Article published in the very first edition of CW in January 2021, and republished here in tribute to Joe Dunton MBE BSC who has sadly passed away.
By John Keedwell GBCT
Look at the history of cinema over the past half a century or more, and you can see Joe Dunton MBE BSC has been at the forefront, consistently innovating and influencing production and presentation.
I met up with him to take a look at some of his many achievements, and how his innovations have changed the way we both capture the images and how they are now presented and distributed in cinemas. We also discussed what he does for fun too.
Joe’s achievements in the film business have been chronicled in many places over the years, and his beginnings in CCTV and the sound department leading to Joe Dunton Cameras (JDC), his camera rental company, are famous. Yet it is this very background that has come to define who Joe is today bringing his talents as video engineer and sound recordist to modern day cinema.
However, the influence goes further than that, and some of the areas of cinema we know today as a normal standard were introduced by him, before being adopted globally for some of the most well-known and successful films known-to-date.
The beginning of the journey sees Joe working at Pye TV, repairing closed-circuit TV systems. In 1966, Ossie Morris BSC used the first Mitchell video assist with great success when working on Stop The World I Want To Get Off. However, the video tap could only play the picture and was not able to record. Ossie was then hired in 1967 to film the classic Oliver!, directed by Carol Reed. This was an entirely different technical challenge, with 400 dancers in some scenes and lots to absorb in real-time for the director and his team of seven choreographers.
Joe was employed to work on Oliver! to build what is now believed to be the first film camera video assist recorder. Crucially, it had video recording capability, which provided the ability to review the performances of the dancers during the largest musical numbers. At the time there was only the possibility of using it with a 1-inch videotape machine and, according to Joe, had a run-up time for about a minute before it became stable and the film cameras could roll. For camera crews nowadays this would be an inordinately long wait-time, as today’s technology provides instant record. But, at that time, this was really remarkably inventive.
One momentous day would ultimately change Joe’s future path within the film business. He was asked to repair the CCTV cameras at Samuelson Film Services, the legendary UK camera hire company in Cricklewood, West London. Joe gained the attention of the head of sound, who suggested Joe work for Samuelsons full-time. A year later Joe was employed when a job came in to develop two-way radios for the 1971 film Le Mans starring Steve McQueen. He stayed in the sound department at Samuelsons as chief sound engineer, as there were no openings in their TV department.
Whilst at Samuelsons, Joe developed a keen interest in Anamorphic lenses that would later be pivotal in his success. When he was in the lens department the first 20:1 zoom lens was produced. Joe told me, “I find lenses a fascinating subject. Anamorphic lenses are like having two lenses in one, a horizontal wide angle and a vertical tight shot”.
Joe started the JDC in 1976. This provided the vehicle for experimentation and the creation new solutions for filmmakers to produce unusual shots they wanted. The ground-breaking innovations Joe achieved at JDC were adopted worldwide and would ultimately win Academy Awards for DPs and directors.
One aspect of Joe’s career that you are possibly unaware of is the documentary film Dance Craze (1981), directed by Joe Massot, capturing Britain’s 2-tone Ska era from the late ‘70s to the early ‘80s. Massot had previously directed The Song Remains The Same (1976), featuring the legendary Led Zeppelin. Joe met Massot when he was visiting Samuelsons at the time of filming between 1973 and the release of the picture in 1976.
Massot’s son had seen some new bands whilst at college. The bands are now household names yet were unknown at the time – Madness, The Specials, Bad Manners, The Bodysnatchers and The Selecter. Massot was persuaded by his son to make a film about them.
With Joe Dunton acting as the cinematographer, Dance Craze was made possible by some of the most eminent camera operators of the time, including Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown, Tony Pierce-Roberts BSC, Dennis Kington and Peter Taylor, amongst others.
Innovations made on this film shaped the capture of film images in the 40 years since. When prepping for the shoot, Joe decided to shoot Super 35mm film to blow-up to 70mm format for print release. He says he didn’t know at the time, but this was the original Superscope (apparently called “poor man’s Vistavision” by Paul Beeson BSC!).
Joe says, “We wanted to blow the film up to 70mm, but use six-track magnetic sound instead of the optical sound for the release print”. He could shoot 1.66:1 in Super 35mm full aperture with 32% more image area than the standard 35mm format and blow-up to 70mm print.
