April / 2010

Inaugural CSC Focus Award Goes to
James O’Regan Writer, Producer and Director of
Shooters

by Don Angus

Sgt. Robert Sleigh of the Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit.

A new CSC award made its debut at the CSC Awards gala on March 27. The Focus Award acknowledges the work of an individual or group in producing an exceptional film that is recommended by the awards jury.

The award is tangible recognition of James O’Regan’s efforts to preserve the visual reality of those intrepid cameramen of the Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit, who captured the heroic contribution of Canadian soldiers in the Second World War. Their story is told in the 49-minute documentary Shooters, which O’Regan wrote, produced and directed.

The Focus Award was followed by the CSC Combat Camera Award, a special presentation in honour and remembrance of the courageous cameramen of the Second World War. The Combat Camera Award was accepted by Charles (Chuck) Ross of Edmonton, one of the last six surviving members of the CFPU 1941-1946. He was escorted by two current members of Canadian Forces Combat Camera based in Gatineau, Que., Sergeant Bruno Turcotte and Warrant Officer Carole Morissette. A copy of the award will be displayed at the Defence Public Affairs Learning Centre in Gatineau.

Ross got to take the original plaque home, on behalf of all his comrades in the CFPU. He was a driver for the CFPU in early 1940, and picked up some good tips on photography from his passengers, especially George Cooper of Ottawa, who had an extra camera, which he taught Ross how to use. Many of the other drivers were trained this way.

Ross was stationed in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and in Czechoslovakia. He was also on hand to capture footage of Kurt Meyer, a German Officer accused of murdering Canadian soldiers during the war. Meyer was the first war criminal sentenced to death by a Canadian court.

After the war, Ross continued in photography. He worked for the Alberta Film and Photo Unit and was instrumental in the support of provincial film producers to establish the Alberta Film Industry Association. He is the recipient of several awards; the 1975 Distinguished Service Award, the Queens Silver Jubilee Award, the Alberta Feature Film Award, the Information Film Production Award, and a Canadian Film Award in 1 973 for Best Sports Film.

Shooters tells a remarkable, compelling story that we’ve only seen or heard before in various bits and pieces. The documentary is the full, start-to-finish story of the amazing Second World War adventures and world-beating accomplishments of the CFPU.

Members of the Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit pose for the camera during the Second World War.

The unit, established in 1941 with only four members, grew to 59 cameramen by the time it was disbanded in 1946. Unit members were the first in scooping the world on the major events in Europe: the invasion of Sicily; the D-Day invasion; the liberation of Paris; the Elbe River linkup of the Allied armies; the first feature documentary shot while under fire; and the only footage shot of action leading to a Victoria Cross.

O’Regan, also the film’s narrator, has dedicated the work to his late father, Brian O’Regan (1924-1999), a dispatch rider and Jeep driver for the unit who went ashore with his motorcycle at Normandy in 1944.

Shooters features intriguing interviews (shot in March of 2001) with four men who helped capture the war on film: Charles (Bud) Roos, the first Allied cameraman ashore on D-Day; Al Calder, who parachuted over the Rhine; Lew Weekes, who shot the liberation of Paris; and Michael Spencer, the unit's first editor and one of the original four members, who later helped found the Canadian Film Development Corp. (Telefilm Canada).

Calder and Weekes, who have since died, both talked about their intensive camera training at Pinewood Studios in London and the admonition they received to “always use a tripod,” despite the daunting weight of the old metal and wooden contraptions. Weekes said the Canadians persevered because “the tripod stuff took preference” over hand-held footage back in London.

The interviews are interspersed with archival CFPU footage, much of it displaying dramatically the line-of-fire risks these courageous cameramen, armed with their Eyemos, took. They often were allowed to get ahead of advancing Canadian troops, and one film unit actually “liberated” Dieppe in France, driving in first mere hours after the Germans had retreated.

Brian O’Regan was a member of that unit. Earlier, at Normandy, he had found a film can on the beach marked “Grant No. 1,” and the contents turned out to be the iconic footage by Bill Grant of Canadians landing at Bernieres-sur-mer, the first images of D-Day the world saw. Later, Brian was the subject of a world scoop photo at the Elbe River linkup between the U.S. and Soviet armies.

Shooters recounts that several cameramen died in action and many more were wounded in various campaigns. One was filming from a reconnaissance plane when he was shot by a German fighter. The camera keeps running as it falls to the floor of the cockpit. The documentary also reveals that CFPU production from 1941-46 totalled 75,000 still photos and 1.5 million feet of motion picture film.

Shooters may be ordered at www.customflix.com/206927.

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