GORDON STAINFORTH
BA(Hons), MA(RCA), ARPS, FRGS
Royal Institute of Philosophy

Gordon Stainforth was born (a twin) in 1949 in Welwyn Garden City, England. He discovered two of his main interests, climbing and photography, at about the same time at the age of 16. While still at school he was making his first films with an 8mm movie camera, and by 1968 was starting to take climbing photographs.

At Cardiff University he found his most enduring interest, philosophy, for which he gained a first class honours degree in 1972. Despite the understandable protestations of his tutors, he then went to London and studied film and television at the renowned Royal College of Art Film School.

Film industry

One of Gordon's first professional film jobs, while still at film school, was as a clapper-loader with the Oscar-winning cameraman Walter Lassally. Then, from 1975-85 he worked as a freelance Assistant Film Editor, initially in television and then in the film industry.

His biggest break came in 1979 when he joined Stanley Kubrick's The Shining at Elstree Studios as an Assistant Editor. When Ray Lovejoy, the Editor, fell ill in the final stages of the production in the following year, Gordon cut the last 30 minutes of the film, working directly with Kubrick. (Listen to Kubrick directing Shelley Duval.) He then worked as the Music Editor, laying all the avant-garde music for the movie, which has now become something of a cult (see this website). He also cut the BBC television documentary, Making The Shining, directed by Vivian Kubrick (Stanley's daughter). (Watch clip from the documentary.) After that, he worked as First Assistant Editor on five other major movies (see below).

Main film credits

1972 Drive into Europe (dir: Peter Ormrod). Film Editor.
Documentary for the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu.

1973 Requiem for a Village (dir: David Gladwell). Assistant Cameraman. A BFIProduction

1974 This Game of Golf (dir: Mike Raeburn, ph: Walter Lassally), featuring Sean Connery. Assistant Cameraman.

Haunting Storm (dir: Mike Hall). Assistant Cameraman.
Part of a V & A Museum exhibition on film special effects.

1975 Horizons (dir: Peter Ormrod). Film Editor.
A short film shown on BBC2 Premiere series, featuring extraordinary aerial footage in an aerobatic biplane.

1976 Rachel and the Beelzebub Bombadiers (dir: Peter Ormrod). Sound Recordist.
A Southern Arts Council Film, shown on BBC2.

1977 The Crisis Inside (producer: John Penycate, reporter: Tom Mangold). Assistant Editor.
A four-part BBC series about our prisons.

Remote Britain (producer: Keith Hulse). Assistant Editor.
A series of six films for BBC Nationwide.

1978 Terror International (producer: John Penycate, reporter: Tom Mangold). Assistant Editor.
A two-part BBC Panorama Special on international terrorism.

The Real War in Space (producer: John Penycate, reporter: Tom Mangold). Assistant Editor.
A two-part BBC Panorama Special about the nuclear arms race.

High Hopes. Associate Producer.
A BBC South-West documentary about Norman Croucher, the outstanding double-leg amputee mountaineer.

1979 Peru, Bolivia (reporter: Jonathan Dimbleby). Assistant Editor.
Thames TV six-part series on South America.

1979-80 The Shining (dir: Stanley Kubrick, ed: Ray Lovejoy). Warner Bros. First Assistant Editor and Music Editor.

1980 Making the Shining (dir: Vivian Kubrick, prod: Alan Yentob). Editor.
BBC Arena Special

1981 Churchill, The Wilderness Years (dir: Ferdinand Fairfax)
Southern Pictures for ITV. Assistant Dialogue Editor.
A seven-part drama-documentary starring Robert Hardy.

