‘I thought this was the first day,’ said Henry.
‘It is.’
‘Why have you put scene 8, then?’
‘The scenes aren’t shot in order. They’re spliced and joined up in the right order later. There’s one more thing I need to show you.’ Alan beckoned him over to the second box they had carried into the studio.
As he swung back the lid, Henry stared again at all the different-sized lenses.
‘It looks harder than it is,’ said Alan reassuringly. ‘But usually only three of these are used. For a close-up you’ll need a three inch lens or a 75 mill,’ he began.
‘Mill?’
‘Millimetres. That’s what the American lenses are called,’ and he continued to show Henry which lens was which.
It took a good half an hour for the camera to be ready and nearly all morning to do the lighting. Later, two members of the cast were called. Henry observed a plump woman standing in front of a smartly dressed actress wearing a suit, pressing what looked like blotting paper against the make-up on her face. An actor was standing on a mark on the floor of the set, wearing a long raincoat and trilby. The raincoat was identical to the one Henry had been given at Christmas. It was covered in damp patches, as though the character the actor was playing had just come in from the rain. A thin young woman wearing spectacles was peering at the damp patches and taking notes.
‘She’s the continuity girl,’ said Alan. ‘Because each scene is filmed in bits and sometimes over several days, she’s got to make sure that everything looks the same.’
Henry returned to watching the actress. The hat she was wearing tilted to one side and he heard the director telling the man with the beard that when she was on the telephone he wanted it to cast a shadow across her face.
There was a relaxed concentration as each part of the scene was rehearsed and filmed over and over again. Henry watched Max peering intently through the viewfinder at the side of the camera.
‘Why don’t you go to the canteen and get a cuppa for everyone?’ said Alan. ‘That’s one of the jobs you can do today. Just pick up a tray.’
‘How will I get everyone’s cup on one tray?’
Alan laughed.
‘Sorry. You don’t get tea for everyone in the studio. Just the camera crew. We all work in fours. That’s me, the boss, Max, Sid, and you of course.’
Henry decided to get tea for the grip as well. When he returned with six cups he wondered if Jeffries was doing the same thing at the publishing house. The studio was now in a fog of cigarette smoke and Alan was nowhere to be seen. He guessed he must be in the darkroom again. He glanced up at Max.
‘Ah, lovely!’ he said, stepping down and eagerly taking a cup like a man in a desert reaching an oasis. He gave Henry a friendly wink and Henry headed towards the boss, grip and Sid. On the way back he saw Alan with a sealed can. The top sheet of the negative report sheet had been attached to it.
Another thing to remember, and he watched Alan replace the blue carbon paper under a new top sheet and take a loaded magazine over to the front of the camera.
They were allowed three-quarters of an hour in the middle of the day for a bite to eat. Grabbing some sandwiches, Alan beckoned Henry to follow him. He took him to a small room, carrying a magazine of leftover film and one of the flat empty cans.
‘There’s about two hundred feet of film in here,’ he said. ‘It’s for you to practise on.’ He opened the magazine. ‘This magazine has to be opened in the dark. See that small circle of bakelite in the centre of the reel?’ he said, pointing to a circular brown object. ‘You have to make sure that you take the reel out flat, without that falling out. Then you have to transfer it to the can.’
‘In the dark?’
‘Yes. And it’s really dark, not like a photographic darkroom. If that middle falls out, it’s murder to get it back in again.’
‘But how will I see what I’m doing?’
‘You don’t. You have to do it by feel. That’s why you need to practise. Once you can do that, you’ll be a clapper unloader as well as a clapper loader. Try it.’
With the utmost concentration Henry picked up the reel. To his horror the middle fell out and the reel went everywhere.
‘You need to be gentle. You have to put your hand flat underneath it first. You can try again tomorrow. Keep practising every time we take a break. Then try it with your eyes shut. That’s the way to do it. Now eat your sandwich. We have to get back to the studio pronto.’
By the time the fourth reel of film was sealed in a can and stacked with the other cans ready to be picked up by a man from the laboratory, it was half past seven and they had gone into overtime. The camera, magazines and lenses were packed up into the black boxes and returned to the camera room ready to be unpacked again the next morning.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you much today,’ said Max as they walked down the corridor. ‘I hope Alan’s been explaining things. We’re off for some fish and chips now and then going into one of the small studios to see a film.’
‘Oh,’ said Henry, disappointed. He had hoped to have some company on the way home. ‘I’ll go and get the bus, then.’
‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ said Max, surprised.
‘You mean I can?’
‘Of course. You’re one of us now. And don’t worry about a bus. A studio car takes you home as well as picks you up.’
When Henry arrived back at Mrs Beaumont’s house, he found Uncle Bill sitting at the foot of the steps in the hall, his nose deep in a book, a pile of paperbacks and a thermos beside him. He poured cocoa from the thermos into a mug and held it out for Henry to take.
‘Your mum’s asleep. I promised to wake her as soon as you got back.’
‘The camera crew asked me to join them after work,’ Henry explained.
‘I know,’ said Uncle Bill. ‘Max telephoned us in case your mother was worried.’
Henry glanced at the book. On the cover there was an outline of a ship on a stormy sea. Above the ship in huge lettering were the words SEA CHANGE.
