Don Fagan and Century 21 Film Props

Hi All,

In Gerry Anderson's commentary (Identified) he mentions that he started a company 21 Film Props with Don Fagan.

Does anyone have any further information about Don Fagan or Century 21 FilmProps? I have ploughed through ALL my FAB issues, Chris Bentley's UFO Bookand trawled the web, but there doesn't seem to be too much about either.

Gerry was very complimentary about Don's work, and that it ALWAYS worked reliably.

Things I'd REALLY like to know:

- Who designed all the SHADO computer equipment in SHADO Control and especially Moonbase (was it Bob Bell and his group and did Don just built it and made it work? Or, did Don Fagan design and build to his own spec?
- Where did Don come from, any biographical information. Where did he get the experience to build all these wonderful gadgets? In the film industry, Services, etc?
- Is Don still around?
- Did Century 21 Film Props build any other famous film props?

Any information about any of this would be really appreciated.

Regards,

Griff

I'm not sure how true it is but I was told that a lot of the stuff used
in UFO and various other series came from ICL, at one time the largest
computer company in Europe and British owned.




On Fri, 2010-03-12 at 10:16 +0000, griffwason wrote:
--


I've got my helmet on

I have no idea why you say there is nothing on Don Fagan and the props in Bentley's book.

A section I've scanned:
"The SHADO Control Room and Moonbase Control Sphere sets were extensively dressed with hi-tech consoles, monitors and wall units built by Century 21 Film Props. Although certain pieces of equipment - notably the Videophone onthe desk in Straker's SHADO office - were reused from Doppelganger, Don Fagan and Terry Curtis built dozens of new pieces of instrumentation for UFO:for the Moonbase Control Sphere set alone they provided a modular central console fitted with a disguised 11 inch video monitor, two modular Tracker consoles with two disguised 11 inch video monitors on each, a bank of eightdigital counters capable of random running, changing colour and settling to a pre-determined readout, and 55 instrument cases which were stacked around the walls in banks of five.

Terry Curtis remembers how the instrumentation for the SHADO Control Room was created. got friendly with some people involved with IBM computers and they would let me have stuff that they were slinging out. We would use it todress the sets and computer panels and it all looked very realistic. All of those computer spools that you see in UFO in SHADO's Control Room were all old IBM bits and pieces that I'd got hold of because I knew they were just chucking them out. We didn't even have to pay for them.

`Don and I worked at Bourne End not far from Cookham and Marlowe. When the series was in preproduction we all went to the studios at MGM to put it alltogether. We built and designed the things at our workshop but then installed it all and saw that everything worked in the studio. We were quite proud of our technical achievements on those sets, particularly where the monitors were concerned.
`In all of the scripts for UFO there were references to characters talking directly to television monitors - like when Straker was talking to someone on Moonbase. Now the problem was that it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to film and clearly capture an image from a television screen. Itgoes all blurry and you see strobe lines going up and down. As these scenes were going to be a regular part of the series in every episode, somethingneeded to be done to ensure that they could film these screens. That imagehad to be nice and clear because sometimes the dialogue between the two characters was important to the story and not just the simple sort of 'Moonbase over and out' type of stuff.

"Now, without getting too technical, light on a television screen works at a different pulse rate to the rate that a camera can film it, so that's whyyou get those black strobe lines going up and down. I put together this little gizmo like a little shutter with a 'magic eye' in it and a light. Halfof it was silver and half of it was black. The image meant to be seen on the screen was run through a briefcase with the controls and the gizmo in it, and then back onto the monitors. It changed the rate of the pulse of light to match the cameras so that it could be filmed. I was only responsible for the mechanical side really, but it was a bit of a breakthrough. The onlyother people doing something similar were some of the big American companies and they were building their own generators to make the pulses match, but ours was done through a briefcase. I think the light pulsed in 50 per second cycles so we could film it. Usually it was 48, I think, but that difference was enough to make the picture strobe. I was on the set a couple of times to operate it, but in the end I think someone else got the hang of how to use it."


The fact he says "Don and I worked at Bourne End not far from Cookham and Marlowe." indicates that they were probably outsourced as contractors by Gerry Anderson, but why they had the name 'Century 21 Props' I don't know - maybe Anderson funded them independently.

Anyway,hope that fills you in on a bit.
Rob


--- In [hidden email], "griffwason" <griff@...> wrote:

> Does anyone have any further information about Don Fagan or Century 21 Film Props? I have ploughed through ALL my FAB issues, Chris Bentley's UFO Book and trawled the web, but there doesn't seem to be too much about either.
> Regards,
>
> Griff
>

Hi Peter,

That's fantastic background information to hear... it's weird, I used to work years ago at Tektronix in Marlow, and have actually heard of Vidionics, but in an entirely different context. I had no idea at all of Don's connection there... Obviously, Bourne End (Century 21 Film Props) is not far from there either, so it all makes sense.

Thanks ever so much for all your feedback.

Best to all, Griff

PS. I'm a big fan of the Original Captain Scarlet fan as well...

--------------------------
On 17 October 2010 02:40, rospeter65 <[hidden email]> wrote:

Griff,

I just happened to stumble across this webpage whilst looking up articles on Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet - dont't ask!...

I've never met Don Fagan but I have worked for his sons as they operate a security systems company in High Wycombe, which is called Vidionics Security Systems.

As a childhood fan of Joe 90, Thunderbirds and in particular Captain Scarlet I was pleasantly surprised to be told about the connection to Don Fagan. I'd understood he'd been responsible for instrumentation features (winking lights, and other 'gadgets') on the sets of Gerry Anderson's later productions having read the credits of those shows, but when I was told of the connection to the Vidionics it made for interesting conversation.

Vidionics business is CCTV, access control systems, etc. One notable aspect is that Don is allegedly credited with selling a development stemming from his 'instrumentation' work to a large electronics / computer company, I believe it was IBM. This has something to do with the detection of image movement in the field of vision of an electronic camera. This is known as video motion detection and Don's work attracted the attention of the then burgeoning security systems industry. Apparently his approach was the most effective and reliable and the proceeds of the sale pretty much set him up financially for a safe retirement. I think he resides on the Isle of Man, and is something of a continual inventor - like a Trevor Bayliss or James Dyson, but products-wise nothing as high profile. I'd come across post/mail of his patent applications (there were a good few during my time there) but it seemed that they were very different ideas from his camera electronics, but hey, as I've often said to people once engineering is in your blood every problem seeking a solution, or more commonly every idea seeking an application gets the engineered approach!

I'd seen a couple of discarded development ideas or 'gadgets' of Don's in their stores, but I was not fortunate to have met the chap.

I didn't realise the Century 21 business was Don's, but I'm sorry if my account doesn't help you, but I felt it may add another angle to your search.

Regards,

Peter