At LVA probably 1979

Anecdotal Evidence

You may look at a picture of yourself as you get older and think "Who is that?"
Often in the pictures above I see a person who looks confident - that's a trope of having a photograph taken - present your best self, as you imagine that 'best' might mean confident. Often in my past I was in complete control of a circumstance - at others I flew by the seat of my pants - not because I didn't know what I was doing, but because I did know - and often I realised, with directing for instance, knowing the rule book means you don't have to use it as it is simply insurance. Having said that there were many occasions that played out without much regard for 'the rules'.

MTV Shoots with no-cans Flaxton

Circa 1982 we'd been shooting for MTV for around a year. We didn't know that worlking for them was such a big deal as we'd accomplished over 50 shoots and so we'd simply expressed our creativity and they kept coming back for more. When we were first asked to do a thing in the middle of the UK noght for Def Leppard for what MTV called The Friday Night Video Fight (where the audience presumably voted on which were the best band), on getting up we talked about what we could do - booked some NTSC kit - and we took them down to the Repton Boxing Club in London thinking we'd stage a punch-up with the other band taking the point of view of the camera, in a ring - it was literally a knock about idea. Apparently it was a huge success. 'We', were Tony Cooper and myself (and Rody Bristow-Jones back at the base studio which was a three canera and an edit suite) and one of us would have an idea for a sketch and we'd run with it. Sometimes we got big gigs, we did the Stones, Yes, and many bands I can't remember now - but always came the middle of the night call (because Americans at that time didn't have a concept that people lived in other time zones) "Can you do Stuart Copeland of the Police, tomorrow morning at 11 - he's out in the country somewhere, we'll send details". Of course we can said  yes. This was all based upon the idea that of all the crews in London we knew how to shoot flicker free images - the Americans recorded their NTSC signal at 29.97 frames and we'd taught ourselves how to eradicate the rolling bar across the shot - often generated for instance if 25 khz lights flashed at that rate when seen by the US system. 

So I got up a few hours later at 7 and rang Samulesons for the NTSC kit which would be delivered onto the location at Copeland's country residence. I should note here that not once during any of the previous shoots did we have a director - and we'd gathered some fans at MTV - but on arriving at the shoot an American director turned up. En route we'd tossed a coin for sound and camera and Tony got the camera so I'd do the sound. When the kit arrived we broke it out and the director said what he wanted which was pretty standard (we were used to trying new things out of course and were fast on our feet). Anyway, this was in the days of tube cameras and if a light hit a shiny object and the camera moved, then a streak appeared on the shot as long as the camera moved - which was not dissimilar to the feedback you'd get on the Dr Who opening sequence.

I could see Tony was getting stressed because the director - previously a film director with little video experience - didn't want the streaks and naturally Copeland had a lot of symbols and gongs and the shot was covered. woith them (ironically oif te director were more agile then the shoot couldve made use of them as an effect). Backing up Tony I said to the director you have to change your shooting style to fit the way the medium operates. He basically said "you're a sound guy, shut up." At that moment I very nearly walked off because we didn't take that from anyone - why should we, we'd proven what we could do repeatedly? Tony gave me a look which said cool it, so I went back to the kit and started looking for the sound equipment - I found the spound kit and plugged it together  (whilst listening to the director getting more hysterical and insulting Tony) and everything was there - everything except the 'cans' (headphones). In a slight sweat I rang Sammy's and they apologised as someone there found them on a desk, they said they'd get them to us asap - but we were miles from London. These were not kids headsets they were pro kit and I realised I couldn't stop the shoot and decided that I knew how to get good sound without them: I knew where to point the mike, I knew what the levels of recording should be - and crucially when you plugged everything together the needle had to sit flat against the left hand side of the dial where zero db was - if it sat off, then it indicated there was a buzz in the system and I'd have to cure that.

You have to remember here that I'd been shooting mainly as camera for about 6 years, 3 at college and 3 professionally. I had done sound for documentaries and pro shoots.... But never without cans. Also we'd occasionally shot on the  European PAL system and edited the whole piece at the Videomaker's studio, transferred it to NTSC and sent it across - to plaudits each time. Oh well said I to myself - better go for it because by now the director was losing it with not only Tony but Stuart as well (very bad if you pissed off the talent)! We shot for 30 minutes and I sat at the recorder (or carried it) watching the dial on the mixer like a hawk. The shoot ended and Copeland went off - then the director said: I want to hear that back -  And I said 'You can't, there are no cans." He started swearing and shouting again. ...And I thought sod this - we're off. We told him the tapes will be delivered and they'll be ok.

