Dai Vaughan: ‘Between a Word and a Thing / You Encounter Only Yourself’

Abstract

Readers of this journal may know Dai Vaughan’s pioneering book, Portrait of an Invisible Man: The Working Life of Stewart McAllister, Film Editor (1983), but are perhaps less likely to be familiar with other aspects of his wide-ranging career as a documentary editor and writer. After taking a BFI evening class in film appreciation Dai Vaughan left his job as a junior draughtsman to become, in 1956, one of the first students to attend the London School of Film Technique, the precursor to the London Film School. He worked as an assistant to the renowned subtitler Mai Harris, following which he joined two other filmschool alumni to form David Naden Associates (DNA), a cooperative specialising in editing services. As editor he has contributed to several landmark television series, including episodes of World in Action (ITV, 1963–98), Disappearing World (ITV, 1970–93) and Omnibus (BBC, 1967–2003). He also collaborated with ethnographic film-makers David and Judith MacDougall and Melissa Llewelyn-Davies. In 2011 he was given a Special Award from the Royal Anthropological Institute for a lifetime’s contribution to ethnographic film-making. Dai Vaughan’s parallel career as a film writer also began in the 1950s and has included contributions to many journals and magazines including Film, Films and Filming, Sight and Sound, Screen and, more recently, Vertigo. He was a founding editor, with Boleslaw Sulik and later Alan Lovell, of the journal Definition (1960–1). In addition to Portrait of an Invisible Man, his books include a BFI Classic on Odd Man Out (1995) and a collection of essays, For Documentary (1999). He has also published fiction and poetry, including the novels Moritur (1995) and Totes Meer (2003). This interview, conducted in November 2010 after