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Member LoginDon McAlpine ACS ASC
At the tender age of eleven Don had his first paying job working on a wheat farm during the harvest. Don’s father suffered from TB so he had to work to help support the family and himself.
He learnt to drive a truck when he was thirteen and later when opportunity came up he invested in the farm and made enough money to support himself. Don begins his story over lunch with long time associate and founding member of ACS, John Leake ACS, and fellow ACS member Butch Calderwood ACS.
Don was a PE teacher with an interest in science. He always had a dark room and had begun doing movie camera work with his Physical Education for analysis of the 1956 Olympic team. He bought an 8mm camera, then upgraded to a 16mm, to film the athletes. He would take footage of all sports including swimming and kayaking using underwater photography and above or under water slow motion.
On a school cultural excursion to the Channel Two (ABC) in the late fifties Don broke off from the group during the lunch hour.
While wandering the corridors he discovered the News Office, “there was a door, ‘News Supervise Office’, and I knocked on that door and said look, I’ve got a 16mm camera if I get the end of the world on film would you guys buy it?” Don told them he was a school teacher out at Parkes, they referenced map on the wall pinned with little red flags marking the contractors they already had and there was no-one near Parkes. They said, “Are you any good?” to which Don replied “Who knows?”
The News Supervisor gave Don a sheet of paper outlining how to shoot a news story and four one hundred foot loads of (Eastman Kodak) Plus-X. So, armed with his list and B/W film stock, Don went away and shot his first news story. They gave him as much money for that News story as he used to make in a week school teaching which seemed pretty good to Don. “That went on for about two years”.
The search for newsworthy footage lead him on the trail of fires and floods and droughts. “I’d get up in the morning and I didn’t get a story every day but I nearly got a story every week. Sometimes I’d charter a plane and fly to the nearest flood or fire or drought, the new harvest, the old harvest, no harvest.” The ABC wanted “whatever country stories they could get” and Don was one of the few cameramen in rural areas to supply them.
“They would almost take anything that I would shoot so I’m doing real well you know, virtually earning as much money out of this as I was earning school teaching. Eventually the Headmaster pulled me in and he said ‘You signed a contract. I’ve got no question against your school teaching but the shit’s going to hit the fan and some of it is going to splash onto me and I don’t want that to happen, so according to your contract you have to cease and desist’ “. So Don called Channel Two to let them know he could no longer supply them with regional news they were so thirsty for. “They said have you thought of applying for a job?“ and asked Don to come down and talk to them about it next time he was in Sydney.
When Don went to ABC to talk with the News Department he took the opportunity to speak also with some of the younger cameramen to assess their situation, after all he did have a young family to support. He said they were basically getting less than he was making as a school teacher but he thought “I might do this”. He then went to see the cinecamera guys, George Hobbs, Bert and Gordon Landsdown. They were confident in his news gathering ability but what did Don McAlpine know technically? Then Don met Frank Parnell a Dutch-Indonesian (who later died in a helicopter crash over Sydney harbour) who immediately stood out to Don as being “a little smarter than the other guys” so I said to Frank “What’s this bull-shit about the technical side?” Frank pulled Don aside “If you get these two books and read them and understand them”, he said, “that will take care of your technical side”. The books were – Wheelers ‘Principles of Cinematography’ and Cox ‘On Optics’. The interview would be in three months.
After acquiring the books Don approached them as a University subject, studying each chapter and taking notes as if for an exam. Three months later he sat before George Hobs, Gordon Landsdown and the Producer, an ex pilot from World War II. “News says your works great but we are just a bit concerned about your technical depth. You’ve just come from nowhere...”
