[Dufaycolor Outtakes]

Filmmaker Humphrey Jennings' Dufaycolor extracts; the labour involved in harvesting and shipping.

Two extracts filmed by Humphrey Jennings. The first sequence of outtakes are scenes from "English Harvest", and features men working on the land, harvesting crops using traditional farming methods. The second sequence of outtakes, taken from "Farewell Topsails", features the labour involved in the work of a sea crew preparing to leave harbour. Filmed in Dufaycolor, and using low-angle framing to exaggerate the expanse of blue sky, Jennings captures the beauty of these land and seascapes.

Keywords

Agriculture; Farming; Harvests; Sailing ships

Background Information

Jennings, Humphrey (1907-1950) Humphrey Jennings was born in Walberswick, Suffolk on 19 August 1907 Full biography at BFI http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/453623/index.html English Harvest (1938) 35mm, Dufaycolor, 9 mins The full version can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyzAIkMwrg Credits Directed by JENNINGS, Humphrey Presents Dufay-Chromex Ltd Produced by KLEIN, Adrian Assistant Director BLACKER, Cecil Photography by DAVIDSON, J.D. Pastoral Symphony (uncredited) BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van Commentary STREET, A.G. Studio Imperial Sound Studios Take from http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1361429/index.html [The second of three films that Humphrey Jennings made for producer Adrian Klein as a showcase for the Dufaycolor process, English Harvest was shot in autumn 1937 and primarily exists to capture, in the words of Jennings' biographer Kevin Jackson, "a last glimpse of the peaceful world that is about to be bombed into oblivion." Like its immediate predecessor Farewell Topsails (1937) and notably unlike much of Jennings' later work, the virtues of English Harvest are primarily pictorial, with cinematographer J.D. Davidson using the colour process to infuse its images with a timeless "classic" quality redolent of John Constable's paintings.] Farewell Topsails (1937) 35mm, Dufaycolor, 9 mins Can be viewed on BFI DVD Land Of Promise: The British Documentary Movement 1930-1950 Credits Director JENNINGS, Humphrey Production Company Dufay-Chromex Ltd Producer KLEIN, Adrian Assistant Director BLACKER, Cecil Photographer DAVIDSON, J.D. Taken from http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1315414/index.html [Jennings made Farewell Topsails for the Adrian Klein/Dufay-Chromex company as one of three shorts designed to show how the process [of Dufaycolor] looked, the other two being a charming view of English rural life, English Harvest, and a negligible piece, possibly assembled from out-takes of English Harvest, titled The Farm (both 1938). Farewell Topsails, cut to the jaunty sound of a sailor's accordion, and shot in the brilliant summer sunlight of 1937, records one of the last voyages of a commercial sailing ship carrying her cargo of extracted kaolin on a trip from Cornwall. There is not much that is obviously personal about the film, save for the fact that it recorded the passing of an ancient mode of technology in favour of an industrial mode - one of the grand themes of Jennings' unfinished work Pandaemonium.]