During the time that I worked in BBC TV Technical Operations, there was one piece of equipment that had many, many more tales told about it than anything else – this was the Mole Richardson Crane, or Mole Crane as it was colloquially known (except to H.T.O Tel S. who called the it the “MPRC Crane” (or M.P.R.C. Crane)).
The crane was first manufactured in the US in 1949 by US Houston Fearless, and was 
known (naturally) as the Houston “Fearless” Crane. Mole-Richardson (another US company better known for lighting equipment) was licensed to build it in the UK (where it became the “Mole”), but because the crane had started life as a design by the Hollywood-based Motion Picture Research Council, it was also known as the MPRC Crane.
As such, the Mole was, at basis, a motion picture crane. A short-wheelbase dolly had a central pillar (which could be raised) on which was pivoted a counterbalance arm. At one end there was a platform for the cameraman and focus puller (and at a pinch, the director), at the other a large bucket full of lead weights. Weights were added to balance the camera and cameraman. The jib operators stood on the floor to swing the jib arm (and by looks of existing pictures, they still did this in the US in television use.)
To adapt it for television use, the back pair of wheels were made fully steerable. To control the jib arm of the crane, a platform was added at the back of the dolly for the single “Swinger” to travel on and move the counterbalanced arm, and then on the back of this platform was added another platform for the “Tracker”, who drove and steered the whole assembly. So the steering (steerable) wheels were actually some halfway along the floor length of the crane, with the camera jib extending out beyond this. To control this assembly required good coordination between the tracker and the swinger, following instruction from the cameraman.
The Mole crane was a hefty machine, and rumour had it that it could do eight miles per hour at full speed. Eight miles per hour in a confined space in a TV studio is quite a speed.
Here are three stories about my time tracking the Mole……..
The Good
On Wednesday 18th March and Thursday 19th March 1964, the crew were scheduled to do the horse racing betting forecasts from the Television Theatre (now, the Shepherd’s Bush Empire once again). The horse racing itself was an outside broadcast, but we had to put the cameras in front of black and white hand-painted card captions to mix the betting forecast over the live OB. This required “cooperation” between the studio director – who had the latest betting information – and the OB director – who wanted to show interesting things on the course. Because the Television Theatre had to be genlocked to the OB, the OB director was not allowed to use remote cameras for the time the genlock was operating, and generally the betting captions were mixed over wide shots from the OB: these conflicting requirements led frequently to some “interesting” shouting over talkback.
So basically all we had to do was to line up the cameras in front of the caption stands – and that was it.
On the Wednesday, the crew were told that they should expect to work late the following day – something special and “last minute” had come up. So on the Thursday (19th March 1964) we arrived with some expectations. During the day the rumour mill churned – we were going to do an insert for “Top of the Pops” (“Top of the Pops” had started in January 1964 and was transmitted from Manchester).
Once the racing results had been completed, we set up for the insert. The Mole crane was lined up on its tracking “ramp” – this was a narrow stage-level extension that ran where the theatre central aisle would have been back under the Dress circle to the back of the theatre: it meant that camera one (on the Mole) could track back to get a nice wide shot of the stage area. I was tracking the Mole.
At the back of the stage was a large rostrum, on which was placed a full drum kit. In front of this, some feet behind the Proscenium arch were marks for three other members of the group, standing in line across the stage.
The first shot of the insert was a shot over the head of the drummer on camera one, followed by a fast track back to a full wide shot. We got the Mole in close to the rostrum, and then on cue went full speed backwards down the tracking ramp to the back of the theatre. And then the director said “Can’t you go any faster?” Thankfully, the senior cameraman replied over studio sound that we were going as fast as we could. (A Mole at full speed down the theatre tracking ramp was quite a sight). Anyway, after rehearsing with stand-ins, in came the performers – John, Paul, George and Ringo. This was to be the Beatles first (ever) appearance on “Top of the Pops”, singing “Can’t buy Me Love”. Control lever fully back, brake on: “Cut Camera 1”: brake off, rocket back down the theatre. So, if you ever want to see a Mole in full flight, remember the first shot on “Can’t Buy Me Love”. It must, must be somewhere, as we did it as a film telerecording, not a VT.
After recording “Can’t buy Me Love”, we reset to rehearse and record “You Can’t Do That”. The Beatles went to the dressing rooms and we did the stagger through and first rehearsals with stand-ins.
When the Beatles came out for the final rehearsals, John, who was over on the left-hand side of the stage (as viewed from the camera positions), looked down on the floor and noticed the floor marks. “Is this where I am supposed to stand?” he said. Well, the floor manager(s) hadn’t heard him, or ignored him, so I shouted out from the back of the Mole, “Yeah, come any forward of those marks and we will hit you!”
We had a nice shot to do. It started as a wide shot of all four of the Beatles, and then we were to track in and swing the Mole arm so that the camera pivoted round a medium close up of John and then swing back to reveal a three-shot of John, Paul and George across the stage (the Mole had to do a curved track to achieve this!). On the recording, the coordination between the tracker and the swinger was not quite there, and the swing started slightly too late. The result was that the front of the Mole platform passed just a few inches in front of John’s face. Well, he corpsed. (Yeah, OK, we nearly knocked out a Beatle). So there was a retake.
