I’ve been making video documentaries to illustrate film studies lectures for a few years now. So far I’ve edited together film clips for talks on Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock and Buster Keaton which I’ve presented to audiences live in person and via Zoom. In 2022 I was asked to present one for a local history festival by Richmond Libraries. As a Richmond resident and comedy historian I knew of a famous star who had lived just up the road from my flat, but since his death had been somewhat forgotten. This star was comedian Sid Field whose death in 1950 on Wikipedia was quoted as being in Richmond. Despite being born in Birmingham, this local link was enough to get my talk on him scheduled and I went ahead with my research. Thanks to local archives I was able to track down the addresses where he lived (and died) which led to Wiki being amended (his last place of residence was actually Wimbledon) as well as obituaries and other details of his career. Only one of his films was available in good quality on DVD, with further clips from YouTube, but I was able to cobble together enough for a 45 minute lecture.

However it was a lot of work to end up presenting to just 20 (lovely) people. A pretty obscure figure, a talk on Sid proved a tricky sell to other societies and libraries, none of whom were interested, so I set myself the challenge of recording a full narration onto the video to publish on YouTube itself. David Suchet had produced and presented a full documentary on Field 20 years ago for BBC4, but like so much content from our so-called public service broadcaster it’s not available to the public on any streaming service or on DVD and only a trailer remains on YouTube. So I thought I should fill this gap. It took me over a year. Reviewing the footage I’d selected for the live talk it was clear I needed to make changes, sound levels were an issue that needed regulating and more research revealed gaps and errors in my original script. Then, having watched many comparable films on historical figures there was ALWAYS incidental mood-music playing alongside the voice-over. I went on the hunt for old, royalty free, jazz and music hall tunes that would suit each section of Sid’s story, praying the website’s copywrite police wouldn’t zap any of it. I came a cropper finding suitable clips from 1920s and 1930s variety acts to put Sid’s career in context that was either of poor quality or there were rights issues. Luckily there was enough relative photographic and video material of his contemporaries like Laurel and Hardy and Norman Wisdom available. It took me weeks to actually record a voice-over for the 50 minute documentary, struggling with work deadlines and flu, so my voice sounds somewhat quiet and hoarse at times!

Once I had a rough cut it was time to privately publish on YouTube and show via our Playstation at home. The picture and sound quality was luckily as close to TV broadcast standard as I could hope for, but my wife pointed out serious flaws in both the storytelling and the original title, which required a whole new edit. Finally, the automatically generated CC subtitle feature that comes with the site was just embarrassing. As this was my first ever attempt at a TV documentary having titles that approximated about half of what was being said on screen, with a frankly alien approach to punctuation, was not good enough. A major rewrite was required that took another 3 weeks work fine-tuning the timing to fractions of a second. This week I was finally ready to publish the finished (still imperfect) film, with its viewing only restricted in Russia of all places, and in 3 days nearly 300 viewers have given at least some of it a watch. Who knows where this will lead? It’s been a headache, but taught me a huge amount about editing and patience. Next up? Sherlock Holmes on screen!

THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF SID FIELD: A NEW DOCUMENTARY.