Photo by Robin Vidgeon, BSC in April-June 2009 FDTimes, courtesy of Imago.
We lost another legend of our industry.
Joe Dunton, MBE, BSC was the consummate inventor, mentor and friend. He had a gift of laughter and the sense that the world of cinema was not mad but in constant need of repair or retrofitting.
“What if I we spread a rumor that I was going to buy Kodak?” Joe asked with a mischievous smile at BSC Expo in 2012. “Believable,” I said. “Joe, you never saw a camera company that you didn’t want to buy.” (Among his collections were Moy and Mitchell.)
“There would be a contagion of speculation if you dropped ‘If’ from the headline,” Joe said. “If….it would be run like a boutique. You would order quantities and emulsions for the production at hand. It would be bespoke Kodak: edge numbers with the name of the cinematographer indelibly etched, perhaps. Or rolls of professional still film with your name on the yellow box.”
And no, Joe did not buy Kodak.
One day, he proposed a new format to follow Super35. “What if I introduced 1-perf pulldown?” he joked. His career, credits and list of achievements are no laughing matter.
He was Managing Director of JDC in London and Wilmington, NC and an executive at Panavision. He worked at Samuelson Film Service in the early days and developed one of the first video assists for Ossie Morris, OBE, BSC on Oliver. His 20:1 modified Angénieux zoom was used by Stanley Kubrick and John Alcott, BSC on Barry Lyndon (“Company forward march”). Joe practiced the art of attention to detail and bespoke service to cinematographers and directors, with a loyal following worldwide. He was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) and received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in 2010 and the 2008 Lifetime achievement award from the Society of Operating Cameramen. He never saw a piece of equipment he didn’t want to modify—or buy the company that made it. He was famous for his anamorphic and specialty lenses.
Joe’s inventions included the JDC Variable Contrast Glass around 2006, the Ladderpod, some of the first video assists, the Moy Bazooka, the Mitchell Vitesse geared head and a digital camera magazine for the 16SR.
Lots of memories. Lunches with Joe. Like a medieval feast—at Simpson’s in the Strand and massive silver trolleys of roast beef wheeled around, almost the size of Mini Coopers. More Mini Coopers: Jimmy Fisher and Joe at JDC London, restoring a squadron of vintage Minis to ship to California. Leavesden Studios, Rear projection, Quidditch, Harry Potter, Michael Seresin BSC. Anamorphic mysteries from parts known and unknown. Xtal Express…
In 2009, Joe designed a rig to test 18 cameras simultaneously for a BSC test. This was
believed to be the greatest number of cameras the world has ever seen all shooting a test together.
Joe, you will be missed by so many of us.
Joe was a delight to be around . His passion for whatever he was involved with was contagious . He was true gentleman and will be missed by those who were honored to know him.
Jeff, I guess you worked with Joe when he modified your Angenieux lenses?
A friend and an inspiration for all of us who love everything technical about cinematography.
A true visionary, as well as a gentleman has left us. The craftsmen of our small world will miss him dearly.
My thoughts to Lester and the Dunton family
Danys: Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Yes, a craftsman and a gentleman.
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I, too, have a memory of Joe.
It was on behalf of the Dutch NSC, during an Imago meeting—whether in Rome or in Łódź, I can no longer say. The place has faded; the moment has not.
Joe was seated at the dinner table. The conversation drifted, as it often does among curious minds, to brand names—specifically, to digital cameras. Joe mentioned that he had purchased the Mitchell brand, and then, almost casually, he floated an idea: What if Mitchell became a digital camera?
But what struck me was not the proposal itself. It was the way he held it.
Joe did not seem like a man in need of that kind of success, nor of the labor such a venture would demand. He was already at ease with his life, confident, satisfied with where he stood—then and there. And yet, he delighted in the thought. He enjoyed playing with something big.
He was the brand owner. He could do it.
And yet, he smiled at the idea more as a wild possibility than as a project he intended to shoulder. It was imagination at play, not ambition at work.
In the silences between his words, there was something else happening—something quieter, wiser. On the reverse side of that coin, Joe was protecting a classic brand from becoming nothing more than a label slapped onto a computer. The idea was offered not as a plan, but as a respectful question: Would this do justice to Mitchell?
He played with the name. He gently shook it awake, as if rousing it from a long sleep—bringing it briefly back into consciousness—only to let it rest again.
Like a good grandfather, reassuring a child:
You have nothing to worry about. In Joe’s hands, you will be safe.
And as a wise man once said: it is important to keep playing. Those who stop playing become neurotic.
Joe never stopped playing.
And we, his guests at the table, were entertained—perhaps the finest thing one can accomplish with a camera, whether film or digital.
All he had to do was speak the name of the machine.
Bart: nicely written. “The name of the machine.” And the man.