Draft:Patrick Uden

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Patrick Uden (documentary filmmaker)

Patrick Uden (b; 4 March 1946) is a British documentary producer-director. He began his career as a background artist in animation before switching to live-action filmmaking in the late-1960s. Throughout his career he specialised in descriptive films about engineering and technology, later transferring his documentary, editorial and scriptwriting skills to popular British factual entertainment shows.

Early life

Patrick Uden was born in Orpington, Kent, the oldest of three children by the marriage of Frank ‘Nimo’ Uden and Joan Dorothy (nee: Stray). His father was a garage mechanic who learned his trade serving in the Royal Engineers during WW2.

Patrick Uden’s early immersion in the culture of cars gave him a lifelong passion for all things automotive. He was not academic, but found drawing easy and was fluent enough to attract the attention of his teachers whenever school murals or posters were required.

Education

In 1957, after leaving St Joseph’s RC Primary School, where he failed his 11-plus, he was sent to St Joseph’s RC Secondary Modern for Boys in Orpington staffed by a brotherhood of Irish monks. In 1962 his ability to draw was recognised by the art teacher who suggested he attend evening life drawing classes at nearby Sidcup School of Art.

Uden quickly decided art college was for him. Leaving school at 16 without the required O and A-level exams, he managed to persuade Sidcup’s staff to take him on as a foundation student. He was taught by abstract painters, Michael Tyzack and Paul Huxley; printmaker, John Sturgess and the lettering designer, Ralph Bayer.

In 1964 Sidcup was merged with Beckenham Art School to become Ravensbourne College of Art & Design located in new buildings on Bromley Common. Patrick’s lack of academic qualifications relegated him to Ravensbourne’s vocational campus in Wharton Road, Bromley. Here, under the guidance of photographer Robin Hughes, he developed an interest in cine-animation by shooting storyboard drawings one frame at a time on a clockwork Bolex camera.

In 1966 Uden’s work won him a scholarship to the Royal College of Art (RCA). He was due to join the Graphic Design department in Exhibition Road which was in the process of opening an animation course. Before he could enrol, the course was cancelled due to lack of equipment and a professor to head it. Undaunted, Uden found a job as a background artist at Larkins Animation in Mayfair run by Beryl Stevens. While working on various advertising films at Larkins with, among others, animator Geoffrey Dunbar, he was re-contacted by the RCA informing him the animation course would start as planned in September and his place on it was reserved. He resigned from Larkins to enrol at the RCA, but on arrival discovered the specialised rostrum camera remained stuck in Los Angeles and the appointed professor, Roy Pace, would therefore not start until the following summer.

Refusing to be sent away, he was dispatched to the RCA’s School of Film and Television in Queensgate. Here, under the stewardship of Professor Keith Lucas and documentary maker Michael Clark, Uden got a taste for factual filmmaking. When Clark offered students a summer job working as an Assistant Director for commercials producer James Garrett & Partners in Bond Street, Uden snapped-up the offer. It was at Garretts in the summers of 1967 and 68 that he got his first taste of professional live-action filmmaking. Realising he could learn his production skills with professional crews during the summer months, he decided to use his time at the RCA for experiment. He started shooting with wide screen cameras turned on their side to capture life-size, full-length interviewees talking directly to camera in a film exploring the passions and interests of the RCA’s eclectic mix of students. The film, based on his earlier commission from Tatler magazine for a photographic essay of students, won him his MA in Film & Television and was included in a 1969 Central Office of Information (COI) travelling exhibition about British art and design sent to Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Uden was one of three ex-students invited to present the exhibition on-site in the cities.

Professional life

Before being hired by the COI, he had attempted to get a job on the BBC’s weekly science show, Tomorrows World. Ignoring the formal application process, Uden walked into BBC Kensington House and knocked on the office door of the programme’s editor, Michael Latham, to ask for a job as a film director. He was refused, but left his CV. A few weeks later Latham hired Uden’s film school flatmate Richard Loncraine as a director.

While in Baltimore, Uden was traced by Loncraine and Latham and invited to join reporter James Burke in New York to direct a short story (found by Loncraine) for Tomorrow’s World. After directing the BBC’s NY-based film crew to shoot the story in a single day, he returned to London where Latham quickly offered him a one-month contract.

At the end of February 1970, after two more one-month contracts, Latham asked Uden to fly to Japan with the Australian Executive Producer John Weiley to cover the Osaka World’s Fair for Tomorrows World, fronted by Raymond Baxter. Shortly after this he was offered a six-month contract in the BBC Science Department.

Working for Tomorrows World on and off for the next six years, while also directing films for the Tuesday Documentary, Risk Business and QED, Uden was elevated to Senior Producer. During this time, he made short films on subjects ranging from the German group Kraftwerk to the long-haul Boeing 747SP’s challenge to Concorde, and a profile of the Argentinian-Italian automotive mogul Alessandro de Tomaso, as well as special 60-minute science reports from Communist China, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

In late 1976 Dr Jonathan Miller asked Uden to direct his stillborn 13-part BBC series, ‘The Body in Question’. The series had been initiated by BBC Executive Producer Karl Sabbagh. Discovering that Miller abhorred globe-trotting TV presenters, Uden commissioned a vast circular steel and plywood set from BBC production designer Colin Lowry. Its contents were partly based on the interior of Miller’s Camden Town house and became an icon for the series. Shot on Stage 2 at Ealing Studios and completed at the end of 1978, the series was nominated for four BAFTAs.

