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Women’s Work in British Film and Television

Elaine Drainville
Sound Technician

Elaine Drainville (Sound Technician)

Elaine Drainville was born in Leicester in 1955. She studied Fine Art at Newcastle Polytechnic between 1976 and 1979 and then worked in community arts before joining the Amber Film Collective, Newcastle, in the early 1980s. She worked on a number of Amber films as a sound technician and editor and was instrumental in setting up its current affairs unit. She later worked as a freelance sound technician on films and documentaries for Channel 4 and the BBC. In the late 1990s she moved into teaching and is currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Sunderland.

In her interview Elaine talks about the link between her politics and practice as a film-maker, and the importance of working collectively and politically in the arts. She discusses the women’s movement and the impact of feminist film festivals on her development as a film-maker. She also reflects on the professional influence of other women, including the sound recordists Di Rushton and Melanie Chait. She describes working on Veronica for Rose (1984), a Channel 4 documentary about young lesbian women coming out, and setting up the North-East Media Training Centre in the mid-1980s. She discusses working in London, gay politics and the significance of the film and media union ACTT and its Women’s Committee. Elaine also reflects on her own practice as a sound technician, the sound recording process itself, her emotional connection with sound and her love of recording equipment including the Nagra and Beyerdynamics headphones.

©Melanie Bell

Interview

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How to cite this page

Women’s Work Oral Histories/Oral Histories/Melanie Bell, Women’s Work in British Film and Television, https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/bectu/Oral Histories,Saturday 27th April 2024.

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