IVAN SHARROCK ON KW

KEN WESTON
A personal tribute from Ivan Sharrock

In 1977, Ken and I first teamed up on a film called the The Medusa Touch for which I needed a Fisher boom operator, and Ken was excellent. This was a fairly low-budget movie but starred Richard Burton. Come the last day of shooting a four page courtroom scene, the producer came over to us to say that "if we have to get Richard back for any looping it's going to cost a million dollars" (in 1977!). Ken just turned to him and said "So, ...we'll save you half a million if you give Ivan and I the other half to get the sound right…….."!
His unique brand of humorous cynicism was always present and made working with Ken an immensely enjoyable experience, especially during the arduous and often traumatic experience dealing with Stanley Kubrick on The Shining. Over the next ten years we worked together on such films as Flash Gordon, An American Werewolf in London, The Dogs of War, The French Lieutenant's Woman and Greystoke sharing the vagaries and discomforts that life on the road inevitably brings. In Belize on Dogs of War, Ken's bedroom was above a disco. One evening a fight broke out and someone fired gunshots into the ceiling! Many years later he covered for my other boom op over a Xmas break in Tunisia and a war broke out and a curfew imposed. He thought he was going on holiday!
With only one day off after 4 months in Belize, much to our wives consternation, we had to be in Dorset ready to shoot The French Lieutenant's Woman (with lovely Karel Reisz). By then both families were good friends; the kids got on and the wives 'got together'! Ken's youngest, Lizzie, and my son Sky, being the same age were just young enough to be taken out of school for a stint on location with the 'Dads', so the wives found us a divine cottage to stay for the duration.
It was a blissful Summer, lovely film and great crack, plus the missus' were happy to be by the sea with the kids. Good days ! it happened that it was Ken's birthday, and the wives had cooked up a storm of a celebration dinner. Of course we were late but bonhomie prevailed and bottles opened, and cards and kids were all on tap. He had received a 'Dear Son' card from his Dad - you know, the kind with a car on front - none of us could believe our eyes, when we looked closely. Proudly standing outside some glorious mansion was my old AC Ace, long gone to pay a tax bill!! Ken was sure I had cooked it up somehow. We laughed, sang, drank, and were merry, and I'm glad to say we spent many such like happy times together since then.
I think one reason we both enjoyed working together was that Ken shared my belief that we were film makers first and soundmen second, and the one thing we would not allow, was the production be able to say "Waiting for sound" !! As I opened my mouth to suggest something, Ken was already on the trot to do it! It was a rare and valuable working relationship. And did we have good moaning sessions!
As we were nearing the end of Greystoke - I had a call from the American mixer, Chris Newman who was looking for a good boom-man from the UK for


	Amadeus - I told him I had the best and he would have to wait - until I found out that Ken was being offered more than I was being paid….. It was not long after that when he asked my advice about going mixing, I told him to go for it, but he'd have trouble in finding as good a boom operator as himself. He went on to build up a fine reputation on the high profile movies that we all know and deservedly won his Oscar and his CAS award from his US peers, of which he was most proud. Quite often we would bump into each other- on neighbouring sets, as we did in Malta whilst I was shooting U-571 and he was finishing Gladiator--20th century gunfire was often bouncing from the tank into the BC set behind. By this time he was hoping he'd beaten his illness and was in good form. We dined together a lot and invited each other onto our respective sets, though 1 was more eager to see his than he mine. Off I went one hot Saturday armed with my pass. past the Ken Weston with Ivan Sharrock guards and into the huge Coliseum set. There was Ken, head down under a brolly in the middle of the arena in the blistering sunshine - the usual chaos twice over - with two tables of gear spilling all over the place. "Glad you've come - now we can turn over and I can go home!" He was due to join us in LA for the Oscar Bash but just couldn't make the journey in the end; and whilst both my wife and I were rooting for him to win, despite all the LA post team on U-571 - who were anticipating a win. Peter Glossop deserves a huge pat on the back as he made Ken's Oscar night for him, arranging a party at his house with a hook up to the Satellite telecast and an invitation list of Ken's mates, with red carpet, champagne and all. We had primed the US Gladiator post-prod team to be ready to give Ken his due praise on fear of retribution untold, which I'm pleased to say they did with charm and grace, whilst we sat there and cheered for him amongst askance glances from my own film team! I miss him greatly, and at risk of sounding like an 'old fart' I miss the good film times we had together - they were indeed a different era of movie making and Ken helped to make that good in his unique way - I miss his friendship and camaraderie - he left the set too early but he left an impressive list of memories on the way.