Through his work at the National Film School (now the National Film and Television School) my father, Tony Gurrin, who has died aged 89, ensured that sound played an important narrative role in his students’ films. He also laid the groundwork for what would come to be called “sound design” – the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating and generating sound for television, film and theatre.
The youngest of five children, Tony was born in Kilburn, north-west London, to Laurence Gurrin, a translator, and Rufina (nee Dodwell), a housewife. After leaving Wimbledon vollege he joined the Royal Engineers at the end of the second world war, and helped build loudspeakers for use on the battlefield. Thus began a lifelong obsession with sound and its reproduction.
Dressed in his demob suit, he met Dorothy Taylor at a dance at Wimbledon town hall and they married in Wandsworth, south-west London, in 1949. At home he was always making electronic gadgets, including a television around which the neighbours gathered to watch the 1953 coronation. He got a job with the General Electric Company making hearing aids, then worked for RCA as a sound and location recordist, a job for which his passion never wavered.
In 1963 he became head of sound at De Lane Lea, a company that specialised in the dubbing of foreign television series into English. The company grew, and Tony was responsible for all technical aspects at the De Lane Lea Sound Centre in Dean Street, Soho, which focused on film and television sound. But as DLL expanded, Tony felt he was losing contact with what he loved doing most, so quit and took a casual job with a boat builder in Richmond upon Thames.
He was later contacted by Colin Young, who was setting up the National Film School, and as a result in 1971 became one of the school’s first heads of department. He was a remarkably sensitive teacher and a bridge-builder between each of the departments that together delivered its curriculum.
Tony is survived by Dorothy, three children, John, Jennifer and me, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
