Steven Woodcock (film director)
Encyclopedia
Steven Woodcock is an award winning British film director, writer
, and producer
. He has made two movies set in north England, Between Two Women
and The Jealous God
. They are similar, being 1950s & 60s set, and resemble each other in how they were made but they are different in tone and narrative style. Woodcock has written at least one book under his own name, the novel of Between Two Women
on which he based his film screenplay.
In the DVD documentary The Making of Between Two Women, Steven Woodcock takes the viewer into the main set for his third feature film Flight into Camden
, to explain his filming methods. Various newspaper articles still on the web refer to this movie - an adaptation of the award winning novel by Booker Prize winning David Storey
, author of the classic This Sporting Life
.
, West Riding of Yorkshire
, England
. He lived in Berry Brow
and Milnsbridge
, the latter an industrialized suburb to the west of Huddersfield centre where British Prime Minister Harold Wilson
grew up. Many scenes in Woodcock’s films were shot in and around where he once lived. Milnsbridge’s imposing railway viaduct and part of Market Street are seen at the start of Between Two Women
as are mills and factory chimneys (since the filming the mills have been converted into apartment blocks). Other locations in Huddersfield have included Fartown
, Longwood
, Beaumont Park
, Holmfirth
, Linthwaite
, Marsden
and a mill at Newsome
. Scenes were also shot in nearby Bradford
, Halifax
and Keighley
.
Woodcock attended Berry Brow Junior School as a boy, then Newsome High School and Sports College between 1972–77 and Greenhead College
from 1977-79. He then went to Batley School of Art and Design and Manchester University where he studied Industrial Design. By the time he was only 20 both his parents were dead. His father had died when Woodcock was still very young, leaving his widowed mother to bring him up on her own.
producer Gerry Anderson
, yet when he was only 21 he achieved this, designing and making numerous special effects models for the TV show Terrahawks
. He was not given a screen credit so to make up for it secretly wrote his large initials and date of birth with Letraset
on the side of his spaceship models, in effect signing them. He also worked on blockbuster movies such as Aliens
at Pinewood Studios
and also the TV show, Wind in the Willows. For over ten years he ran his own model and special effects company mainly servicing advertising.
newspaper as an editorial columnist on the opinion pages. Some of his newspaper and magazine articles are illustrated with his own dramatic black and white art photographs, possibly explaining why his movies are well shot. His writing ranges from straight socio political commentary through issues about morality (the major theme in his films) and the arts. He wrote an off-the-wall piece about why such a prolific weed as the dandelion is his favourite flower.
Steven Woodcock was interviewed in a 12 page article in 2007 by the professionally produced Gerry Anderson
fan magazine, FAB. In it he said he’d made the movies he made because they were easier to finance than big budget action or sci-fi films, which he’d always wanted to make. At the time of the interview he was developing an action TV show with a British TV channel and he said it was more like the American CSI
cop shows than his films.
In February 2006 Steven Woodcock and his co-producer wife Julie were featured in a prime-time documentary at 7.30pm on ITV1 called My Northwest, where they were interviewed about their films and clips were shown from the star studded Odeon
premiere of The Jealous God
that was simultaneously broadcast live on British TV by ITV
, BBC
, and Sky.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, and producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
. He has made two movies set in north England, Between Two Women
Between Two Women
Between Two Women is a 1950s set feature film by British writer-director Steven Woodcock. It tells the story of Ellen, a factory worker’s wife trapped in an unhappy marriage amidst the grime and industrial noise of north England.-Plot:...
and The Jealous God
The Jealous God (film)
The Jealous God is a 1960s set feature film by British writer-director Steven Woodcock. It is based on the novel by John Braine. The opening scenes were filmed in the grammar school in Bradford where Braine was once a pupil...
. They are similar, being 1950s & 60s set, and resemble each other in how they were made but they are different in tone and narrative style. Woodcock has written at least one book under his own name, the novel of Between Two Women
Between Two Women
Between Two Women is a 1950s set feature film by British writer-director Steven Woodcock. It tells the story of Ellen, a factory worker’s wife trapped in an unhappy marriage amidst the grime and industrial noise of north England.-Plot:...
on which he based his film screenplay.
In the DVD documentary The Making of Between Two Women, Steven Woodcock takes the viewer into the main set for his third feature film Flight into Camden
Flight into Camden
Flight into Camden is a novel by British author and playwright David Storey. Written in 1961, it won the 1963 Somerset Maugham Prize for fiction....
, to explain his filming methods. Various newspaper articles still on the web refer to this movie - an adaptation of the award winning novel by Booker Prize winning David Storey
David Storey
David Rhames Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player....
, author of the classic This Sporting Life
This Sporting Life
This Sporting Life is a 1963 British film based on a novel of the same name by David Storey which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. It tells the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining area of Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting...
.
Early life
Steven Woodcock grew up in HuddersfieldHuddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
, West Riding of Yorkshire
West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of the three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county, County of York, West Riding , was based closely on the historic boundaries...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He lived in Berry Brow
Berry Brow
Berry Brow is a semi-rural village in West Yorkshire, England situated about south of Huddersfield. It lies on the eastern bank of the Holme Valley and partially straddles the A616 road to Honley and Penistone....
and Milnsbridge
Milnsbridge
Milnsbridge is a district of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England 2.5 miles west of the town centre, situated in the Colne Valley. The name is said to have derived from the water-powered mill and the bridge that stood alongside it in the 13th century.The Huddersfield Narrow Canal runs...
