- Born
- Birth nameBryan Edward Gilbert Oates
- Born in June 1945 in Suffolk, Bryan left school at 18. He started as an Assistant Stage Manager at Oldham Repertory Theatre, rising to Stage Manager and then worked his way via Northampton, Canterbury and Exeter Northcott Theatre (which he opened with Tony Church) to being Stage Director at The Mermaid Theatre, at Bernard Miles' invitation. He stage-directed 'Treasure Island' with Barry Humphries, Spike Milligan and Willie Rushton, then 'Hadrian 7th', with Alec McCowan, and 'Black Girl in Search of God' with Dame Edith Evans.
From there he moved over to Film & TV with 'The Avengers' (1968) followed by a career in the cutting rooms which included assistant editing 'The Killing Fields', 'Get Carter', 'The Mission' and other feature films. He assisted on Jane Goodall's 'Baboons' for which he won an Emmy citation.
Bryan was invited by Ken Loach to join him as assistant director on 'Family Life', followed by assistant directing Philip Saville on 'Secrets'. However, realising that, as the film historian & Bryan's friend Kevin Brownlow wrote, "The Hidden Power" lay in editing (and not in getting actors out of bed early in the morning and to the studio, through make-up and hair and ready to shoot) he returned to the cutting rooms. He soon became an editor, sought after in film and television drama.
Over the 40 years of his film career he worked with Ken Loach, Roland Joffé, Richard Attenborough, Aisling Walsh, Martin Scorsese, John Schlesinger, Mike Hodges and Franco Zeffirelli. He retired in June 2008.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom Kinnersly
- SpouseRuthie Adamson(1982 - present) (2 children)
- Bryan, regretfully left The Mermaid Theatre and Bernard Miles to join the film industry. He did this solely with help from Don Chaffey, director of 'Jason and The Argonauts' and many episodes of 'The Prisoner'. The film union was a closed shop for many years so that without a major sponsor you just did not get in.
- After returning from the Peter Gabriel concert in Greece, Bryan was asked by Peter to edit the footage from four songs to show producer, Martin Scorsese. Martin told Bryan he loved the cut and to proceed with editing the entire concert. Bryan asked him if he should look at Martin's concert film 'The Last Waltz'. Marty said: "No, I don't want to influence you - just keep going your own way.
- At the orchestral score recording for 'The Mission', the film's director, Roland Joffé said it was not a spaghetti western he was making, and Morricone would have to rewrite the cue 1M4 - 'Mendoza (De Niro) arriving at Don Cabeza's house'. Ennio, the consummate master, rewrote it overnight, and the London philharmonic orchestra recorded it the next day to the satisfaction of Roland. Having done this Ennio stunned the Director, Producer, Editor, Sound Mixer and the entire orchestra by going immediately on to 1M1, one of the most famous pieces of film music ever recorded. Everybody in the recording box applauded afterwards and the orchestra applauded - a very very rare thing.
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