I've already mentioned shooting Out of Order for Birmingham FIlm and Video Workshop - before that I'd been shooting video quite seriously from about 1977 onwards. I'd shot my first film in 1971 using photographic theory and in about 1982 I was handed a 35mm camera - there was no crew, just me - somehow, after a lot of sweating, I could hear that the film was running smoothly. I went down to the studio and shot a promo.

I had a simple strategy, light the faces at one Fstop and just maintain the rest of the bandwidth of f stops to about three above and three below. I didn't know what I was doing but later realised that the principle was fundamentally correct, except that in fact, film is so 'safe' a capture medium, that as a BBC type once told me: "The reason why we shoot wildlife on film is that we can hand a film camera to a chimpanzee, spin the iris and we'll get something we can use". So I started shooting a lot of film from the mid to late eighties onwards and Universal trusted me to shoot all sorts of acts for them - as did Time Warner when I shot most of the interviews with many big stars for "a History of Rock and Roll'. People may think this is name dropping but it was a fact of my life and my job was to get in and out without anyone blowing their temper onto the crew who were always the target if anything went wrong. Let's just dsay that I shot with Van Morrisson a few times and we got along fine.

But: I was always using productions to learn techniques mainly because when I first joined LVA in 77 I realised that few artists really had a very limited technical grasp - this appalled me because I thought, had this been a 15th century artists studio, the first thing you;d have to know is how to mix pigments - ergo, I knew I must learn about the mediums of any cature medium and that attitude took me through to finishing a PhD in 2018 concerning higher frame rates, higher resolutions and higher tonal values. So from the beginning of Vida and then Triple Vision, we used the productions to hire in tools - such as the Simon platform, first used on And the There Was One with a high and dropping crane shot (and that was finished with a 200 foot version with Building Sights around 1988 when we were so high, the machinery creaked and the technician went white and shouted "Don't Move"  and somehow we returned to the ground without the whole thing tipping over - I had a BBC Cameraman who refused to shoot the shot so I had told him to get off and I'd do it - that'll teach me).
This went on into the 90's and I tested HD for Sony Panasonic etc around 1988/1999 - through the period when people were beginning to realise just what the digital actually was - I continued to shoot on film and did some BBC2 drama work, some Channel 4 projects on Hi8 experimenting with the limits of capture in both directions. I tested some HD for FIlm out at Du Art Labs in New York in 1999 and it turned out the camera was the basis for George Lucas Attack of the Clones (ours swapped light sensitivity for processing resolution). In  2002 my friend and producer Robert Richards got me involved in the Glastonbury Movie, (Director Julien Temple - Generated on Sony 900 25p and DV Cam to be Laser mastered to 35mm for distribution - Featured in the 2006 Sundance Festival and I came in to do some HD work for that under Ben Smithard BSC).

By 2003 I was further testing Panasonics Varicam under candlelight in A Soldier's Tunic (right) and this screened at the Arclight Hollywood, September 2004 and by 2005 I was engaged to do the test work under candlelight for an AHRC project with Professor Martin White, called 'The Chamber of Demonstrations)which achieved two powerful things - one the new Sam Wannamaker Jacobean Playhouse at the Globe was built - and also the lighting for Wolf Hall followed our lead as Professor White told me that the cinematographer Gavin Finney, saw our work and thought it the right way to go. With regards the lighting for Chamber, we rigged 30 candles around the stage to produce the images gathered - obviously with Wolf Hall there was a lot more latitude.
Above A Soldier's Tunic by Simon Bovey which I shot on the new Panasonic Varicam
Eventually by 2006 I'd become tired of the continuous movement of the camera and obtained an AHRC Creative Fellowship - which was art based - but sought to discover just how HD would affect not just the audience but also the makers). Eventually the art department had understood makeup, paint on flats etc - but to this day the US has some serious trouble with wigs!

In parallel, after Channel 4 and I was on the road as a cinematographer, I was thinking about drama and had written a script called The Isle of Glass. in the early 90's  By 2005 I'd written about ten features and some 20 shorts and made some of this work in projects like Skin Deep and Forever. However I had a salutory experience whilst travelling back from Beijing. On screen was a movie by a very well known Director who I'd sent  copy of Isle of Glass to. He'd originally sent me a review which was glowing - and now maybe 15 - 20 years later the story was unfolding in front of my eyes.... It was a jumbled version because the lead had died during shooting and two very well known actors had been cast to replace him in a variety of scenes and the director used the trick of the transformation of the actor in different stories and different times (the basis of my script). The killer blow was my lead character's mother had died in childbirth and she was named as a boy - and there it was....