Choosing to revive the Superscope format meant using a full standard silent 4-perf pull-down film gate. 4-perf Super 35mm is simply the original frame size that was used in 35mm silent films. It is a return to the way the film stock was used before the frame size was cropped to allow room for an optical soundtrack printed within the picture area on the release print.
“I grew up in the sound department and wanted the magnetic sound which was on the 70mm and not on the optical at that time.” Joe recalls. “We recorded the live sound on a 24-track magnetic system properly recorded using Abbey Road and Rolling Stones mobiles. Most people would have just put in a Nagra recorder and recorded the live sound in a club. But we had ace quality recordings of live sound through 24 microphones out on a little tiny stage of people.”
Joe continues, “I found a lovely man, Don Toms from Technicolor, who did the direct negative to 70mm blow-up print for me. There was no quality loss. I still have a 70mm print, that cost me £10,000, in my loft!”
This format was quickly noticed by some illustrious people in the business. It was adopted by John Alcott BSC and renamed Super Techniscope when he worked with Hugh Hudson on Greystoke (1984). Alcott was well-known for his work with Stanley Kubrick on pictures such as A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Shining (1980).
The S35mm format also played a pivotal role in the success Top Gun (1986, dir. Tony Scott, DP Jeffrey Kimball), where it received a great deal of early publicity for making the cockpit shots possible, due to the ability to fit a 35mm camera inside the confines of a fighter jet.
Super 35 is now considered a universal production process, with thousands of feature films produced with the format. It has been adopted as a standard in digital cinematography too as the “look” of the cinematography that is inherent with larger sensor sizes due to focus separation and highlight details.
Joe’s other inventions are innovative and plentiful. Along with the Ladderpod he also made the first heated eyepiece, the first video assist for the Louma, the Moy Bazooka and the Mitchell Vitesse geared head – the first head to tilt-up and down 90-degrees each way. In 2002, he even developed, with Ikegami, a digital magazine that slotted into a 16mm ARRI film camera, thereby creating hybrid HD/film device.
Forever keen to embrace new technology, he was the founder of the BSC Technical Committee, and was solely responsible for initiating the BSC Equipment Show, starting in 1993 on a small stage at Shepperton, which has since expanded to become the hugely popular BSC Expo. He has always liaised closely with trade associations and guilds, training organisations and government departments, and been a long serving governor of the BSC. Joe is also an honorary member of the GBCT.
During his years in the industry Joe has received many awards, highlights of which were receiving the MBE in the 1998 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for services to the film industry, and then the BAFTA for Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema in 2010.
The journey has not been all effortless, of course. Joe’s children all work in the business, even though his wife, Pat, didn’t like the idea at first. Both his daughter Erica and son Richard graduated from the UK’s National Film & Television School. As a writer/director Erica has won many awards for her features including a Sundance Audience prize, and, more recently, she has been directing premium TV in the US and the UK.
Richard Dunton is an established DP and camera operator working in features and TV. Joe’s oldest son Lester Dunton is at the forefront of strobeless back projection on major productions across the UK and Europe, including 007 James Bond and Tenet, and also runs Dunton Cine Engineering & Lens Company based in the US and UK.
Going forward, 2021 sees the 40th anniversary of Dance Craze, and Joe is currently planning the projection of the film as a 70mm blow-up. In a move that is typically Joe, he is going the extra mile and looking to produce a live mix of the sound from the original six-track magnetic original soundtrack, all performed in the original venue where the film was shot, the Electric Ballroom, Camden.
In the meantime, he likes to sometimes play on stage with The Madd Hatters band in Wilmington USA where his stateside camera company is based. He got into this scene when the trombone player’s mum (who used to work for Joe) asked him along and he ended-up to playing on stage. His barber plays the bass, and Joe plays a two-string guitar.
Before I left, we briefly discussed ideas for making a new version of the carbon arc-fired Brute, as the tiny point source of light means it can be accurately focussed compared to the larger light sources we now have. Joe would also love the idea of producing a permanent museum dedicated to the technology of film.
Joe said, “This is a most exciting time for cinema. We are experiencing a technological revolution in the capture, presentation and distribution of the cinematic image. I believe it’s crucial that within this new world, everyone – from the actors on the screen to all the artists behind it – uphold the quality of the pictures we collectively paint.”
Absolutely. Joe has certainly influenced and revolutionised cinema production in the past 50-plus years. He continues to push the boundaries and remains creative on many levels. He is still as passionate and enthusiastic today about cinema as he has always been.
