Shepperton Studios, located in Shepperton, Middlesex, England is a film studio with a long history of film making. Map of Shepperton (from OpenStreetMap) Shepperton is a small town in Surrey in the borough of Spelthorne, in England. ... The Middlesex Guildhall at Westminster Middlesex is one of the 39 historic counties of England and was the second smallest (after Rutland). ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the  United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Unified  -  by Athelstan 927 AD  Area  -  Total 130...

Formation

Film history began at Shepperton Studios in 1931, when Norman Loudon, a dynamic Scottish businessman, bought Littleton Park with its surrounding 60 acre (240,000 m²) grounds, which included a beautiful stretch of the River Ash at Shepperton. Loudon was new to the film industry, but he had had a prosperous camera business, Flicker Productions, which manufactured small `flicker' books of photographs, which gave an impression of movement when the pages were flicked with the thumb. Littleton Park seemed ideal when Loudon decided the next step was to enter film production, and a new company, Sound City Film Producing & Recording Studios, was founded in 1932. By the of the year Sound City had produced three shorts for MGM and two features, Watch Beverley (1932) and Reunion (1932). Motto (Latin) No one provokes me with impunity Cha togar mfhearg gun dioladh (Scottish Gaelic) Wha daur meddle wi me?(Scots)1 Anthem (Multiple unofficial anthems) Scotlands location in Europe Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow Official languages English, Gaelic and Scots1 Government Constitutional monarchy  -  Monarch Queen Elizabeth II... The River Ash flows through the borough of Spelthorne, running through the towns of Ashford and Shepperton before finally ending at the River Thames in Sunbury. ... Map of Shepperton (from OpenStreetMap) Shepperton is a small town in Surrey in the borough of Spelthorne, in England. ... MGM logo Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or MGM, is a large media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of cinema and television programs. ...

By the end of 1934, demand for Sound City facilities necessitated substantial expansion. In 1936, after a short period of closure for modernisation, the studios reopened with seven sound stages, twelve cutting rooms, three viewing theatres, scene docks and workshops, while the old house was refurbished to provide hotel and restaurant facilities. Probably one of the best-remembered films from Sound City in the 1930s was French Without Tears (1939), based on a play by Terence Rattigan with a screenplay by Anatole de Grunwald. A sound stage is a hangar-like structure, building or room, that is soundproof for the production of theatrical motion pictures and television, usually inside a movie studio. ... French Without Tears is a comic play written by Terence Rattigan in 1936. ... Terence Rattigan — British Playwright Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (June 10, 1911 – November 30, 1977) was one of Englands most important 20th century dramatists. ... Anatole de Grunwald (25 December 1910- 13 January 1967) was a British film producer and screenwriter. ...

World War II special tasks

With the outbreak of World War II, the War Office considered Shepperton Studios a safe location as it was 14 miles from the centre of London. However, they had failed to consider that the huge Vickers-Armstrong aircraft factory was producing Spitfires and Wellington bombers a few miles across the river and was a prime target for the German air raids. Filming was constantly interrupted and stray bombs fell into the studio grounds. After the nearby factory was hit, the Ministry of Defence immediately requisitioned Shepperton Studios, and put the skills of its craftsmen to good use creating replicas of aircraft that were to be used in the Middle East as decoys, plus fake guns and landing strips. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Old War Office Building, seen from Whitehall, London - the former location of the War Office The War Office was a former department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1963, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... The Vickers corporation, founded as the Vickers company in 1828, was a British manufacturer, primarily of military equipment. ... The Supermarine Spitfire was an iconic British single-seat fighter used primarily by the RAF and many Allied countries through the Second World War and into the 1950s. ... The Vickers Wellington was a twin-engine, medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs Chief Designer, R.K. Pierson. ... Strategic bombing is a military strategem used in a total war style campaign that attempts to destroy the economic ability of a nation-state to wage war. ... The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and the headquarters of the British Armed Forces. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ...

Postwar re-opening

In 1945, Norman Loudon announced the re-opening of Sound City's six-stage studio, although he was to retire from the film industry within 12 months. In the same year, Sir Alexander Korda severed what had been a brief connection with MGM, and purchased the controlling interest in British Lion Films. In 1946 London Films acquired a 74 per cent controlling interest in Sound City (Films) Limited for £380,000, together with its studios at Shepperton. Sound City (Films) Limited was renamed the British Lion Studio Company. British Lion was now in a position to become a powerful post-war factor in British film production. Sir Alexander Korda (September 16, 1893 - January 23, 1956) was a film director and producer, a leading figure in the British film industry and the founder of London Films. ... World War I recruiting poster John Bull is a national personification of Britain created by Dr. John Arbuthnot in 1712 and popularized first by British print makers and then overseas by illustrators such as American cartoonist Thomas Nast. ... London Films was a British film studio founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda. ...