​NEXT: 7 Academia  2007 - 2016
Below: The Chamber of Demonstration 2005
Below, Showreel, 1997
Below, Forever, 2003
Abiove: The Object of Desire 1992
Above, The Eye Projects the World 2005
Above, Zagorsk, 1992
Picture
Latest Retrospective - Bath 2023:​ Terry Flaxton: A Life in Video Art
From 6th October through to 5th November 2023
28 Roseberry Rd, Bath BA2 3DX
FEATURE LENGTH DRAMA
   
OUT OF ORDER IMDB listing - 1985 Cinema Release, Director Jonnie Turpie, Prix Italia nomination, Producer Roger Shannon - Gary Webster, Frank Windsor, David Yip, George Baker, Sharon Fryer - Channel 4 nominated for a Prix Italia - 100 mins - Possibly the Second Feature Film worldwide shot on video then transferred to film for cinema release (outside of 200 Motels). Generated on Beta transferred to 35mm for distribution.

OUT OF ORDER WAS THE 3RD ELECTRONICALLY CAPTURED MOVIE FOR THEATRE RELEASE IN HISTORY  - THE FIRST WAS 'HARLOW' IN 1965 STARRING GINGER ROGERS CAPTURED ON 819 LINE ELECTRONOVISION, THE SECOND WAS 200 MOTELS BY TONY HARRISSON WITYH FRANK ZAPPA IN 1972 CAPTURED ON 2INCH QUADRUPLEX AND THE 3RD WAS OUT OF ORDER IN 1985 ON BETACAM 

 THE LEVELS  1994 90 minutes
Director Leslie Morgan - ITV THE LEVELS 

 RELATIVE STRANGER - 1996 75 mins - CLIP 
Director Endaff Emlyn, Producer Zanna Northern, Ruth Caleb - BBC2 - Super 16mm 
 
PURE - 1998 - 90 mins -
Channel 4 TV  Director Jonnie Turpie - DV for TX, Also creened as a digital movie on digital projector for theatrical screenings  
   
LIVING IN HOPE IMDB listing - 2002 CINEMA RELEASE
Cinema Release, Director, John Miller, Naomie Harris, Tom Harper, Jade Ball, Liam McMahon, Bennet Thorpe, Robin Edwards, Producer Guy de Beaujeau - Fluidity Films - 100 mins, Generated on Super 16mm, transferred to Digi Beta, Laser mastered to 35mm - Released - 2001/2003. LIVING IN HOPE Website TRAILER  

GLASTONBURY IMDB listing - Cinema Release, 2002/2004 
Director Julien Temple, Producers Phil Sheppard and Robert Richards (Working Title, currently editing) Roothouse Productions/Nitrate productions Ltd - 100 mins - Generated on Hi Def and DV Cam to Laser mastered to 35mm for distribution - 2002/2004 Trailer  

 PAST PRESENT FUTURE IMPERFECT IMDB listing  2004 CINEMA RELEASE
Rupert Frazer, Sorcha Cusak, Tom Harper, Christine Adams, Johanne Murdock, Nick Irons, Jenna Harrison, Richard Cant, Charity Wakefield, William Scott-Masson, Stuart Bunce, Juliet Diamond, Liam McMahon - Director Roger Thorp, Producer Guy de Beaujeau PPFI Productions - 100 mins - 2004 - Generated on Hi Def and Laser mastered to 35mm for distribution - 2004/2005. High Def 25p (DV to Quicktime for Web) TRAILER  

SHORTS

READY, STEADY, EDDIE - APT Film & TV - 30mins MID 90'S
MY FATHER WAS A RUSSIAN SPY - Turning Over TV for ITV - 30 mins MID 90'S?
COOKING PIGEONS - ITV - 30 mins - CLIP  MID 90'S?
BHANGRA HEADS - ITV - 30 mins - MID 90'S?
GOLD FRANKINSENSE & MURDER - BBC - 30 mins MID 90'S?
SKIN DEEP - ITV - 30 mins  - 1999 - CLIP  
 Blazed RTS award, 40 mins, Channel 4 - CLIP  MID 90'S?
 THE VISIT , Channel 4 TV - 30 mins - CLIP  MID 90'S?
 WINGNUT AND THE SPROG - Channel 4 TV - RTS Award - 45 mins MID 90'S?
Upcoming Exhibitions in 2024
- UK RWA Open Bristol September - December
- Australia, Adelaide July, A Life in Video Art, Retrospective, July
- Sedition International, Online Release, Un Tempo Una Volta, April
- Italy Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello & Palazzo Bembo, Exhibition titled Visions, Venice, March

​Between 2008 ​and 2023 Terry exhibited work in the China, USA, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Korea, Portugal, Iran, Turkey, Slovenia, Sweden, France, Norway, Malta, Madeira and the UK - some of these countries many times. A complete list of Exhibitions between 2008 and 2023 follows beneath the section on exhibitions beneath 1978 and 2007.