Colin Corby Assoc BSC

1935 - present

Colin (aka The Silver Fox) like most children of his generation spent a lot of time in the cinema growing up, but his first taste of anything film related was in 1958, when he started a job with Kodak in their production laboratories where he learned all about the mechanics of emulsions, sprockets, gauges, ASA speeds, etc.

Before long he also learned about the product they were making and what magic the cinematographers were conjuring with it.  In 1960, he met Wally Fairweather, who was then working as a freelance 1st Assistant on the camera crew and cheekily asked him if he could get into the film business, but the bold question paid off and 2 days later he walked into a job as a 2nd Assistant on a TV series at the Danziger Studios in Stanmore. Alex Thomson BSC was the operator for Jimmy Harvey BSC and after that, thanks to Alex, he went on to do more sophisticated productions.

The first major production he worked on as a 2AC was Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1964), with a hugely talented crew: Johnny Jordan (1AC), Dudley Lovell (operator) and Chris Challis BSC (DoP) – Chris was Bafta nominated for his work. Later, Chris was directly responsible for upgrading him on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1967), which was his first film as a 1AC. Eventually he upgraded to camera operator once more with Alex Thomson, on Death Line (1972).

Working at MGM, Pinewood, Shepperton and Elstree studios for most of his career, he stayed in the business till the early 2000’s and along the way also became rather heavily involved with television commercials, where he became ‘first call’ with several major production companies and their directors and producers such as Peter Webb and Hugh Hudson. But feature films were always his first love, with some other notable credits to his name: Event Horizon; Good Morning Vietnam; Give My Regards to Broad Street; Buddy’s Song; Labyrinth; Young Sherlock Holmes, to name but a few.