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The Prof - Boy and Man
The Prof had always been different. As a small boy while his friends swapped conkers, the young Prof much preferred to watch his Grandfather working away in his laboratory, building a variety of contraptions - often accompanied by loud explosions and a curse from Grandmother Prof when she realised he'd added way too much dynamite to the new washing machine he'd built for her. The Prof was always on hand though, to help his Granfather and would happily root around the old spares shed, hunting out various springs, pipes, bolts and clothes pegs that could be utilised.
The prof's favourite meal is marmalade and mackerel sarnies - fish for brains and marmalade for sweetness. As many will testify, few today can match the Prof in vision and clarity of thought allied with a rare sweetness of nature that shows itself in his kindness to little animals.
It was he that came up with the idea of small cheese balls for mice, thus enabling these timid little creatures to roll their suppers back to their snug homes and at the same time enjoy healthful recreation. It also spawned a whole line of similar products like milk cartons that could be attached to the teats of cows udders as they strolled around green pastures, thereby cutting down on the lenghthy processes involved in packaging.
(Left) The young Prof with Mama Prof (1962)
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And now how it REALLY all began....
In March 1964, young David Cleveland got a job at the BBC Television Film Studios at Ealing as a film assistant with several others. This meant going through a training scheme for six months learning all about film work for Television. It was a very good training ground which set him up for life. The BBC had bought the old Ealing Film Studios in 1956, and the Film Unit (as it was known) was based there. There were departments for cameras, editing, dubbing, as well as preview theatres and stages where he watched film sequences being made.
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Experimental
It was very exciting at Ealing as David was fascinated by film and keen on comedy. He saw all the great stars of the period including Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan, Al Read, Wilfred Brambell, Ken Dodd, Benny Hill who oftenshot sequences there, and even Peter Sellers working on the 'Alice In Wonderland' film.
There were about a dozen film assistants working at Ealing, including a young man by the name of Tony Amies (left) who by coincidence came from David's home town of Norwich.
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'The Dart' - David Cleveland & Tony Amies
Tony and David soon struck up a friendship and began experimenting with film and in their spare time, making animation sequences and live action comedy routines. As there were only the two of them, they both took it in turns to be in front of the camera. Tony wasn't keen to be in front of the camera, but came up with the idea of a film about a paper dart invented by a white coated professor. It was called 'The Dart' (right) and was filmed partly in Tony's flat in Madeley Road and in the park just up the road towards Hangers Lane. David was really keen on editing and this was done at Dubbing Theatre X in the East Tower of Television Centre one quiet day in 1967. |
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Spotted by Ursula Eason
Then quite unexpectedly, Ursula Eason, Assistant Head of Children's Programmes walked past and saw the film. She was so impressed she asked if she could buy it for inclusion in the newly revamped 'Vision On' programme. It was finally transmitted in 1968 in a shortened form. They were then asked to make more of them. The films were always to a theme, whatever it happened to be that week; Trees, Rocks etc but they always had full control of the film itself. They were frequently edited by another film editor to meet timing requirements but when they had to shoot to music, they generally dubbed the sound themselves as it would have been too time consuming counting up the frames on the 16mm magnetic soundtrack. The 'skaters Waltz' was a typical example of this. |
The weekend workload
Tony was extraordinarily clever at working out how to achieve the desired result, and in those days, speeded up motion, backwards motion, split screens, double exposures and so forth were all done in the camera - not in the editing. They specialised in these methods. The only other way was to get the film labs do it, but that would have compromised quality through copying. With colour film it was a lot worse, so they always made the effects during the shooting phase.
Pictured right: Tony Amies, David Cleveland and David Wyatt. Wyatt had joined the team to help keep pace with the weekly 'Prof' films on 'Vision On'. Tony Amies left the team before they embarked on 'Cid Sleuth'.
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Move to colour film
By 1969 they were working with colour film although the rushes were in black & white, so they never saw the colour. Remember, these films were still being made in their spare time, plus the odd moments when things were quiet. By this time, Tony was the BBC's top rostrum cameraman and was shooting all kinds of things including working with Gilliam. David moved out to the Essex Suffolk border and they found a new location on a local farm. It had everything they needed - open fields, farm machinery, hills, woods, farm buildings and a river
David Wyatt joined them in 1971 and they worked every Saturday and some Sundays shooting the Prof films. They received very little money for the work they did and had to provide all their own equipment. |
Specialised Film making
Vision On was recorded at Bristol, but as David wasn't an equity member, he wasn't allowed to work in the studio. Their films came under 'specialised film making' so this enabled them to work without a special crew, not that they could have afforded one. The Unions didn't think much to them because of this and when they took a 35mm print of one of their films to the Childrens Film Foundation to sell, they were told off for making the material without Union consent! They gave up trying after that.
Many of the props and animations were made by Dave's wife, Christine Cleveland with one or two of the larger ones made by Jeff Taylor, Dave's neighbour.
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Call The Fire Brigade Jeff!
One or two of the Prof films were filmed in an alleyway in Manningtree and Dave's neighbour Val Taylor, recalls one afternoon looking out of her bedroom window and shouting down to her husband "Jeff, you got a fire extingusher handy?"
"Why?" asked Jeff. "Oh I've just seen Dave go down the alley in a pram and its on fire!". Such was the madcap life of the Clevelands that their neighbours thought nothing of it if there was smoke billowing out of their windows with Dave running up and down with a firemans helmet on, or even (on one occasion) blocking the entire street, asleep in a bed, whilst the traffic drove around him! |
Getting wet for the sake of art....
Film making is incredibly hard work - particularly stop-frame, and sometimes it was sheer hell. For this shot (right) David had to sit in a deckchair for FOUR HOURS in very cold water whilst the tide came in so they could get the effect of a very fast moving tide. The shot lasted barely a few seconds!
The Prof films began to get heavily cut by the BBC editors. David complained but eventually had to concede and make them shorter. This is difficult for any artist since everything has already been planned out, but such is the nature of working for television! |
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>>Prof Story Part2 & Cid Sleuth<<
All Prof Enquiries: PO box 7608, Manningtree, Essex.
Corporate Events and Team-Building
The content of this site was written, researched and designed by Ralph Morris
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