Paul Wyand [qv] remembered Jack Rogerson working for Paramount in 1934, when he was involved with British Paramount News in pirating the Test series from Gaumont British and Movietone, who held the rights. Wyand does not specify whether Rogerson was a cameraman or a sound engineer, but his first recorded assignment - for ‘COMMONS REASSEMBLE’ in British Paramount News No.486 of October 1935 - was apparently as cameraman. Rogerson worked regularly for Paramount until the outbreak of war in 1939, but is next credited as sound engineer to Henry Hawkins [qv] on the Churchill story in ‘NEWS FLASHES - STOP PRESS’ in British Paramount News No.1524 of October 1945. In November 1945 Rogerson was also credited as scriptwriter for the reel, with Gibson Parker [qv] as commentator, and in December 1945 he worked with John Stagg [qv] as commentator. He was afterwards regularly employed as sound engineer as well as scriptwriter, but in 1947 he was credited as ‘technical supervisor’ to British Paramount News. In October 1947 Rogerson worked with Paramount’s news editor Jim Wright [qv], and editor Tommy Cummins [qv], planning extra comic shots for one story, and with John Stagg [qv] and Albert Stockwell [qv] on editing another. Rogerson was still credited as Paramount’s ‘technical supervisor’ in 1949, but he was also listed as assistant technical editor of the Pathe News, and defended newsreel staff against charges of political bias, basing his remarks upon ‘the past four years spent in technical production on two newsreels.'
Sources
BUFVC, British Paramount News files, Number 1536 (commentary scripts, November 1945), Number 1542 (commentary script, December 1945), Number 1720 (commentary script, August 1947), Number 1738 ('Inter-office Communication,' J. C. R[ogerson] to E. J. H. W[right], 22/10/1947), Number 1742 (Note to ‘Albert’ [Stockwell] from ‘Jack R[ogerson],' November 1947): T. Ramsaye (ed) ‘1947-48 International Motion Picture Almanac (New York, 1947), p.896: ‘Year Book of the Association of Cinematograph and Allied Technicians 1948/49,' p.54: J. C. Rogerson ‘Tribune Hits at Newsreels,' Cine-Technician, September-October 1949, pp.136-8: P. Noble (ed) ‘British Film Yearbook 1949-50’ (London, 1949), p.275: P. Wyand ‘Useless if Delayed’ (London, 1959), p.56.
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