On Monday 1 April I had the interesting and enjoyable experience of being interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 Film Programme (to be broadcast on Thurs 11) about my work as music editor on Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining in the spring of 1980.
Despite my suffering from a hip problem (shortly to be replaced), all went well and at the end of the recording both the presenter, Antonia Quirke, and film music expert Neil Brand, clapped.
Headphones on, all ready to go. Gordon about to be interviewed by Antonia Quirke and Neil Brand on 1 April 2019 at BBC Broadcasting House. Producer Stephen Hughes in left foreground. Photo: Freda Raphael
The interview lasted for well over an hour, only about 12 minutes of which got into the broadcast, which went out on Thursday 11th April at 4.00 pm. However, my section of the programme in the podcast version which is available on the BBC Radio 4 website, is over twice as long.
For ease of access I’ve put a link to the podcast here:
Stanley Kubrick’s Childwickbury in Hertfordshire. The Victorian stable block, where I did the initial listening and selecting of all the music, is on the left. The editing team, under Ray Lovejoy, moved back to Elstree Studios, about 8 miles away, in April 1980. (The dubbing editors, under Win Ryder – dialogue and effects – had already been established there for many weeks.)
@ Jack Elliott Hobbs (Stanley’s grandson, I believe)The nondescript and secretive building at Elstree Studios where Stanley had his cutting rooms, and where I laid the music tracks. Entry was by the bright red door. It either had no notice on it, or simply said ‘Hawk Films’. Vivian’s cutting room where we edited her documentary ‘Making the Shining’ was behind the big windows top right. (The Overlook Hotel’s kitchen set was created here before it was turned into a cutting room.) Stanley’s cutting room was in a corresponding position at the rear of the building. All the sound editors (apart from me, music), a team of six, were in a completely different cutting-room block. The wonderful dubbing theatre, then state-of-the-art in the UK, was behind and right of the trees in the background here, now sadly under a Tesco carpark.
Photo: Freda Raphael, 2015
Durkin’s Garage in The Shining, on the back lot at Elstree Studios. Stanley’s cutting room was the line of lighted windows in the far distance, right of centre. All the ‘snow’ here was created with salt. There can be few movies in the whole of history that have managed to create such a convincing world – snowy Colorado, including the hotel – in such a confined and unlikely studio space. Anyone who thinks I’m exaggerating, please go to what is now the Tesco’s supermarket in Borehamwood. You will probably be parking your car on the site of the Overlook Hotel’s Colorado Lounge.
