

Geoff started operating at the end of the heady, good days of the Sixties. Hs first film was “Husbands”, directed by John Cassavetes. The DoP was Victor Kempler, ASC. They rejected the aesthetics of the “Hollywood Look” and opted for cinéma vérité style. The film took a minimalist approach, which polarised the critics, who pronounced it to be all things between “excellent”, “genius” and “trash with clothes on”.

The early 70’s were not good years for the film industry and the majority of American Companies pulled out. Geoff survived on commercials and the odd documentary. His luck changed again in 1976 when he was asked to operate 2nd camera on Star Wars. George Lucas liked working with 2 cameras. Gil Taylor, his DoP, did not! The end result was that Geoff became 2nd Unit Camera, shooting minor and major scenes, much encouraged and supported by Gil. Additional Photogtaphy on A Bridge Too Far followed, then operating on Superman. Geoffrey Unsworth was the Cinematographer on both films.

By 1979, Geoff was back working with Gil on “Meetings with Remarkable Men”, shot in the relative safety of Pinewood and the not at all safe Afghanistan. It was hard going with not much choice of restaurants for relaxing in the evening, other than the British Embassy in Kabul. They were shooting at the Russian border and couldn’t help noticing a lot of military activity and bridges that were clearly built for heavy vehicles. Fortunately for the crew, the Russians held off invading until a few weeks after filming had finished. Geoff went from the boiling heat of Afghanistan to minus 20 degrees in Norway on the Star Wars sequel “The Emperor Strikes Back” on which he was 2nd Unit DoP.

After over 50 years in the industry, Geoff retired in 1977, having spent the latter years of his working life in Ireland, mostly on American, Irish and British TV series. His final production was in 2018, when he was part of the crew on Glastonbury Fayre, headlined by Arthur Brown.

Geoff would like it to be known that he still misses working and would love to be invited to sit on the sidelines observing filming the digi way and comparing and contrasting it with film.

His advice to those attending courses for operating a geared head is: Stay with it. It’s like riding a bike and you never forget how. Try me!