James Bond aerial cameraman Peter Allwork dies aged 76

Peter Allwork, cinematographer and businessman, who was born on December 26, 1928 and worked on the James Bond films "For Your Eyes Only" (1981), "Never Say Never Again" (1983) and "A View To A Kill" (1985), died on July 30th 2004, aged 76.

He was a talented film cameraman who pioneered techniques of obtaining dramatic shots from the air - reports The Times.

A renowned aerial cameraman, Peter Allwork was also the founder of Aerial Camera Systems (ACS), one of the world’s leading suppliers of specialised facilities in broadcast television and feature film production. During his career, which spanned 60 years and included more than that number of feature films and some of the finest commercials, Allwork co-operated with some of the world’s greatest directors — Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Richard Attenborough — and made numerous advances in techniques of aerial cinematography.
For Superman, for example, he fixed a camera to a Lear jet to film the flying sequences, and for Out of Africa he dogged Robert Redford and Meryl Streep’s Gypsy Moth in a helicopter to capture the famous shot of them cruising above a lake of flamingoes.

Peter Leslie Allwork was born in 1928 near Uxbridge. He began his career working as an office boy at Denham Film Studios, before joining Leslie Howard’s Misbourne Productions, also based at Denham. As a runner, he fetched tea for the director David Lean, who was working on In Which We Serve. When promoted to first assistant cameraman (focus puller) on The Way Ahead, Allwork flew for the first time with the actor David Tomlinson, who was a flight lieutenant in the RAF at the time.

Allwork was posted to Northumberland to do National Service in the Royal Artillery, but when his camera skills were discovered he was swiftly moved to Wembley to the Army Kinematograph Service. There he was in the company of the most eminent cameramen in the country, including Freddie Young, Freddie Francis, John Willcox, and Norman Warwick.

After completing his service, Allwork flew to Canada to work as focus puller on the film No Highway, shooting aerial scenes and background shots over snow-covered mountains, always worried that his camera was going to freeze up mid-shot.

He then went on to work on a string of successful films with the Boulting Brothers, getting his first break as camera operator in the late 1960s on I’m All Right Jack, which starred Peter Sellers.

Sellers arranged for Allwork to meet his friend, Captain Fred Barker. Barker owned a helicopter and Allwork could shoot from one. At the beginning of the 1970s they formed British Executive Aviation Services, based at Kidlington Airport, after meeting Nelson Tyler, who had invented a mount that allowed a camera to be fixed to the side of a helicopter. The new company’s first big assignment was the BBC series A Bird’s Eye View Of Great Britain, which Allwork shot with the pilot Peter Pekowski.

Feature films soon followed. Frenzy, Juggernaut and The Red Baron all made use of Allwork’s skills — the last being particularly notable for its dramatic air-to-air combat. In 1976 he was nominated for a BAFTA award for the aerial battle scenes in Aces High.

Next he formed Air Film Services at High Wycombe with Prince Andrew von Preussen. In January 1979 the producer John Dark asked Allwork to film the aerial sequences for The Land That Time Forgot. Over the Scottish Highlands, a tail-rotor problem caused the helicopter to crash into the frozen surface of a lake. Frozen to the core, Allwork and the pilot were rescued twelve hours later in an RAF helicopter.

Later that year, Allwork decided to go it alone in business, and he founded Peter Allwork, Aerial Camera Systems — or ACS as it is now — at Fairoaks Airport in Surrey. He undertook the aerial filming for Superman, the James Bond films For Your Eyes Only, Never Say Never Again and A View to a Kill, High Road to China and many others.

He worked on countless commercials, the most memorable of which was the black stallion running through surf for Lloyd’s Bank.

Allwork slung cameras beneath his helicopters on bungees, rode on horseback over jumps with a handheld camera and filmed from airships, fixed-wing and military aircraft. He helped to develop the Astrovision system, which enables an aircraft to follow another while filming it by means of an inverted periscope hanging underneath.

On A View to a Kill his son Matthew joined him as a clapper/loader, and they worked on Out of Africa together. Aerial Camera Systems then moved from Fairoaks to Shepperton Studios, where the company was now very much a family business. Allwork, his wife, his son and his daughter all worked together, and when the company diversified into televised sport and his son took over as managing director, Allwork continued to work on an array of features such as Good Morning, Vietnam; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; White Hunter, Black Heart; Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; Braveheart and Seven Years in Tibet.

Allwork retired from aerial filming and the company moved to Godalming, but he kept an office at Shepperton Studios. He spent time developing a film called Wings of Angels, based on the life of the pilot Amy Johnson.

Allwork was a member of the British Society of Cinematographers, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and an honorary member of the film society BKSTS.

In 1958 he married Frances, who survives him with their daughter. His son died in a helicopter accident last year while filming in Dubai.

Thanks to `JP` for the alert.

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