In 1979 Uden joined the BBC’s flagship science series, Horizon. Returning to his boyhood passion: cars. Uden’s first Horizon, called ‘The Race to Reshape Cars’, drew attention to the wasteful aerodynamics of road cars. It was noticed by Ford of Europe’s Vice President of Public Affairs, John Waddell who asked Uden to help him communicate the company’s new low drag vehicle design philosophy via films. The first film, produced by BHP Films, for which Uden wrote the script, covered the launch of Ford’s first front-drive car, Fiesta. The next was for project Erika (Ford’s new front-drive Escort) which he directed. After this Uden was tasked with closely following Uwe Bahnsen’s design team to make the film about the development of Ford’s top-secret Toni which became the C-class Sierra.

During this time Uden continued to make films for Horizon. One, called ‘Little Boxes’ about a crisis of identity in industrial design, launched Stephen Bayley and his book ‘In Good Shape’ into the public eye. But most of Uden’s films were about automotive technology. Two were prompted by Formula One’s internal battles. They were called ‘Gentlemen Lift Your Skirts’ and ‘The Grid’. Both covered the secrecy of Formula One teams and their bending of the rules that governed the relatively new science of so-called ‘ground effect’ on racing car performance. The films would lead Ford to sponsor two TV documentaries by Uden about the development of its secret new turbocharged racing engine to be built by Cosworth Engineering.

In early 1982, with the advent of Channel 4, Patrick Uden resigned from the BBC to start his own production company, Uden Associates Ltd on April fool’s day 1982. To get cashflow going the company started by making corporate films for clients that included among others, IBM, STC-Fujitsu, Aston Martin, Samsung, Rolex and Ford of Europe. Its first broadcast film for TV was ‘Ivan’, a documentary for the BBC’s Horizon strand fronted by Jonathan Miller about a Parkinson sufferer. Uden followed this with a documentary for Channel 4 about Britain’s lost industrial base under Thatcherism called ‘Assembled in Britain’. Fronted by Stephen Bayley and the historian Corelli Barnett, the film faced heavy criticism, claiming it was an anti-British polemic rather than an objective account of decline. But the Royal Society of Arts applauded it and made Uden an honorary fellow.

By 1984 Channel 4 was failing to meet one of its key government remits: to develop and commission innovative programmes on science and technology. The channel's Head of Science, Paul Bonner, who had been Head of Science & Features during Uden’s final year at the BBC, called on him to advise Channel 4. Via Bonner’s colleague at the channel, John Ranelagh, Uden made the case directly to the Channel Controller, Jeremy Isaacs, for a new series of glossy science documentaries that he called ‘Equinox’. Ranelagh put Caroline Thomson in charge of commissioning, but Uden refused to accept a commission for all ten episodes. Instead, he suggested at least half the documentaries in the strand should be put out to tender to other companies. Thus, a new commissioning model was developed whereby different independent producers pitched ideas into a branded strand. To ensure the series met the high standard of filmmaking Uden had promised, Thomson appointed him as her series consultant.

The Equinox strand, first broadcast in 1985, kick-started a long growth period for Uden’s company. As well as TV documentaries for various channels, its corporate filmmaking unit expanded as Ford and other companies commissioned more communications work from Uden’s young team.

Patrick Uden always hired people personally from his 08:30 ‘clinics’ to which anyone could apply to meet with him, provided they arrived on time and showed true enthusiasm for filmmaking. Uden seldom regarded experience as essential, believing it was his responsibility and that of his company’s small band of senior creatives to guide and focus the enthusiasm and energy of others.

The company, based in its airy warehouse offices in Chelsea Wharf with its architect designed edit suites and break-out areas, became the workplace template for London’s independent TV industry. Its output was prodigious, ranging from several series about Classic Trucks, Cars, Aircraft and Motorcycles to urban music with John Peel and opera with Jonathan Miller. It also created and ran Ford’s Europe-wide internal TV channel, Ford Communications Network (FCN) for which it won several awards. During this time, Uden indulged in his passion for classic motorcycles, restoring nine rare Italian models to showroom condition.

By the new millennium TV was changing. Feature documentaries were falling out of favour and factual entertainment was taking the lion’s share of the broadcasters’ non-fiction spending, while corporate communications moved online. Rather than merge or sell the company, Uden put the debt-ridden operation into the hands of administrators in January 2004.

Freed from running a company, he traded as a ‘micro indie’ Uden-Media Ltd, and returned to front-line production inventing the 4-minute documentary upload site for Channel 4 called FourDocs for which he shared a BAFTA.

He then joined the Producer, Peter Moore to develop the first UK series of The Apprentice. Uden developed a commentary style for the shows and invented tasks to challenge the competitors. After this he was invited by the BBC to think up tasks, solve structural problems and write the commentary on a new series called ‘The Restaurant’. It was fronted by the celebrated French chef Raymond Blanc. Following the first series, and giving it a complete structural rethink, he went on to co-executive-produce, with producer Chloe Solomon, the second series of The Restaurant, and acted as a consultant on the third series.

Uden had realised that the disciplines he’d applied to observational documentary fitted the expanding world of factual entertainment, and he was in high demand to sort out show structures and their need for sharply written commentary.

In 2014, after working on the tenth series of The Apprentice Uden gradually retired himself from daily front-line TV work to be with his family and to build himself a car – a Citroen 2CV. He still lectures on commentary writing and the structure and practice of documentary making.

Personal life.

Patrick Uden is married to documentary maker, Sheila Hayman. They live in London with their two adult children in a concrete and steel house designed by the architect David Wild.