On the following Wednesday, 25th March, “Can’t buy Me Love” and Take 2 of “You Can’t Do That” were transmitted as part of Top of the Pops. Over the next few weeks, the film telerecording inserts were repeated, but I am convinced that on one occasion, TOTP showed Take 1 of “You Can’t Do That” with John grinning all over his face.
As an aside, it was quite difficult to escape from the Theatre that night – there were throngs of screaming girls all round the place. I had to walk some distance to collect my car, and I could hear the girls screaming all the way.
Alec Bray tracking the Mole TOTP 1965
The Bad
In 1963 I worked on the second (and last) series of “That Was The Week That Was” (TW3). “Worked” was a bit of a strong word to use, as I was mainly involved in cable sorting and monitor checking, and was generally supernumerary, usually being “let go” during the course of the evening. This was with crew 7, I think with Bernard Fox as Senior Cameraman.
TW3 was transmitted from Studio 2 (TC2) – small and cramped, as it included a set of wooden tiered seating rostra for the studio audience. Down the left hand side of the audience rostra there was a space for the Mole crane to track (this was the second series), and the audience rostra was also positioned so that there was tracking space behind it. This meant that the Mole was expected to track back from the main set along the side of the audience rostra, take the corner by the studio doors and then track back behind the audience, with the camera above the audience’s heads.
This was a tricky manoeuvre, as the back of the Mole (where the tracker stood) was several feet away from the steered wheels. Over the weeks, during rehearsals, I watched as one crew managed to shift the audience rostra with the Mole (luckily no audience in rehearsal): I watched as another crew on another day put the senior cameraman’s head inside one of the central heating ducts.
Then one day I was told to track the Mole. Everything went well on rehearsal: we tracked back from Millicent Martin (she was inlaid on one third of the screen (horizontally)), round the corner, back down behind the audience.
Transmission. “That Was The Week That Was, it’s over, let it go….” On cue, we began the track back. Came to the corner, started the turn … BANG! We had hit the studio guard rail (the yellow bar near floor level under which all wiring – including camera cables – had to go).
The camera – and cameraman (Bernard Fox)– spun wildly round on the end of the jib (this happened live on air, so what the public saw was a very fast whip pan round the studio!): all the weights in the counterbalance bucket shifted backwards – Doug Coldwell, the swinger, was suddenly faced with the balance weights heading fast towards his breastbone. Some of the top balance weights became very precariously balanced (luckily none had actually fallen out).
Frantically Doug the swinger tried to get the weights back in line in the bucket (and they were not exactly light things to throw around) and Bernard the cameraman got himself back into position – although he seemed rather shaken and stirred.
Rather shame-faced, I tracked the Mole back to our next position. However, all was not quite lost, as later in the same show we had to do exactly the same track: this time we got round the corner without incident.
Doug had to do the same track, as tracker, later in the TW3 series, and has reported that he took the corner somewhat slower …
It was some time after this instance that chains were introduced to secure the weights in the bucket (and later rods were used, I believe).
(edited 11/12/2014)
The Ugly
I only ever worked on one “three day play” – so called because they took three days rehearsal in the studio. At this time, the general rule was that any show that lasted about half an hour had one day in the studio (morning and early afternoon stagger through, afternoon for a couple of run throughs and then an evening transmission): any show that lasted about 50 minutes or so had two days in the studio – the first day for the stagger through, then notes and a couple of run-throughs on the second day followed by an evening transmission.
The plays usually lasted more than an hour on transmission, and so had three days in the studio. These plays were usually done by crews 2 or 5, but for some reason this time a general purpose (leaning towards light entertainment) crew got the play – it was called “Too Late for Mashed Potato” (for BBC “Sunday Night Play) transmitted 24th March 1963. I was on the back of the Mole – and no, we did not have a team of cable-bashers carefully tending the cables!
About half-way down the jib arm of the Mole crane was a mounting for a monitor, and this had a video feed of the output from the camera up front, so that at least the tracker and swinger could see what the cameraman was seeing. This meant that at a video feed and power supply had to be fed to the crane, along with the camera cable and the power supply to the Mole crane itself (power cables joined by Kliegl boxes (leastaways, that’s what we called them). (Woe betide if a connecter came out of the Kliegl box: the Mole was
camera tape on the Mole
uncontrollable). So already there were four cables! Then there were camera headlights if needed. All these cables were wrapped together along the length of the camera cable to the maximum extent of the Mole’s track, the assembly held together by “camera tape”- wide, white, sticky cloth adhesive tape. Often the Mole tracker kept a roll of camera tape on the control lever – always needed!
At one part in this play, we had to get the front of the Mole (and the camera and cameraman) into a small gap in the scenery, then manoeuvre the jib to elevate the camera. At this point, neither the tracker nor the swinger could actually see the camera or cameraman – they were up round behind a flat in some sort of stairwell (as I recall). Because of the position of the arm, we could not see our monitor, so we had no idea what was happening at the business end! And of course, as we could not see the cameraman, we could not see if he was trying to signal anything to us! We must have got it more or less right as there were no retakes.
Once we had finished that play, I think that the whole crew were very well disposed to leave the “three day plays” to crews 2 and 5!
(edited 15 Jul 2020)
