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DREAMING OF THE
BIG COUNTRY An interview with Alan Almond BSC
A lan Almond, who recently lit two high-profile if mod-
estly budgeted British film comedies - Guest House Paradiso and Kevin And Perry Go Large - vir- tually back to back, cast
his mind back first to the early Eighties.
He was on location in Almeria, Southern Spain, for the “biggest film I’ve ever worked on before or since.” In fact, it was for a pair of sixty second Data General Computer commercials but the shoot, directed by Barry Myers, for which Almond had been hired as a second camera operator, was “mas- sive.” One of the ads was about the German cavalry attacking the Allied position during World War One; the other involved a Roman Legion attacking a fort full of Barbarians.
“When I turned up, no-one knew me. I’d got the job because I’d done a Channel Four documentary and, the usual thing, someone knew someone, no-one else was available... the DP was very wary of me and I could sense some jealousy among the other crew because of this outsider.
I so well remember my first morning. The sun hadn’t risen yet and it was pitch black. We were in a wood and had set up the cameras but I certain- ly didn’t know what we were meant
to be doing next.
“Suddenly I could hear a great
noise, and then through the trees gal- loped these horsemen. The sun was beginning to rise behind them and it looked beautiful. From that point on, I ignored everyone else. I wasn’t being deliberately rude but I could some- how feel other energies taking over. No-one had to say anything, I just somehow understood what the direc- tor was trying to do. As I still work with Barry, I must have been doing something right.”
Almond, 48, who divides his time these days between features and commercials, describes that memo- rable Spanish foray as his big “break” which confirmed a career path which had started rather more mundanely years earlier with a photography course at the old Nottingham art col- lege. From there - in fact, even before finishing at Nottingham - he got a job with Freelance Directors, a Manchester-based independent pro- duction company.
He recalled, “We were very well
trained there and learned all the basic processes. For instance, BBC Manchester might ring up and ask if there were any editors to cut news footage. Stories would come in at 3.00 in the afternoon, we’d be briefed by the reporter and had then to be ready for airing within perhaps half an hour. It was either run or get on with it. Great training!”
After quitting the company to start out on his own as a freelance assistant cameraman then clapper loader, Almond eventually fetched up at Granada working on television drama. “There was a very good atmosphere in those days and they had fine cameramen like the late David Wood. He was very talented and a great teacher. He was also a man without fear as he started letting me pull focus before I was probably quite ready to do it. He also gave me my first break as a camera operator.”
At Granada he also worked on a lot of documentaries as well as top- notch programmes like World In Action, for whom he covered such hot spots as the Toxteth riots and Belfast. His game plan, such as it was, was to try and get into commercials and then, hopefully, into features. But, at this stage of his career he still didn’t have a showreel and when he finally arrived, rather Dick Whittington-like, in London he didn’t
Photos main: Alan Almond BSC; above from left: a scene from Get Real Harry Enfield in Kevin And Perry Go Large; a scene from Greenwich Mean Time
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