1982 Krull (dir: Peter Yates, ed: Ray Lovejoy). Columbia Pictures. First Assistant Editor.

1983 The Dresser (dir: Peter Yates, ed: Ray Lovejoy). Columbia Pictures. First Assistant Editor and Music Editor for James Horner

The Neverending Story (dir: Wolfgang Petersen) Warner Bros.
Made at Bavaria Film Studios, Munich. Assistant Optical Effects Editor

1984 Sheena, (dir: John Guillermin, ed: Ray Lovejoy.) Columbia Pictures. Made on location in Kenya. Associate Editor

1985 Legend, (dir: Ridley Scott.) Universal Pictures. American re-cut. English Associate Editor

1986 Legend Promotional Video (dir: Tim Pope). Universal Pictures. Consultant Editor

Photography, writing and media since 1985:

In 1985/6, when the Film Industry went into a periodic decline, Gordon began a new career in still photography and writing. In November 1985 he won the Mountain Landscape Photography competition at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival, and this encouraged him to begin his series of four award-winning, bestselling mountain landscape books:

1991 Eyes to the Hills

1992 Lakeland: Landscape of Imagination

1994 The Cuillin

1998 The Peak: Past and Present

In this period Gordon exhibited his photographic work at a wide range of venues including the National Museum of Photography in Bradford and the Barbican Centre in London. He has also lectured extensively, notably to the Royal Photographic Society, the Alpine Club, the World Wildlife Fund, the Ruskin Society, and the John Muir Trust, as well as at mountaineering literature festivals in Buxton, Ambleside, Llandudno, Wakefield, and Banff (in Canada).

Also during this period Gordon won many more prizes and awards for his work:

1989, 1990 ARPS, FRGS

1992 The Thomas Cook Illustrated Travel Book Award for Eyes to the Hills

1994 The Banff Mountain Book Festival Best Book of Mountain Images for The Cuillin

1995 The Outdoor Writers' Guild Award for Excellence for The Cuillin

1999 The Peak: Past and Present shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award

2000 The Peak: Past and Present shortlisted for the Portico Prize.

1999 Photographic trips to the the Grand Canyon, Yosemite , Zion and Joshua Tree in America, and to the Everest region of Nepal for World Expeditions.

The Stanley Kubrick Companion by James Howard. Contributor

Robin Hood of the Peak Gordon lectured at a 3-day Robin Hood Symposium at Nottingham University

2000 - 2001 Worked on the umpteenth draft of a Science Fiction novel: The Last Days of P-Ship and continued researching a philosophy book, The Secret Meaning of Mountains

In the summer of 2001, after the end of the devastating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, Gordon made a 145-mile circular walk of the Peak District in 12 days, starting and finishing in Derby, The Peak Grand Tour

2002 Turpin, screenplay for Producer David Rose

Book sales of Gordon's mountain hardbacks topped 43,000

2003 Revised The Last Days of P-Ship for Tor Books, New York

Activity Britain. Directed five short videos on outdoor activities for Visit Britain

Wild Britain. Directed two television test promos for the BBC, with Brian Blessed and Rebecca Stephens as presenters

2004 The Owl and the Cragrat, an anthology of climbing poems. Project Director and Co-Editor (with Marc Chrysanthou)

Continued research work for a mountain philosophy book

2005 The Crux: 150 years of British climbing in 25 images. Compiled and designed the 25th anniversary photographic exhibition for the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. For further details see Kendal Mountain Arts.

Expanded web design business activities.

2006 Worked in the Lake District with Griff Rhys Jones on part of the BBC series Mountains.

The Crux photographic exhibition was at the Alpine Club in London.

2007 Appeared in two BBC TV series: Balderdash & Piffle and Mountains with Griff Rhys Jones.

Gave an hour-long presentation at the Ritz Cinema in Belper about his work editing the music score of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

The Crux exhibition was at the National Mountaineering Exhibition in Cumbria and the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival.

Continued research work on major non-fiction and fiction book projects.

Climbing

Gordon's climbing career goes back over 40 years. He started rock-climbing with his twin brother John while still at school, and on family holidays to Zermatt in 1966 and 1967 they climbed their first alpine peaks. In 1969, again with his brother, he made an ascent of the very long and dangerous 'Fiva Route' in Romsdal in Norway, an escapade that nearly cost them their lives. The next year they were both climbing Extremes in North Wales (they both led the classic 'Cenotaph Corner', separately, on the same day). Two more Alpine seasons followed in 1971 and 1972, but then work in the film industry restricted further climbing activities for over a decade. Since 1983 however, Gordon has been rock climbing and hill walking whenever the opportunity has arisen, and has made a point of climbing many of the rock routes that are featured in his books.

Some pictures of Gordon's climbing can be found in

my UKClimbing photogallery