One of the earliest films made at Shepperton under the new regime was an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1947), produced and directed by Alexander Korda. During the 1940s Sir Alexander Korda managed to obtain a long-term loan that amounted to £3,000,000 for film production from the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC). However, British Lion incurred high production losses in 1950, and the financial crisis reached a peak in 1954 when the NFFC called in their loan, appointing a receiver and manager. British Lion Films Limited was formed in 1955 to take over the assets of its insolvent predecessor. Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer. ... An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedy by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honor. ...

British Lion Films

The new company's main function was not film production but the provision of distribution and financial guarantees for independent producers. Among those appointed to a re-organised board of directors were practical film-makers such as Roy and John Boulting, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, all of whom were to make a number of films at the studios. These included Sidney Gilliat's The Constant Husband (1954) and Left, Right And Centre (1959) ; Frank Launder's Geordie (1955) and Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957); the Boulting Brother’s Seven Days To Noon (1950), Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959). The films made at Shepperton in the 1950s and 1960s reflected the influence of the strong independent producers and directors who used the studios, rather than the paternal dominance of former head Alexander Korda. John and Roy Boulting were English film producers and directors. ... John and Roy Boulting were English film-makers, who became known for their popular series of satirical comedies in the 1950s and 1960s. ... Frank Launder (January 28, 1906—February 23, 1997) was a British writer, director and producer, who made more than 40 films, usually in collaboration with Sidney Gilliat. ... Sidney Gilliat (February 15, 1908 – May 31, 1994) was a British film director, producer and writer. ... Frank Launder (January 28, 1906—February 23, 1997) was a British writer, director and producer, who made more than 40 films, usually in collaboration with Sidney Gilliat. ... Blue Murder at St Trinians (1957) is British comedy film set in the fictional St Trinians School. ... Privates Progress is a British comedy film of 1956, based on the novel by Alan Hackney. ... Im All Right Jack is a British comedy film directed and produced by John and Roy Boulting. ...

Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes arrived to create Beaver Films, and adopted a new policy of deferred payment for the artists which enabled the film The Angry Silence (1960) to be made for the astonishingly-low sum of £97,000. Bryan Forbes went on to write and direct another Shepperton production in 1962, The L-Shaped Room (1962), produced by Richard Attenborough and James Woolf. The Angry Silence and The L Shaped Room were examples of films that echoed the social and economic changes that had stirred the late 1950s and 1960s, and reality became the essence of the `New Wave' school. Films of this genre made at Shepperton included Room at the Top (1958), directed by Jack Clayton; John Schlesinger's A Kind of Loving (1962); Billy Liar (1963) and Darling (1965). Early in 1961, there was a new departure as British Lion and Columbia formed BLC Films to be responsible for marketing the films of both companies in the UK, an arrangement that lasted until 1967. In 1963, the company announced that £600,000 of the Government loan had been paid off. Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, CBE (born August 29, 1923) is a prolific English film and stage actor, and Academy Award, BAFTA, and three-time Golden Globe winning director, producer, and entrepreneur. ... Bryan Forbes, CBE (born John Theobald Clark on July 22, 1926 in London) is an English film director, actor and writer. ... The Angry Silence is a 1960 British drama film directed by Guy Green and starring Richard Attenborough. ... The L-Shaped Room is a 1962 film, directed by Bryan Forbes, which tells the story of a young French woman, unmarried and pregnant, who moves into a London apartment building, befriending a young man in the building. ... James Woolf was born in 1919, the younger son of the film producer C.M.Woolf who died in 1942. ... Room at the Top is a 1959 film which tells the story of a young man in a dreary English factory town who thinks that he might be able to move up the ladder if he marries the bosss daughter. ... Jack Clayton (March 1, 1921–February 26, 1995) was a British film director who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen. ... John Richard Schlesinger (February 16, 1926–July 25, 2003) was a British film director. ... A Kind of Loving was a 1962 British film directed by John Schlesinger, based on the 1960 novel by Stan Barstow. ... Billy Liar is a 1963 film based on the novel by Keith Waterhouse. ... Darling (1965) is a British film which tells the story of an amoral model who sleeps her way to success. ...

