Ephemera from various productions, with related magazines and newspapers

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THE PROPERTY OF THE LATE REG HILL, PRODUCER FOR 'CENTURY 21' FILMS Reg Hill, art director and producer of the Gerry Anderson Supermarionation shows, was trained as an artist and began his career working in advertising at Odhams Press. A pilot before the Second World War, after wartime service as an airframe fitter instructor in the RAF, Reg was encouraged by a friend to join the film industry and for twelve years, he worked on instructional films for the Army at National Interest Picture Productions, films that required a large amount of model work and animation. It was here that Reg met cameraman John Read and, via Read's association with Gerry Anderson at Polytechnic Films, both men joined Anderson at Pentagon Films after the collapse of Polytechnic. This subsequently led to their involvement in the formation of A.P. Films. Initially, Reg was responsible purely for design and art direction at the company, working with Bob Bell on the creation of the sets for 'The Adventures Of Twizzle' and 'Torchy The Battery Boy', but his technical and organisational skills led him to take an increasingly important role in the production of the Supermarionation series. With John Read, he worked on perfecting the electronic lip-synch device which spawned the Supermarionation process, used for the first time on 'Four Feather Falls'. With Gerry Anderson, Reg developed the idea for 'Supercar', designing and building the puppet-sized version of Supercar himself. Later, he designed the title craft for 'Fireball XL5' and 'Stingray', two of the best-loved vehicles in television science-fiction. Credited as associate producer on 'Thunderbirds', Reg took over the producer's reins for 'Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons', and then became executive producer on 'Joe 90' and 'The Secret Service', assuming control of the later Supermarionation television series while Gerry Anderson concentrated on the company's feature film projects. He went on to produce 'UFO' - a series that he co-created with Anderson - and the thriller series 'The Protectors', and later became Production Executive on the second season of 'Space:1999'. He parted company with Anderson after 'Space:1999', but continued to work in the film industry as an illustrator and storyboard artist on films such as 'Superman The Movie' (1978), 'Moonraker' (1979), 'Outland' (1981), 'Octopussy' (1983) and 'Lifeforce' (1985), but he retired from the business shortly after completing work on this latter film. He died in October 1999 at his home in Surrey. Of his time working on the Supermarionation productions, Reg was quoted as saying, "We didn't do the puppets because we wanted to. We did them because we had to. We were looking for work. A lot of our professional friends in the film industry thought we were barmy, and we didn't really want to be associated with the puppets. The only way that we could make them bearable for ourselves was to add something. What you see is what we added, such as the detail in the sets, which was unheard of in a puppet series. We tried to put in elements that made it look as real as possible." Chris Bentley Christie's gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Fanderson - The Official Gerry Anderson Appreciation Society - in the preparation of the cataloguing for this part of the sale. In particular, thanks are due to Chris Bentley (Chairman) and Martin Gainsford (Public Relations). All images in the following lots are sold without copyright

Details

Ephemera from various productions, with related magazines and newspapers
Joe 90 - Incorporated Television Company Ltd (ITC) promotional booklet, pp16, spiral bound, colour covers, printed typescript, detailing story and production data of series, including biographies --16cm. x 21cm., 1968; Thunderbirds Supplement Television Mail, 2nd edition, January 1966, pp31; Four Feather Falls - a promotional triptych one-colour card brochure, title 'Four Feather Falls, The children's Western with a difference, presented by Granada TV Network, with nine images from the series and one behind the scenes, 1960 --overall 36cm. x 27cm.; TV World - May 1965, Stingray cover feature, two October 1967 - Captain Scarlet cover feature; The Stage, TV Times and TV Guide - February 1960, all with Four Feather Falls features; section from The Stage, August 1962, about Supercar and sale of Fireball XL5 to ITC; and cutting from Daily Mirror, February 1963

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