Later we heard from a sympathetic soul from TV who told us that that director was a pain in the arse in the edit suite that everything was good - but after 50 successful shoots the phone stopped riniging. I was fed up with the late night calls and anyway, we had a lot of work. So I thought "Fuck it!" We'd learned that the early MTV was racist by that point as not once had they asked us to shoot a black act. We'd shot a few 'making of' Tony Scott commercials and our Next NTSC shoot was for Apple on the Ridley Scott Commercial for the introduction of the Apple Mac: 1984.

Professors Assemble
AHRC researcher with no grasp of film making

Putting in In Other Skins in New York Cathdral
E type Jag - sell kit - music

Shoot at hotel with mouth to mouth ressusitation - stolen camera
Shooting in Russia with mushroom soup and near Chernobyl
The fixer who robbed the helpers and our FU cards russia and terrible places for meals etc - flys landing on food - boiled eggs for breakfast and giving away per deums
walking around in a cathedral occupied by the KGB
Welsh Geoff in Hospital Number 20 Lenningrad
Andrew Llloyd Webber and ther Everly Brothers
Roadeed by Queen

Gping to Glastonbury - having trouble with skin heads, seeing gwynn ap nudd and running home

having Ridley scott in and ths stuido flooding with sewerage

Editing with Bartle Bogle and Hegerty and a film editior where cofee was put under my hand and smpoke cpmes out of the machines

The Saddest Shoot - Thin Lizzy the day before phil linott dies

Van Morrisson spark falls off drum stool
​Van Morrission and breaking film tour manager
Van Morrisson and 19 camera shoot lit by daedos
Apple shoot and 150 skins interview
Apple shoot and film people gathering around us in acceptance
​Apple Shoot - 
​Academia?
Channel 4 not liking America and so giving us 150 k for russia
the Animal rights shoot
Lifet out of Queen SHoot

As a student 1st week of college saying we can have heaven on earth and realising that they all thought I was crazy
Going on to say that by the 3rd year some people would fail - reg telling me he'd always disliked me.

Academic flurries - going to be an observer at the ASC summit and rralising I was speaking to some serious oscar winners

COMMENTS ON ARTWORKS
"Terry Flaxton's shrewd and paradoxical installation contributes to the deconstruction of traditional video. The restless and versatile british filmmaker refuses usual interactivity, and displays, instead of a normal screen, a laid dinner table; then invites the viewer, through a very precise projection, to try to match the virtual guests' gestures. An unforeseeable and bewildering end follows." Techne Catalogue October 2005 - May 2006

"Terry Flaxton has been an impassioned, indefatigable presence in British Independent Video for almost two decades. During this time he has assembled an impressive body of work encompassing powerful, polemical documentary (produced as a member of ground-breaking outfits Vida and Triplevision) and highly personal, poetic video art." 

What unites these separate strands of Flaxton's video making is a strongly held belief in the medium's ability to change our image of the world - or at least that resrtricted view of it obtained through the television screen. In Flaxton's eyes, a faith in video's transforming potential burns undiminished. More to the point, in Flaxton's hands, much of the medium's radical promise goes some way towards being fulfilled.
A gifted lighting cameraman, whose skills are extensively sought both inside and outside the industry, Flaxton brings a consumate polish to everything he shoots, exemplified equally by the verite Prisoners (1984) and the visionary The World Within Us (1988). A similar finely-honed sensibility distinguishes later pieces, like The Colour Myths (1990 - 1995), which draws heavily from an up-to-minute-palette of digital effects. Attempting the kind of rhapsodic fusion of image and language that few of his contemporaries could contemplate, let alone execute, Flaxton's later works have tended to divide opinion; but there is no doubting their vigour, integrity and sheer visual panache."
Steven Bode, A Directory of British Video Artists, Editor david Curtis, Arts Council of England, John Libby Media/University of Luton Press, 1995
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"It was great to see your piece as it is supposed to be seen. Interactivity in the best sense: perhaps the only meaningful sense at this point in history." From a fellow artist Jeremy Welsh on seeing In Other People's Skins for the first time.

A relevant piece of radio created as television was being introduced:

'My Favorite Husband', the long running early Lucille Ball comedy series aired on October 14 1949 - Episode 58, Title: Television

To the left a showreel from Flaxton's cinematography work circa 2004