First steps in moviemaking, circa 1980.

An over-ambitious mini-feature but my first crack at directing, made towards the end of my time working at Granada. It wasn’t a Granada production, just a thing of my own involving everyone I could rope in and whatever facilities I could beg, borrow, or quietly make disappear for a while. If you grew up in the North West, you may know some of these faces. Shot on Eastmancolor negative with processing and neg cutting at Manchester’s Humphries Film Lab, now long gone. The film stock was sourced as a favour through the World in Action production office; a professional kindness in itself, and then the bill never came…

They say we learn from our mistakes, and I learned a lot. But it was enormous fun, and a serious step up in my education.

Pictured above: Malcolm Brown, Charles Foster, Diana Mather, and Jim Pope. My cast, my teachers. And on the boat: Kevin (?) the boat hire guy, Rob Reeves, David ‘Skippy’ Hill, Malcolm Brown, me, Rita Lyons. Other hands included Jim ‘Lee Child’ Grant on lighting and composer Peter Baker. More nostalgia on the Trick Shot photo album page; the camera’s a Beaulieu R16, for those with an interest in such stuff.

Stephen Gallagher