Britain is famous for the strength of its documentary film tradition, and for
this reason some of the UK's most famous filmmakers are those associated with
non-fiction rather than feature films or television. However, there is a very
strong case for any account of the 1930s documentary movement and its later
offshoots concentrating on organisations rather than individuals. Certainly, the
contributions of filmmakers like John Grierson, Paul Rotha or Humphrey Jennings
- as well as countless lesser-known personnel - can be better understood in the
context of the institutions, typically film units, they were working for.
Related to this is the importance of sponsorship - commissioning of films by
institutions whether government, commercial, charitable or whatever - which in
turn connects documentary history to the history of film and television
advertising.
The film units can be divided into at least three categories:
Most famously, there were the official and public sector film units. The most celebrated historical development here was that of the Empire Marketing Board's
film activities from 1929, which effectively became the justly famous GPO (General Post Office) Film Unit in 1933. This in turn mutated into the Crown Film Unit during World War II, working for the Ministry of Information and then for the Central Office of Information which superseded it. Large-scale postwar nationalisation led to some other public sector film units being set up, notably British Transport Films (BTF) and the National Coal Board Film Unit.
Alongside these were the corporate film units. Shell Oil's Film Unit, set up not long after the GPO's, is an example of a unit tied to a commercial concern which was almost as celebrated as its great public sector equivalents. Lesser-known examples include the Dunlop Technical Film Unit and Millbank Films, effectively the film unit of ICI.
Film units in both these categories were usually a directly funded part of
the organisation sponsoring most of the films they made. By contrast there were
also many independent film units, not tied to particular state or commercial
interests. These units took on work for a variety of sponsors (including
charities such as Oxfam and the Red Cross, and non-state institutions such as trade
unions), as well as the occasional non-sponsored project. In the 1930s heyday of
units like Shell's and the GPO's, famous examples were the Strand Film Company and the Realist Film Unit. The careers of some important directors - Paul Rotha,
for instance - are particularly associated with such companies in the prewar
years. After the war, independent documentary production profilerated, many
companies developing close associations with particular sponsors - for example
Editorial Productions with Unilever.
Further distinctions run across these categories. For instance many sponsored
film unit films (such as those used for training staff) were intended only for
'internal' audiences. Others - many of the famous GPO or BTF films, for instance - were made for wide public audiences viewing them either as part of the cinema programme or in non-theatrical venues. Also many film unit productions were meant to be individual works in their own right (the most famous example being the GPO's Night Mail, (d. Harry Watt/Basil Wright, 1936) while others were part
of ongoing series that could be classified as cinemagazines (one example is
another famous British documentary - The Elephant Will Never Forget (d. John Krish, 1953), since it was part of London Transport's Cinegazette series).
The documentary film unit is particularly associated with the period from the
early 1930s to the late 1970s: this was the heyday of sound filmmaking, and also
of the British industry which provided much of the work for such units. However,
its history can be traced back earlier. Certainly, film sponsorship dates to
early in the history of the medium. For example, government-sponsored filmmaking
was an important feature of World War I; many established companies, such as the
newsreel companies, took on work for outside sponsors throughout the 1920s; some
companies also undertook their own filmmaking from time to time.
The tradition survives today, with many organisations having their own
audiovisual units, mostly producing work on video, while other companies
undertake 'corporate video' (increasingly referred to as 'communications
solutions', incorporating digital and web technology as well as video) for much
the same range of sponsors as their film predecessors. Many are members of the
International Visual Communications Association.
Patrick Russell
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