“The first question was ‘Why did they change from 16 / 18 frames to 24 frames when sound came in ?’ I thought well I know that and without really looking at them I start this whole spiel on the galvanometer slip size and the response of the galvanometer mirror and what frequency range you would get at 16 frames and what frequency range you would get at 24 frames and the stability and I rabbited on for about five or six minutes and then I look at these guys and they’re going...” at this moment Don, Butch and John all demonstrate an ‘enough already!’ face and laugh, then Don continues... “I was old enough then to realise this wasn’t the way to go so they asked me about three more questions and I thought what’s the shortest way to answer? Needless to say he got the job.
Don described ABC television as a wonderful place to work “weird and terribly wonderful”. He would assist a lot of the older cameraman. Don was assigned to assist Tom Ditcher, a rear gunner in World War II. Tommy would sit back and chat to the ladies while Don would unload the car, set the lighting up and thread the camera, expose it and operate the camera and put it all back. This allowed Don to do what he wanted to do, he was having a great time and it was a good opportunity for him.
“Tommy would endlessly be challenged ‘Tom, that guy is doing all the work out there what’s going on here?’ and Tommy’s stock answer, I must have heard it a hundred times, ‘There’s no good havin’ a dog and barking yourself!’ ”
Eventually Don became a cameraman with the ABC. After putting in his time at ABC Don was offered a position at Film Australia, the lure of working with colour called to him. “They had colour, they had colour!” he exclaims. It was at Film Australia that Don started to learn “there was far more to camera then just reporting. That there was some art in Cinematography and some art in filmmaking”. At Film Australia Don was associated with dozens of talented film makers including Peter Weir. In a short time he took the job of Chief Cameraman and because he had a young family the appointment suited him as he could pick and choose his own jobs.
Then along came an irresistible opportunity. A new director had some money from the Film Bank and producer Bruce Beresford had seen a little film Don had shot. The short was called ‘No Roses For Michael’ directed by Chris McGill. He had shot at night, with gear ‘borrowed’ from Film Australia. “So they were looking for a cameraman
‘you wouldn’t be interested in shooting this feature? You’ve got a good job here ...’ and I said ‘You’re standing in the doorway and that’s a dangerous place to be!’”. Two weeks later Don was over in London preparing to shoot ‘Barry McKenzie’. Don got leave to go over there and improve his skills and that is what he did. “I did learn a hell of a lot it was a very steep learning curve I can tell you” Don had some great experiences in London. The gear used to shoot ‘Barry McKenzie’ was hired from Samuelsons. “Bruce and I turn up, a real oddball little syndicate from Australia and we go to Samuelsons. There are three of the Samuelson brothers out in this great big office out at the Cricklewood Organisation and they invite us in.”
They made Don a remarkable offer, “... ‘for 3000 pounds you can have everything that is in this building’ I said ‘What do you mean?’ he said ‘You can have whatever you want on the day you want it. The only thing I stipulate is that we have our grip as key grip and his job will be to come and ask you before the end of the day what you need tomorrow and what you don’t need and if you play the game we will play the game real well’”.
Don had a warehouse full of gear at his disposal. Don asked them about it years later and they said “We just decided that if ever it got away in Australia it would be better to start of with them”. After returning from leave he went back to work at Film Australia. His second feature, a sequel to ‘Barry McKenzie’, required him to take more time off work. His second application of leave was objected to by the local industry, “quite rightly, so I resigned”. The decision was made to go freelance.
Now freelance, Don continued to work in features and commercials until “the yanks” discovered’ him and for the last twenty years he has been working if not in America, for Americans. “I mean that’s the big league, I’ve had criticism for that but my answer is ‘Nobody expected Joan Sutherland to keep singing in Sydney town hall until she dropped dead’” he laughs. “The truth is if I hadn’t gone when I’d gone it would have delayed a lot of very illustrious careers. I had about half the movies tied up; I was doing about four movies a year which was about half the output of the country at that stage. I mean it would have changed or I would have dropped dead.”
“Anyway that’s how I got into the business and I’ve been hanging on ever since.” He says “I’m just going to keep doing it until they don’t send me a script.”
from Australian Cinematographer - Issue 15