Ken Morse, rostrum cameraman

Factual Questions
1

It’s virtually impossible to watch British TV for an evening without seeing the name of Ken Morse appear in the credits as rostrum cameraman in at least one programme, and usually more.

The IMDB attributes only 13 films and TV programmes to him, which clearly doesn’t even begin to do justice to the prodigious output of this god of rostrum photography.

I have always been curious about Mr Morse and in particular I have often wondered:

  1. What is a rostrum camera and what does a rostrum cameraman do? I’m guessing that he operates the rostrum camera, but some more details would be nice.

  2. How is Ken Morse able to dominate the UK rostrum camera market so effectively? Is rostrum camerawork so laughably easy that one person can cover virtually the entire UK workload? Or is Ken Morse a Stakhanovite on speed? Or is it so difficult that only a man of rare ability is able to learn to do it at all (will we be rostrum cameraless when he retires)?

  3. Does anyone know anything about him? The IMDB contains no biographical information. A search of the BBC website turned up a page about “Y newyddion diweddaraf am raglenni Radio Cymru” which may or may not contain tantalising biographical nuggets about the great man, but did contain a cryptic reference to a “Gang Bangor” – presumably somebody who performs drive-by shootings on sheep. He’s not in Who’s Who, either (thought the two Morses who are in there make up for the omission by having four entries between them).

I’m guessing that somebody on the boards knows about rostrum cameras and will be able to answer question 1 pretty comprehensively; and maybe even have a specualtive stab at question 2. But I would be surprised and delighted if somebody was able to tell me something, anything, about the man himself.

2

I am not a Rostrum Camera expert but I known this has come up before on the uk.media.tv.misc newsgroup. This is what I remember:

A rostrum camera is a camera mounted on a vertical column pointing down towards a baseboard and is primarily used for those shots of documents, still photographs etc. It can be computer controlled to allow panning and zooming onto parts of a document.

Ken Morse runs a small firm in West London, conveniently close to the BBC TV Centre and is the first choice for programme makers because, well, he is just very good at it. The accounts I read all said that he just had a knack for producing the right shots, offering advice to the programme makers about how to get the most impact, even if that meant him doing less shots than originally requested and lowering his fee.

Try a google search on uk.media.tv.misc.

3

See:

http://www.thestage.co.uk/connect/behindthescenes/rostrum.shtml

IIRC originally he had the only rostrum camera available in London. I saw this subject discussed on TV maybe ten years ago.

4

There is a documentary in circualtion about the man and his work, which is pretty unhelpful as I can’t recall the title.

I do remeber tht he had pioneered the use of computors to control complex sequences though and this was at a time when the 386 was very new.

5

Thanks for the answers. I’m particularly pleased with the photo in Pjen’s link, but I’m surprised that he’s only 55, since I remember seeing him credited in programmes from the early 70s. Presumably he must have come to dominate the rostrum camera profession as a young man (I also imagined he would have a beard, but there you go).

Thanks for the tip, Ticker, but neither my work nor my home ISP gives me access to newsgroups. Do they have a web page?

6

Here’s a google search in the uk.media.tv.misc newsgroup for “rostrum”: link

7

Notes and Queries

8

Thanks for all those replies. I am now mildly embarassed about my inability to find any of this stuff myself with a web search. Believe me, I tried.