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Title: ATOM TOWN

Reference number: T1126

Date: 1966

Director: d. Jack Sampson

Production company: Scottish Television

Sound: sound

Original format: 16mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 26.40 mins

Description: Documentary investigating growth of the recently opened Dounreay Nuclear Power Station and the corresponding effect on the nearby town of Thurso and its inhabitants. Interviews with senior Dounreay management, and brief talking head comment from other staff and members of their families

Credits: nar. Ian Gilmour
comm. w. John Hossack
ph. Bill Scott.
sd. rec. Garry Coleman
film ed. Bill Robertson

Shotlist: opening titles (0.24) brief shots boys playing with a ball; tracking shot of the main street of Thurso, halting at the war memorial, [Title overlaid] (1.32) ext. shots of Dounreay Power Station, entrance gates (2.13) ints. brief shots of men working in control room; c/u Kilowatt gauge; pan over panel of indicator lights [one hung with sign: "Caution permit to work in force"] (2.36) c/u circled area on map of Scotland, including Dounreay and Thurso (2.43) exts. apprentices walking into building; brief shots of apprentices working in machine shop (3.42) exts. pan over exterior of two storey building (3.49) brief shots of farming and fishing boats in harbour; shots of shops on Thurso main street (4.40) ext shots of Technical College (4.51) ints pupils working in Chemistry lab; talking head Iv with young man as he monitors a titration experiment (6.42) brief shots of women workers walking into plastics factory in Halkirk (7.23) ls Dounreay Fast Reactor; c/u news headline "Hip, hip Dounreay" [regarding the news of the new Prototype Fast Reactor to be built on the Dounreay site] (7.10) gv's of Thurso, panning shot of the outskirts of the town; closer shots of new housing, and houses next to the reactor (8.19) int shots of man working with chemicals using remote robot arms (9.03) ls gv's of streets of Thurso interspersed with brief shots of workers at Dounreay (10.18) leader (10.49) shots of the harbour with trucks being loaded moving onto scenes of the coastline and the ext of Dounreay (11.40) gv's of women shopping(11.58) talking head: Chief Projects Manager at Dounreay, Ronald Atkinson interspersed with shots of Thurso and the countryside (13.22) brief c/u of newspaper "Atom News" with headline "Fast Reactor - £30 M. Plan, Link for Dounreay and Windscale" moving onto shots of primary school with talking head Iv's with pupils (15.27) exts. secondary school, designed by Basil Spence; ints. brief shot pupils reading, trampolining and playing netball (15.50) gv's of workers in Dounreay interspersed with shots of countryside around the Station (16.55) talking heads with men working at Dounreay; shots of busy traffic followed by scenics and tracking shot of empty road (18.42) shots of new housing scheme with children playing and vox pops with mothers (21.20) shots of new shops in Thurso, Optician, Book Shop, Electrical Goods Shops - modern shops fronts (22.04) talking head Iv with female American hotel manager, interspersed with shots of streets of Thurso, also shots of cinema, betting shop, philosophical society poster and bingo hall (23.41) ext pan over Dounreay site; c/u architect's drawing of planned Protoype fast reactor; (24.19) Iv with Dounreay General Secretary, Sir Donald Carmichael intercut with shots of apprentices at work (25.31) shots of workers leaving at the end of their shift, e.c.s.(26.40)