A GREAT Yarmouth-born oscar winning film director who pioneered the use of Technicolor in movies has died aged 94.Jack Cardiff was the first to shoot a film in Technicolor in the UK when he used the technology to shoot the movie Wings of the Morning in 1937.

A GREAT Yarmouth-born oscar winning film director who pioneered the use of Technicolor in movies has died aged 94.

Jack Cardiff was the first to shoot a film in Technicolor in the UK when he used the technology to shoot the movie Wings of the Morning in 1937.

His career spanned the development of cinema from silent movies right up to filmmaking in the 21st century and worked with the influential film directors Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Powell and John Huston.

He worked as an actor from a young age and starred in the silent films My Son, My Son, Billy's Rose and The Loves of Mary, Queen of Scots.

He won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his cinematography on the 1947 film Black Narcissus, while he worked on a number of other films including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp in 1943 and A Matter of Life and Death in 1946.

Reader Ian Payne, from Walsall, wrote in to pay tribute to Jack.

He said: “Jack was the greatest cinematogropher of his generation and I wonder if we will ever see his like again in the film industry? Jack won an honorary oscar in 2002 and was awarded it by Dustin Hoffman and his hobby, besides photography, was painting, which he was drawn to more than ever during his retirement.

“I asked a college tutor once why his students on a film making course were not taught about greats like Jack.

“His response was that he felt it would not interest them in this modern age. Well I say all students should learn about Jack's techniques and his style, skills and craft. The modern age owes much to Jack's work, and without it the advances we take for granted today would still be in their infancy. To know the present we all need to know the past.”

Jack died at his Cambridgeshire home yesterday.