, the latter an industrialized suburb to the west of Huddersfield centre where British Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
grew up. Many scenes in Woodcock’s films were shot in and around where he once lived. Milnsbridge’s imposing railway viaduct and part of Market Street are seen at the start of Between Two Women
Between Two Women
Between Two Women is a 1950s set feature film by British writer-director Steven Woodcock. It tells the story of Ellen, a factory worker’s wife trapped in an unhappy marriage amidst the grime and industrial noise of north England.-Plot:...
as are mills and factory chimneys (since the filming the mills have been converted into apartment blocks). Other locations in Huddersfield have included Fartown
Fartown, Huddersfield
Fartown is a district of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England that starts 1 km north of the town centre.Fartown runs for approximately 1 mile either side of the A641 main Huddersfield to Bradford Road...
, Longwood
Longwood
Longwood may refer to:in Australia* Longwood, Victoria, Australiain Canada* Battle of Longwoodsin India* Longwood, Shimla, Indiain Ireland* Longwood, County Meath, Irelandin the United Kingdom* Longwood, West Yorkshire, England...
, Beaumont Park
Beaumont Park
Beaumont Park is a suburb of Huddersfield, in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England that is located between Netherton, Crosland Moor and Lockwood....
, Holmfirth
Holmfirth
Holmfirth is a small town located on the A6024 Woodhead Road in the Holme Valley, within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. Centred upon the confluence of the Holme and Ribble rivers, Holmfirth is south of Huddersfield and from Glossop. It mostly consists of...
, Linthwaite
Linthwaite
Linthwaite is a village in West Yorkshire, England. It is situated 4 miles west of Huddersfield, on the A62 in the Colne Valley...
, Marsden
Marsden, West Yorkshire
Marsden is a large village within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, west of Huddersfield and located at the confluence of the River Colne and the Wessenden Brook...
and a mill at Newsome
Newsome
Newsome is a village situated approximately 1 mile south of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. It is in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees. The village lies at the centre of Newsome Ward to which it gives its name.-Geography:...
. Scenes were also shot in nearby Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
, Halifax
Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
and Keighley
Keighley
Keighley is a town and civil parish within the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England. It is situated northwest of Bradford and is at the confluence of the River Aire and the River Worth...
.
Woodcock attended Berry Brow Junior School as a boy, then Newsome High School and Sports College between 1972–77 and Greenhead College
Greenhead College
Greenhead College is a former grammar school and current sixth form college located in Huddersfield, in the English county of West Yorkshire. The current principal is Martin Rostron....
from 1977-79. He then went to Batley School of Art and Design and Manchester University where he studied Industrial Design. By the time he was only 20 both his parents were dead. His father had died when Woodcock was still very young, leaving his widowed mother to bring him up on her own.
Later career
Throughout his childhood Woodcock wanted to work in movie and TV special effects. To try and get into the industry he made special effects films on 16mm in his spare time while at university. He says he was ridiculed by his school teachers when he was a teenager for saying he intended to work for famous ThunderbirdsThunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
producer Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
, yet when he was only 21 he achieved this, designing and making numerous special effects models for the TV show Terrahawks
Terrahawks
Gerry Anderson & Christopher Burr's Terrahawks, simply referred to as Terrahawks, was a British science fiction television series produced by Anderson Burr Pictures and created by the production team of Gerry Anderson and Christopher Burr. The show was Anderson's first in over a decade to utilize...
. He was not given a screen credit so to make up for it secretly wrote his large initials and date of birth with Letraset
Letraset
Letraset is a company based in the Kingsnorth Industrial Estate in Ashford, Kent, UK.It is known mainly for manufacturing sheets of artwork elements which can be transferred to artwork being prepared. The name Letraset was often used to refer generically to sheets of dry transferrable lettering of...
on the side of his spaceship models, in effect signing them. He also worked on blockbuster movies such as Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
at Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
and also the TV show, Wind in the Willows. For over ten years he ran his own model and special effects company mainly servicing advertising.
Other work
Steven Woodcock has written for the Yorkshire PostYorkshire Post
The Yorkshire Post is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by Yorkshire Post Newspapers, a company owned by Johnston Press...
newspaper as an editorial columnist on the opinion pages. Some of his newspaper and magazine articles are illustrated with his own dramatic black and white art photographs, possibly explaining why his movies are well shot. His writing ranges from straight socio political commentary through issues about morality (the major theme in his films) and the arts. He wrote an off-the-wall piece about why such a prolific weed as the dandelion is his favourite flower.
Steven Woodcock was interviewed in a 12 page article in 2007 by the professionally produced Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
fan magazine, FAB. In it he said he’d made the movies he made because they were easier to finance than big budget action or sci-fi films, which he’d always wanted to make. At the time of the interview he was developing an action TV show with a British TV channel and he said it was more like the American CSI
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
cop shows than his films.
In February 2006 Steven Woodcock and his co-producer wife Julie were featured in a prime-time documentary at 7.30pm on ITV1 called My Northwest, where they were interviewed about their films and clips were shown from the star studded Odeon
Odeon
Odea, Odeon, or Odeum may refer to:* Odeon , ancient Greek and Roman buildings built for singing exercises, musical shows and poetry competitions-Modern era:* Cineplex Odeon, North America...
premiere of The Jealous God
The Jealous God
The Jealous God is a novel by John Braine which was first published in 1964. Set in the early 1960s among the Irish Catholic community in a small Yorkshire town, the book is about a 30 year-old mummy's boy and his attempts at liberating himself from his domineering mother...
that was simultaneously broadcast live on British TV by ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
, BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, and Sky.