December 6, 2024

Mike Proudfoot ACO Assoc BSC (1945-2024)

It is with sadness that we learn of the passing of our friend and member, Mike Proudfoot ACO Assoc BSC.

Mike’s journey into film was complex as firstly, after leaving school, he trained as a car mechanic with Porsche. Falling into the film industry came about by accident; his friend's wife worked at the Rank Organisation's shorts and documentaries department and they told him they needed a mechanic to look after the camera cars.

After a year at the company he was offered the role of documentary assistant, this allowed him to go all over the world for over two years, the role of documentary assistant allowed him to try his hand in all the roles.

Following the closure of the department, Proudfoot got a job on the last season of The Avengers as a loader. From there he built his career up working his way through the ranks becoming a focus puller on a number of commercials before being employed to work on The Sweeney.

Proudfoot continued to move ahead, operating Scum (1979) and The Long Good Friday (1981) for Phil Méheux BSC before moving on to Absolute Beginners (1986, Oliver Stapleton BSC), Air America (1990, Roger Deakins ASC BSC), Batman (1989, Roger Pratt BSC) and more. 

Proudfoot told British Cinematographer that “I like working with old fashioned directors. I call Edward Zwick an old fashioned director. I did Blood Diamond (2006) and Defiance with him. He was a real hands-on director. He didn’t want the finder, didn’t want to get involved with the set-up, he would just tell me what he expected to see. We would then go off and make it better than he thought it was going to be."

Our thoughts go out to Mike's family, including Miles his son (also a Camera Operator), at this sad time.

I met Michael in 1954 whilst working for “Look at Life”. The weekly 10 minute cinema documentary. Mike looked after the fleet of the cameramen’s cars and I was assistant editor. He moved on to camera assistant there as I moved back to camera at British Movietone News.

When Look at Life ceased production in 1969 Michael became a freelance assistant.

His first was on The Avengers TV series.  He was then moved onto The Sweeney, Mike took over as camera operator when incumbent left where he remained with to the end of the series.

His natural skill bought him praise for his accomplishments.

He first feature film was Scum. Director of Photography was Phil Meheux. He stayed with Phil for The Long Good Friday. Mike worked on well over 50 films. I was lucky to have on his last two, Dough and Absolutley Anything

Michael was a Great operator, A Great personality, and a Great friend.

Cheers to you Michael.

Peter Hannan BSC ACS