Nigel left school 1970 with GCE A Level passes in Art and English and had a painting accepted for the R.A. Summer Exhibition in 1970.

 

He studied City and Guilds Photography at Isleworth Polytechnic (were he saw the Bunuel / Dali film 'In Chien Andalu' which got him hooked on Film. 1970/71).

 

He needed an ACTT card to get into the Industry so joined Colour Film Services as Labs were the only way to obtain one (as had no contacts in the Industry).

 

He stayed there for 2 years (73/74) doing dark room make-up, negative and positive developing and machine daily maintenance.

 

He left Colour Film Services to travel.

 

When Nigel returned he joined a tiny s8 lab called Meridian in Woolwich and stayed for a year printing.

 

He then joined Henderson's Lab when owned by Technicolor: during his 2 years there it was taken over by the BFI.  His duties were printing and developing. There were many different kinds of mostly old and very old printing machines which they used for the archive restoration work and it was a very interesting experience.

 

He then left to join Studio Film Labs as a Printer.  He went on to grading, initially Commercials and then Drama and Documentary projects for almost 10 years. During this time he Produced, Directed, Scored and Photographed on 35mm a 20 min short film 'One Day Last Summer' which gained a UK National Theatrical release as support to a Peter Ustinov feature

'Memed, My Hawk'.

 

Nigel left Studio Film Labs for a position at Technicolor in the Sales and Marketing Dept under Chris Gacon and Simon Baxter. He was very lucky to be able to talk with many of the Lab Technicians still there at that time who had worked on many of the greatest films ever made and he really loved his time there for nearly 5 years duration. This was at the dawn of non linear editing and Technicolor were slow to respond unfortunately which meant that they used a separate entity for the video transfers from the negative they had processed. This did not always work out satisfactorily.

 

Studio Film Labs had recently been bought and rebranded as Soho Images and they were the first Film Lab to have Telecine facilities in-house at the Lab. They offered Nigel a position which he accepted, involving grading (one of the most technically interesting Features I did was for Director Mike Figgis / DOP Benoit Delhomme called 'The Loss Of Sexual Innocence' which involved some challenging lab technics. When they went to screen the Show Print at Leicester Square it was a stunning visual experience).  Nigel also wrote and directed another 35mm short film ' Burning Bright' which they screened in Cannes and Edinburgh. In 2000 he was invited to judge on the the Technical committee ( Commission Superior D'Technic) at that years Cannes Film Festival which was a fantastic and unforgettable experience.  Nigel also Exec. Produced a 90 min Feature staring Johnathan Pryce, ' Mad Dogs', a black comedy about the end of the World ( still pretty pertinent)! Directed by Ahmed Jamal and DOP was Jono Smith.

 

Nigel left Soho Images in 2006 to co-found i lab with his good friend and fellow Lab technician Martin McGlone as a small, independent film lab in Poland St. which was then acquired by Reliance Media works in 2009 and in 2012 he co-founded i dailies laboratory. At this time the death knell for Film had been sounding increasingly loudly.  It seemed a crazy thing to do, open a new, small film lab in 2012, but he still loved the format. They were a very small Laboratory, so when both Deluxe and Technicolor ceased Film processing in 2013 they were pretty much swamped with major Studio projects almost overnight and had to expand and adapt rapidly in order to meet the sudden demand! It was an exhausting time, both physically and mentally,  but also hugely satisfying in that the lab played such a crucial part at this time in keeping film origination in the UK a viable choice for Productions wishing to shoot on celluloid. Nigel was also delighted when the legendary Clive Noakes agreed to join them from the closing Deluxe Lab at Denham and they had a wonderful time working together.  

 

In 2017 Nigel did the music for a feature length Documentary, ' Bill Viola, the Road to St. Paul's' by Director Gerry Fox which had a limited U.K. national theatrical release. i dailies was subsequently bought by Kodak in 2016 and Nigel retired on his 65th birthday last September (2017).

 

Nigel was made an Honorary Friend of the BSC at that time, of which I feel deeply humbled and proud.

 

Since retiring he has reverted to his first two loves, painting and music.  The last album ' Small Mercies' (Celtic finger-style guitar)  is at:  nigelanthonyhorn.bandcamp.com