‘A novel for boys by Richard Armstrong,’ read Henry.
‘I got it from the library for you. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this writer. But then I started reading it and couldn’t put it down. There’s another of his books here,’ he added, handing him one from the top of the pile. ‘Sabotage at the Forge.’
In the middle of the red cover was a grinning boy wearing a cap. He was holding an oil can. Behind him was an old building with smoke coming out of tall chimneys.
‘A story for boys set in a Tyneside steelworks,’ said Henry.
‘It’s a detective story.’
‘It looks good. Thanks. A bit different from Ballet Shoes, then.’
‘And what’s wrong with Ballet Shoes?’ said an indignant voice above them. ‘It only happens to be the best book ever.’
It was Grace in her nightdress. Jeffries was standing beside her in his pyjamas.
‘We’ve been waiting for you for ages,’ she said impatiently.
‘So how was it? Did you get to use the clapperboard?’ asked Jeffries.
‘No. Tomorrow I will. The camera operator who chose me is Max. Did you know?’
‘Only after you’d left. Mrs Beaumont wanted it to be a surprise. What’s it like?’
‘There’s four of us in the camera crew, same as the sound crew and the sparks.’
‘Sparks?’ said Grace.
‘Electricians. Max said I’m one of them now but I won’t feel like a real member of the crew till I’m a clapper unloader.’ And he yawned.
‘What’s a clapper unloader?’ asked Jeffries.
‘Tell him tomorrow,’ said Uncle Bill. ‘You need some sleep.’
‘Sleep!’ exclaimed Grace. ‘I can’t go to sleep until I know everything, and after that I have to tell Henry what happened to Roger at the publishers.’
As they walked up the stairs Henry glanced at Jeffries over Grace’s head. It seemed as though noth
ing had changed.
‘Well,’ Henry began, ‘do you know why you need a clapperboard?’
‘To number the scenes?’ said Grace.
‘Yeah. And to synchronise the sound. It’s a signal for the sound people.’
‘Go on. What else?’
Henry took the magazine of used film into the darkroom. It was his first time. For seven weeks he had heard darkroom horror stories, which Grace had eagerly lapped up to pass on to Pip. One clapper boy had put the wrong reel into the can and another had been so used to practising with his eyes shut that he did it in the darkroom without checking that the light had been switched off first. Both boys had destroyed hours of work. I am not going to make the same mistake, Henry told himself.
He slid the palm of his hand under the exposed reel and eased it gently into a can. So far so good, he thought. The middle hasn’t fallen out. Groping around for the lid, he screwed it down firmly, remembering to keep the magazine to one side and the can on the other so that he wouldn’t get them mixed up. He felt for the reel of sticky tape in the dark, clawed at it with his fingernails and wound it round where the lid overlapped the bottom of the can.
And twice for luck, he decided. Now what? And then he remembered. Laboratory label!
Once the label and top sheet from the negative report book were stuck to the can, he stepped out of the darkroom with it under his arm, aware that he was sweating.
Place it on the table and pick up the loaded magazine of unexposed film ready for the next scene, he told himself. Now he was back on familiar territory. As usual, he fixed it in place at the front, ready for the focus puller to thread it through to the empty magazine at the back.
Carbon paper under a new top sheet next. Once he had done that, he stuck his pencil behind his ear and picked up the clapperboard. It was oily from the constant rubbing off of numbers throughout the day, so he had to press the chalk firmly with his blue stained fingers to make the numbers visible.
Nearly there. He stood still for a moment to catch his breath. I’ve done it! I have just unloaded my first reel of film negative in the darkroom. I can call myself a real clapper unloader now.
The blimp had been closed. He glanced up at Max sitting high behind the camera. He gave Henry a thumbs-up sign. Henry grinned and stood in front of the camera. The director nodded and Henry opened the clapper.
‘Scene five eight four. Take one,’ Henry said loudly, slammed the clapperboard down and stepped out of the way of the lens.
And then the director yelled a word Henry had heard a hundred or more times over the past few weeks, a word he knew he would never grow tired of hearing.
‘ACTION!’
Author Acknowledgements
Colindale Newspaper Library, Beaver Booksearch,
John Budd, Roy Barrow, Sylvia Brooks Ingham, Mary
Rutter Kelsey, Lewis Rudd MBE, John Wiles, John
McCallum, Philip Ower, Matty O’Kelly, Mary and
David Austin, Peter Marshall, Sir Sydney Samuelson
CBE, Barry Wilson, Maggie Cooper, Portsmouth
Museum, Ken Penry, Lt Col (Retired) Mike Boocock,
Police Inspector Gladys Howard (Retired), The authors
of The Cinemas of Portsmouth (J. Barker,
R. Brown and W. Greer).
And a special thanks to the pupils of Petersfield
Secondary Modern School who very kindly shared
their reunion with me.
Description of Waterloo Station in 1949 inspired by
the watercolour painting: Waterloo Station – Peace
by Helen McKie, 1948.
It’s Magic – Music by Jule Styne, Lyrics by Sammy Cahn.
Warner Chappell Music Ltd.
The author has tried her best to obtain permission
to quote from this song.
Just Henry Page 47
