Jennifer "Jennie" Boddington (née Blackwood) (1922 – 15 November 2015) was an Australian film director and producer, who was first curator of photography at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne (1972–1994), and researcher.
Early life Boddington was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1922. She married in the early 1940s, bearing a son, Tim in 1943. Beginning her careerFrench, Lisa (2003) 'On Their Own Merits: Women and the Moving Image in Australia'. In Lisa French (Ed.) Womenvision : women and the moving image in Australia. Damned Publishing, Melbourne, p.6. amongst Australia's New Wave of filmmakers in Sydney, she worked as wardrobe assistant with costume designer Dahl Collings on Harry Watt's Ealing feature film The Overlanders (1946), then on eight hundred costumes for Watt's unfinished follow-up, Eureka Stockade (1948).Joan Long, 'Part Two of a Historical Survey of Women in Australian Film Production', Cinema Papers, September 1976, p. 139
Training Boddington entered the Commonwealth Film Unit in 1948 as cutting room assistant and was there for two and a half years'Ballet Film Has Woman Editor' Boddington interview in The Age, Wednesday, 3 February 1965 p.16 making a lifelong friend in Joan Long (scriptwriter and film producer later known for writing Caddie (1976) and producing Puberty Blues (1981)).Boddington, J. (2000) Obituary for Joan Long, In Senses of Cinema, July–August no. 8 2000; In 1947/8 the Commonwealth Film Unit, part of the Australian National Film Board, had moved from 66 King Street in Sydney's CBD to 5 Condor Street in Burwood, a suburb of Sydney, into an 1879 Department of Education building, where facilities consisted of cutting rooms, a theatre, a room housing recording equipment, a camera room and office space. The Unit provided tuition that the private companies did not.Luisa Alessi (2013). Heritage Assessment: Screen Australia, No. 101 Eton Road, Lindfield. Perumal Murphy Alessi, Heritage Consultants. Boddington trained there with important Australian and Canadian documentary filmmakers including Australian National Film Board Producer-in-Chief, Stanley Hawes,BODDINGTON, JENNIE : INTERVIEWED BY KEN BERRYMAN AND QUENTIN TURNOUR : ORAL HISTORY. National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, Record No. – 458163 Colin Dean and Ron Maslyn Williams, and her first editing and directorial experience came in working with John Heyer on The Valley Is Ours (1948).
Zanthus Films Divorced in 1950, she moved back to Melbourne and for six years scripted, edited and directed training films for the Victorian General Post Office film unit.
In 1956, she was employed by ABC TV, where she edited reportage of the Melbourne Olympic Games, and met, then in 1958 married, cinematographer (Newcombe) Adrian Boddington (b. Kalgoorlie, 3 June 1911) and with whom she had three more sons, James (b.1959), Alastair (b.1961) and Nicholas (b.1963).
Establishing together the Zanthus Films partnership,Mark Hindraker & Mark Johnson, 'Interview: Jennie Boddington', in Photofile, August 1983 for which she reverted to her family name Blackwood, they operated from their home in Hawthorn,'Ballet Film Has Woman Editor' Boddington interview in The Age, Wednesday, 3 February 1965 p.16 producing documentaries including the BP-commissioned Three in a Million (1959),which follows three immigrants to Australia, from Greece, Great Britain and Germany, fitting into industries and everyday life. Blackwood, Jennie & Boddington, Adrian & BP Australia & Zanthus Films (1981). Three in a million. Zanthus Films, Melbourne, Vic Port of Melbourne (1961), and You Are Not Alone (1961) on the then tabu subject of breast cancer and mastectomy. These titles were amongst early Australian Film Institute Award winners, as was the film Anzac (1959), scripted by Cyril Pearl, which pioneered the use of historical stills with rostrum camera effects.
Curator of photography After Adrian Boddington's death at 59 in 1970, Jennie Boddington retired from active film production. She then took up the post of first full-time curatorGalbally, Ann & National Gallery of Victoria (1987). The collections of the National Gallery of Victoria. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. p.236 of photographyEly, Deborah History of Photography, 1 June 1999, Vol.23(2), p.118-122 for the National Gallery of Victoria in 1972.Cox, Leonard B. The National Gallery of Victoria, 1861-1968: The Search for a Collection. Melbourne: The National Gallery of Victoria; Brown Prior Anderson Pty Ltd, 1971Australian Photographer Carol Jerrems photographed Boddington at the NGV in 1974. See: Carol JERREMS Ivanhoe, Melbourne, Australia 1949 – 1980 "Curator of Photography, Jennie Boddington and photographer Melanie Le Guay at the National Gallery of Victoria) 1974" She was selected from fifty-three applicants,Minutes of the NGV Photographic Subcommittee. Melbourne, 16 May 1972 quoted in Tate, Suzanne. Photographic Collections in Victoria: Waverley City Gallery, Horsham Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria: An Analysis of Past History and Future Directions. The University of Melbourne: Postgraduate Diploma Thesis, 1998, Chapter 2: The Photography Department of the National Gallery of Victoria. pp. 17–18. becoming the first such curator in Australia and perhaps only the third in the world. Her selections of works for exhibition and acquisition were inclusive,British journal of photography. Annual. Henry Greenwood, London, Volume 125, Issue 1, p.213 not restricted only to 'art' photography,De Lorenzo, Catherine (2014) 'Agency and Authorship in Australian Photo Histories'. In Sheehan, Tanya, 1976– (2015). Photography, history, difference. Hanover, New Hampshire Dartmouth College Press but rather emphasising its value as a medium of communication.Borcoman, J., Jack, R. I., Boddington, J., Turner, P., Gaskins, B., Howe, G., Brown, J. L., ... Maynard, M. (1977). Photography in Australia: A conference on photography as communication medium and art form. Sydney: University of Sydney, Dept. of Adult Education. Her appointment came at a time when the medium was becoming valuable as a collectible, and when art schools in Australia were adding diplomas and degrees in photography.