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. read more…