"How did you become a cameraman?" is a question that I'm often asked. I usually reply with " Do you want the long or the short version?". I'll make this the medium version.
I became fascinated with the magic of photography when I was about 8 or 9 years old, when I saw my elder brother develop a roll of film in the bathroom basin. I progressed over the years from an old box brownie to an SLR, practicing, playing with light and composition making a lot of mistakes on the way. As my mother was an artist however, I had obviously inherited a sense of visual aspects, so that helped. After a very brief spell in the army I was offered a place at The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in their recently formed technical course. This provided me with stage and TV management skills as well as the opportunity to take lots of stills. By this time I had learnt fundamentals of photography, depth of field, exposure, lighting etc. and as the Academy had a brand new TV studio recently installed, I was beginning to get much more interested in the moving image. As we had a local independent (Art) cinema which showed many of the French films of the time (60's) I became fascinated in that style.
Clutching my new diploma from the Academy I began to freelance as a stage manager and as an AFM and occasional cameraman for the local TV company. I was also doing some freelance stills work for the local press at that time. I had become a professional photographer, not enough to keep me living but between jobs I worked in bars and as a part-time taxi driver, all very interesting. By this time I had bought a Bolex RX 16mm camera and had started getting the odd news job.
I eventually joined forces with an ex BBC producer who had started a business producing documentaries and corporates and he had the very first small, mobile OB unit in Scotland. This consisted of a beaten up old VW camper with a 2" VTR, two cameras and a simple vision mixer. Very sadly he did a runner for some personal reason and left me having to pay for the lease of, the now disappeared, equipment. Time for a proper job! I joined the technical department of The Scottish Film Council for the next 2 years covering every aspect of filming, presentation, exhibitions and anything audio-visual that their clients wanted. I did not realise this at the time but the experience there gave me the confidence and ability to cover just about any situation or problem that I would encounter later on.
Having paid the bills I then decided to go out on my own and started my own AV company, at the age of 25 I was now a managing director! For the next 10 years I was involved in news, corporates and features in almost every category you could think of. I was, by this time, multi-talented. Around about this time video was becoming the desired thing by clients, and as I did not have the money nor confidence to go down this route I sold my company to a rival that wanted my contacts and clients. Using the proceeds from this I bought a small country hotel in the north of Scotland with the, mistaken, idea that I could semi retire (a crazy idea at the age of 36!) Not only did the hotel keep me fully occupied but I started getting commissions to photograph and film on a freelance business once people got to know my background. After 5 years of trying to burn the candle at both ends, a divorce and a fire brought everything to a halt. Returning to Glasgow with, by this time, no money I met a friend of mine who was working with Save the Children in Ethiopia and he gave me Bob Geldof's home phone number. I phoned him and within a week I was in Sudan and Ethiopia filming the famine (it was at the time of Band Aid). So here I was back on the treadmill once again!
Once again work began to trickle in, as a freelancer I know only too well that it is either feast or famine, and although I enjoyed traveling the world filming mostly news I finally got fed up with being shot at. I have been in over 60 countries in the world (and shot at 5 times as well as being imprisoned twice) since I started but when I went to Bosnia in the early 90's I became scared, so I stopped doing hard news. I now consider myself as a cameraman which is my first love, even though I work as a production manager, a 'Mr Fixit' for visiting producers and crews to France, where I now live, I also run a training organization for aspiring cameramen and film-makers at www.salignacfoundation.com in SW France whilst going on assignments throughout Europe.
So there it is. In the last 35 years I have turned my hobby into my livelihood, along the way I have produced films, won a few awards, directed and made tea for some of the best. It has not been easy - it was not planned that way and it will never make me rich but the joy that I get when I have to light a scene and put my eye to the camera is absolute heaven - and I get paid for it! - and I am a cameraman!
Barry C Paton BSc
Full Moon Productions (France)
Film and Video Production Management
Crew/Logistics/Permits/Locations
rue Fenelon
Salignac Eyvigues
France 24590
Tel: +33 (0)5 53 29 94 06
web: www.salignacfoundation.com
