Beaconsfield Film Studios

Beaconsfield Film Studios is a British television and film studio in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. The studios were operational as a production site for films in 1922, and continued producing films - and, later, TV shows - until the 1960s. Britain's first talking movie was recorded there, as were films starring British actors Gracie Fields, Peter Sellers and John Mills.

Since 1971 it has been the home of the National Film and Television School, an internationally recognized postgraduate school for film and TV production, famous as the birthplace of the animated characters Wallace and Gromit.

Construction began on the studio in 1921. Producer George Clark and actor/director Guy Newall had been making films at a small studio on Ebury Street in Central London. They outgrew this and raised financing for a new, larger and more modern studio to be built in Beaconsfield.

The studio opened in 1922, and Clark and Newall made several films there such as Fox Farm. They also leased it out to independent companies to make films. The whole industry was badly hit by the Slump of 1924, and filmmaking at Beaconsfield ceased almost entirely. Clark and Newall later sold the studios to the British Lion Film Corporation.

In the late 1920s, British Lion took over the studios producing a number of Edgar Wallace adaptations. Following the conversion to sound films in the 1920s, the company largely concentrated on making quota quickies with the occasional higher-budget film.

Following the outbreak of World War II, the GPO Film Unit became the Crown Film Unit. The Crown Film Unit was based at Beaconsfield Film Studios. Fifty-one productions are credited to the Crown Film Unit between 1940 and 1952 - when it was disbanded - although it is not known how many were actually filmed at Beaconsfield Film Studios.

Full list of Crown Film Unit productions, at IMDB

Former Crown Film Unit sound recordist Ken Cameron started The Anvil Film Unit in 1952 and operated out of a theatre, offices and cutting rooms at the studios. The company recorded post-synching dialogue, Foley sound effects and music with Cameron as chief music engineer and Muir Mathieson the conductor, before moving to Denham Film Studios in 1966.