Interview of retired cinematographer Roy Tash in Toronto, Ontario, in which he talks about such subjects as: films he shot for the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau; photographing the European Corn Borer for an Ontario government film; waiting to see the insect hatch; the Filmcraft company and its predecessor, the Canadian Aero Film Company, founded by Blaine Irish; Tash’s joining the Canadian Aero Film Company when Blaine Irish was just getting it started; a company investor named [Erickson]; other investors such as Clifford Sifton and the late Irwin Proctor; and a stunt flier named George [Dolan], who worked with the company; using two airplanes, with a camera in one plane, filming another plane; King Irish; Tash’s coming to Canada in 1919; Tash’s work as a cameraman for Pathé News in Chicago prior to 1919; getting mediocre assignments from a senior cameraman named Curtis Pritchard; Blaine Irish, who was a projectionist at the Jackson Park Theatre in Chicago at the time; Irish accompanying Tash on assignments; sitting in Blaine Irish’s convertible to film a parade along Michigan Avenue in Chicago; John Philip Sousa leading the marching band in that parade; Blaine Irish’s decision to start up a film company in Canada; Tash’s decision to move to Canada and being surprised to find out that when he arrived in Canada and July there was no ice or snow; people who worked for the Pathescope Company of Canada, which later turned into General Films, including cameramen [Royal Connor] and George Bastien, George Redpath, Len Roos and Charlie Roos and Tash’s friend George Rutherford; Frank O’Byrne; Roy Maxwell of the Ontario Government forestry branch, who was an expert pilot and flew Tash once to Moose Factory, Ontario, in a seaplane; Tash as more of an employee than involved in the administration of Filmcraft; the late Harry Blake, who accompanied Tash on a number of assignments, directing Tash’s work; going out a shooting footage rather than following a scenario; Filmcraft’s role cutting and editing the films; Filmcraft Industries’ offices above a bowling alley; the developing room; drying the film; Tash developing, printing and editing his own films and shooting titles in the sunshine; the few people in Canada at that time who knew about processing film; the Canadian Society of Cinematographers; changes in aspects of cinematography over the years; the fire at Filmcraft in 1923, which put him out of a job; rumors that the fire was arson; [Royal Connor] hanging a black crepe on the door after the fire; Tash’s work on the feature film Satan’s Paradise, for Filmcraft, about exposing spiritualism; his filming the interior shots for the film in Loew’s Theatre; George Brownridge; a trip by Tash, Brownridge and lighting man [Royal Connor] on a tour of Pantages theatres in various towns across Canada, during which he shot actors, most of them local, in films all called Love’s Young Dream; showing the films weeks later so that people could see themselves in movies; filming storefronts such a fruit store with a comedian in front who would eat the peel and throw away the banana; the 1967 National Film Board fire that destroyed many films; nitrate film; the Canadian Motion Picture Pioneers; George Patton of the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau; John Grierson recognizing Roy Tash at an event at Film House; filmmaker G.T. Booth; Harold Peberdy, who was in charge of the art department and also did animated films; animation films Tash worked on; a film Tash did for Nielson’s chocolates; film he shot 40 years earlier of his two daughters; his work as a newsreel cameraman, for every major newsreel; filming the Dionne quintuplets; his decision to retire when the last of the newsreels folded; Norman Gunn; cameraman Doug Skene; the William James film collection held by his brother Norman James; William James shooting still pictures and motion pictures; Gordon Sparling of Associated Screen News using some of the James footage in one of his Canadian Cameos; f ootage of horse-drawn fire reels coming out of the Adelaide Street station; Tash suggesting to Sparling that he do a film series called Did You Know That?; Tash’s work for the film series called Did You Know That?; the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau studio at Trenton; Tash photographing Tyrone Power’s film at the Trenton studio; Carry On Sergeant; his being the first Canadian motion picture cameraman to photograph sound in Canada, for Associated Screen News, with his soundman Arnold Hague, in Montreal; [Dex Harrison], who worked as a soundman with Tash on various productions, such as the 1939 Royal Tour, and who later went to work for the National Research Council; his not recollecting that the Ontario government made any sound films; the late Bert Bach; [Elsie Disney], who starred in a Filmcraft film; [Bill] Miller, who worked with Filmcraft and later Associated Screen News and also knew Tash in Chicago; more about Harold Peberdy; the film Winter Wizardry, made by Filmcraft; Hamilton, and the film The Birmingham of Canada; [Percy Josselyn] of the Filmcraft art department; Regal Films and its connection to Pathé; ASN printing negatives for Famous Players and Columbia for distribution in Canada; Colonel John Cooper; his wish to start up an archives for the Canadian Society of Cinematographers; collecting old projectors; and possible sources of old films. <56mn>
