FTO Frank Thring sad news from lala land

[Dave Wells]

[frankthring]

Thank you very much Dave for apprising me of this sad fact. Jane Waters
aka John Keeler was my cameraman in those heady days when Private
first started and everything was shot on Betacam. A skilled lighting
cameraman of the Old School, John had clear ideas how to shoot a scene.
He lensed many of my features for Private including "Virgin Treasures",
"Hawaiian Ecstasy" and "Samba" shot in Brazil. His temper was legendary
and we had some famous spats as he had clear visions of how to shoot a
sex scene and, being no tech expert myself, but with a strong sense of
composition, so did I !! He used to say that he had to walk off a set at
least once on every movie just to reduce his stress levels.....however, I
once saw Keeler (on a Dolly Buster movie I directed in L.A.) balance a heavy
Betacam on his shoulder, his eye on the black and white viewfinder, walk
backwards down a step ladder, cross a room and go up to the top of a
second ladder in one beautiful fluid take in those pre-steadicam days.
Today....as Mr Wells knows....its all lads with tiny lightweight cameras and
everyone thinks they are Spielberg !! R.I.P. ps ironically, he was a health
food freak who first introduced me to the delights of tofu (!) so for a man
who treated his body as a temple it did not do him a lot of good ! I will
raise a glass of wine to him tonite.

[andy at handiwork]

frankthring wrote: 'however, I
once saw Keeler (on a Dolly Buster movie I directed in L.A.) balance a heavy
Betacam on his shoulder, his eye on the black and white viewfinder, walk
backwards down a step ladder, cross a room and go up to the top of a
second ladder in one beautiful fluid take in those pre-steadicam days.'

No more than I would expect of anyone, myself included, who called themselves a cameraman in the pre-handicam days. Mind you, I didn't have the distraction of Dolly Buster's tits in the viewfinder, I'll give you that.

[Dave Wells]

I remember well - shooting on the beach at Cannes one year for Mr Thring with a borrowed ?17,000 camera and very nearly toppled over into the water with this fuckin great heavy load (camera) on my shoulder !!!!!!!

[Dave Wells]

Here you are Mr Throng !

[frankthring]

Fascinating ! This man looks vaguely like me except of course I am
strictly tee-total. Poor old bugger !