I have an older 'artisitic' sister, who was my guide in what to watch and hear as I grew up in a middle-class nominally Christian family.  I was 16 when I saw my first Bergman. She also made sure I listened to Thelonius Monk in the same year, and Phineas Newborn.

I became a denizen of the tiny Cameo cinema in Leicester that showed a very catholic mix of movies and saw just about every advanced French movie up to and including New Wave. I also subscribed to 'Sight and Sound' and 'Movie' and 'Cahiers du Cinéma' (which was a struggle with my schoolboy French). I also got into Sam Fuller ('Merrill's Marauders' was a special favourite - probably because my father was in India during the war).

It was the camerawork that facinated me - Henri Decaë, Greg Toland (Welles) and later Richard Leacock, the Maysles etc. But my defining moment was the release of The Eclair silent synch 16mm movie camera that turned me from a passive observer into active participant.

You can't be me, I'm taken