Government sell-off

However, in 1964, the Government sold the company back into private enterprise to a group headed by Michael Balcon. Profits dropped in the first year and in 1965 Lord Goodman succeeded Balcon as chairman. Nevertheless, a number of notable films were produced at the studio during that decade including two Pink Panther films and The Day of the Jackal (1973) directed by Fred Zinnemann. In 1974, footage was filmed of Led Zeppelin on a mock-up stage identical to the one they had performed on live the year earlier at Madison Square Garden for their film The Song Remains the Same. Similarly, in 1978 The Who shot mock concert sequences, live and in front of an audience, for their documentary The Kids Are Alright. This would turn out to be The Who's last live appearance with drummer Keith Moon, who died later that year. In 1978-9 there was tight security on the stages at Shepperton for Alien (1979), a science fiction film with a difference directed by Ridley Scott. From 1970, Richard Attenborough made some of his finest films at Shepperton; these included Young Winston (1972), Gandhi (1982) and Cry Freedom (1987). In 1984, the manor of Littleton acquired a new owner when Lee International paid £3.6 m for the studios. The Lee Group invested a considerable sum of money in refurbishing the facilities, and plans were drawn up for new workshops that were built in 1987. Sir Michael Balcon (19 May 1896–17 October 1977) was a British film producer, best known for his work with the Ealing Studios. ... The Pink Panther is a series of comedy films featuring the bumbling French police detective Jacques Clouseau. ... The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 film based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth. ... Fred Zinnemann (April 29, 1907–March 14, 1997) was an Austrian-American film director. ... Led Zeppelin were an English rock band who formed in 1968. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... The Song Remains the Same (also known as TSRTS) is a concert film by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Soundtrack album cover. ... Keith Moon (August 23, 1946 – September 7, 1978) was the drummer of the rock group The Who. ... Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott, is an extremely popular and influential science fiction/horror film that spawned several sequels and imitators. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Sir Ridley Scott (born November 30, 1937 in South Shields, County Durham) is an influential Academy Award-nominated English film director, and producer. ... Young Winston is a 1972 film based on the early years of future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. ... Gandhi (1982) is an Anglo-Indian film, directed by Richard Attenborough, about the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (also known as Mahatma Gandhi), leader of the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. ... Cry Freedom is a feature film directed by Richard Attenborough, set in the late 1970s, during the apartheid era of South Africa. ...

Excellent films continued to be made at Shepperton during the 1980s such as The Elephant Man (1980), The Missionary (1982), The Company of Wolves (1984), A Passage to India (1984) and Kenneth Branagh's first film production, Henry V (1989). Also among the 1980s productions at the studios were Privates On Parade (1982) and Michael Radford's film of the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (filmed in its title year). The 1990s saw Neil Jordan's Oscar winner, The Crying Game (1992); Louis Matte's Damage (1992); Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) and Nicholas Hytner's award winning The Madness of King George (1994) , Lord Attenborough's Chaplin (1992) and Shadowlands (1993). The Elephant Man is a 1980 biographical film which tells the story of the 19th century British deformed celebrity Joseph Merrick. ... The Missionary is a 1982 British comedy directed by Richard Loncraine, produced by George Harrison, Denis OBrian, Michael Palin (also the films writer) and Neville C. Thompson. ... The Company of Wolves is a 1984 fantasy-horror film directed by Neil Jordan, and starring Sarah Patterson and Angela Lansbury. ... A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. ... Kenneth Charles Branagh (b. ... Henry V is a 1989 film directed by Kenneth Branagh, and based upon the Shakespeare play. ... Michael Radford was born February 24, 1946 in New Delhi, India to a British father and Austrian mother. ... Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903[1][2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... Year 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1984 Gregorian calendar). ... Neil Jordan is an Academy Award winning Irish filmmaker and novelist. ... Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ... For the song of the same name by Geoff Stephens, see The Crying Game (song). ... Mary Shelleys Frankenstein is a 1994 film starring Robert DeNiro, Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter, and Kenneth Branagh. ... Nicholas Hytner (born May 7, 1956) is an award-winning British theatrical and opera producer and director. ... The Madness of King George is a 1994 film which tells the story of King George III of the United Kingdoms deteriorating mental health, and the equally declining relationship between him and his son, the Prince of Wales. ... Chaplin is a 1992 semi-biographical film about the life of Charles Chaplin. ... Shadowlands is a play, TV drama and film written by William Nicholson. ...

Acquisition of Shepperton Studios

The Scott brothers, Ridley and Tony, acquired Shepperton in January 1995. Sir Ridley Scott (born November 30, 1937 in South Shields, County Durham) is an influential Academy Award-nominated English film director, and producer. ... See also Tony Scott for the American clarinet jazz musician. ...

In 2001, Pinewood Studios, famed for its James Bond movies, bought Shepperton Studios to enable the joint company to attract big-budget film-makers. The two studios continue to retain their individual trading identities despite the merger, but will be under common ownership and management. In 2004 Pinewood Shepperton floated successfully on the London Stock Exchange. In 2005 Pinewood Shepperton acquired Teddington Studios. Collectively the company now has 41 stages, including 6 digital tv studios, audio post facilities, preview theatres, backlots, gardens & woodland for outdoor shooting, one of Europe’s largest exterior water tanks, and a dedicated underwater stage. The entrance to Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated approximately 20 miles west of London among the pine trees on what was the estate of Heatherden Hall, near the village of Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. ... Flemings image of James Bond; commissioned to aid the Daily Express comic strip artists. ... Teddington Studios in London. ...

See also

• Pinewood Studios
• Sohonet

The entrance to Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated approximately 20 miles west of London among the pine trees on what was the estate of Heatherden Hall, near the village of Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. ... Sohonet is a community-of-interest network for the television, film and media production community. ...

External links

• Pinewood Studios Group official website
• Pinewood Studios Group online store