Here is a third collection of threads from the Tech Ops mailing list.
There’s a lot of sound stories in this collection!
Many of the conversations in this set covered a number of topics, and some segued into new topic areas. As a result, some entries (pages) are not as “clear-cut” as others in their content – a comment might be on another page.
The conversations have been edited – hopefully to create a better “flow” – but always the intention has been to keep the Tech Ops mails as intact as possible
So here are more stories of how life really was for those who worked for the BBC – and some of the consequences …
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405-line TV broadcasts returning
405 lines, the good old days of grey and white! British Heritage Television is to broadcast old shows in 405 line analogue.
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1960s Icons
TVC, Tom Jones, a Two-thousand-and-one and TW3!
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“A Day with A TV Producer”
Pages from the book “A Day with A TV Producer”.
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Abbreviations: Some Explanations
There is a list of Abbreviations, acronyms and general jargon used in Tech Ops here.
This page gives some explanations of what lay behind some of the terms in that list.
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Aspect Ratios
Discussion of Aspect Ratios, including Cinerama and Panavision.
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Aspects of Drama
- “Calf Love”
- Douglas Adams in his school play
- “Wolf Hall”
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BBC Channel Idents
A prototype BBC 1 “Mirror World”, BBC Sports – and a resurgent BBC-2 Ident.
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BBC OBs – Golf
Remember the sensation created by cameramen when they showed they could follow a ball in flight from drive to landing.
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BBC Production Costs
One of the myths about “Producer Choice” was that BBC programme makers never knew their true costs before it was introduced.
There were at least two earlier accounting systems, both of which claimed to identify the “true costs” of programmes.
There might even be a longer history of attempts to cost programme making.
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BBC stands for …
It seems that everyone wants to use the letters “BBC”. Here are some of them …
What people have collected (and said) …
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BBC Vehicles Diecast Models
More diecast models of BBC road vehicles. Dinky, lledo, Corgi…
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CSO As History
A discussion on the use of Inlay, Overlay and Colour Separation Overlay following publication of a paper by Dr Leah Panos (a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Reading) entitled “Stylised Worlds: Colour Separation Overlay in BBC Television Plays of the 1970s”.
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Dress Code
Remember the days when camera crews at TVC had to wear dress suits for the audience recording?
Just have to wear the right clothes for the right occasion.
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Early Animation Techniques
Amazing what we used to think was the ultimate in easy animation.
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Early days at Ally Pally
Photos, booklet and a recording of an Engineering Society lecture about the early days of broadcasting.
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Early days at TC3
What happened during the early days of TC, before it officially opened?
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Electricity – Shocking Supply and Demand
We never consciously set out to be candidates for the Darwin award, but then circumstances – combined with electricity – sometimes made things go with a bang!
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Golders Green Hippodrome
The BBC took out a long leasehold of the Golders Green Hippodrome in the late 1960s and at first used the building as a television studio. In 1972 it was converted into a radio studio.
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Hearing Loss
Nearly all septuagenarians and octogenarians and earlier have severely reduced hearing if for no other reason than it is a feature of old age. But for some of us there may be other reasons for suffereng some level of hearing loss.
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Horse Names
Frank Rose was Horse, and gave many of people he worked with “nicknames” – or in this case, “horse names”. Here are some that people can remember.
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Inspiration for my Career
What inspired us to co the work for BBC Tv Tech ops. Some people tell their stories.
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Lime Grove – First and Last
A rabbit warrren of a place. Lifts that would stop if you jumped up and down in them.
Gaunt huge Studio F – nothing but a scene store. Mechau TKs. Slippery fire escapes to get to the Canteen. Aaah! Lime Grove!
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London Teleohone Exchanges
On some diecast models of BBC Vehicles, the BBC phone number was WELbeck 4468 – which became LANgham 4468. The BBC Television Centre phone number was SHEpherds Bush 8000.
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Microphones and Mic Placement
A page all about old mics, older mics, modern mics and mic placement (or should that be mis-placement?).
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Monitor – Alfred Hitchcock
About the interview between Alfred Hitchcock and Huw Wheldon which was telerecorded for the BBC television programme “Monitor”.
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More Crew Christmas Cards
Many of the crews sent Christmas Cards to directors and producers that they liked in the hope that said directors and producers would ask for them in preference to other crews for their programmes. Of course, cards would be sent to other people as well!
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Never Twice the Same Color
Following on from chats about Acronyms, Aspect Ratios and colour and things like that, conversation turned to NTSC.
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Nine Lessons and Carols 1964
The service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge was first broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1928 and, except for 1930, has been broadcast every year since. Since 1963, the service has been periodically telerecorded for television broadcast in the UK. This page started with a photo of the TV broadcast (telerecording) in 1964 – but was it?
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Period Pieces – Getting the Details Correct
A number of recent programmes have been set in the early 1950s to the mid-to-late 1960s,and many people had working knowledge of what it was like to work then – and what things looked like and how they worked. However, many of these programmes get things wrong – sometimes even when the programme makers have been told that things were wrong (see http://tech-ops.co.uk/next/an-adventure-in-space-and-time-errors/). The problem is, of course, that the period that these programmes are set in is still within living memory for some – although likely not within living memory of those making the programmes- so general viewers will notice errors and not just academics.
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Personalities – The Crew
Memories of people we worked with including:
- Ken twitchen
- Jack Belasco
- Jimmy Cellan-Jones
- Dave Baumber
- Dave Sydenham
- Len Shorey
- Roger Davis
- Bob Tate
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Personalities – The Talent
More tales of the Talent including:
- Rik Mayall
- Ken Dodd
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Pop Group Sound Levels
Noisy things, Pop groups. Stone Roses, Deep Purple – and Aims Minim.
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Present Day (2104) Audio Levels
Differences between channels – differences between the same sort of show (talking heads) on the same channel. No one seems to have the same care and quality approach to sound levels.
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Presentation at Work
What happened in Presentation Suites A and B at TVC.
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Recording All Cameras
Recording the output of more than one camera simultaneously has a longer history that you might suspect – how about 1963?
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Retake! That’s a Wrap.
Discussion of the derivation of the term “That’s a Wrap” – which follows after take and retake.
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Round the Horn
The re-furbished Denman Horn was put on display at The Science Museum during some of 2014.
Denman, an expert on loudspeakers, specially designed the horn in order to reproduce frequencies as low as 32Hz and up to 6kHz. This was achieved by loading it to one of the latest moving-coil driver units from the Western Electric Company (U.S.A.) namely the WE 555W, widely used in cinema sound systems of the time and now considered to be one of the greatest loudspeaker drivers ever made.
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Sex and the Sixties
Veteran entertainer Rolf Harris was found guilty in June 2014 on 12 counts of indecent assault against four girls and young women.
Investigators have found that ex-BBC DJ Jimmy Savile sexually assaulted victims aged five to 75 in NHS hospitals over decades of unrestricted access.
Stuart Hall pleaded guilty in May 2014 to 14 offences of indecently assaulting 13 girls between 1967 and 1985.
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Soft Soled Shoe Shuffle
We were supposed to ensure that our shoes made no noise whatsoever when walking/tracking/crabbing/shuffling across the studio floor.
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Something in the Air
There was quite a bit of chat about things aeronautical – here are bits more on topic with BBC Technical Operations as we know it…
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Sound in Sync(s)
During the “Last Night of the Proms” on BBC 1 HD in 2014, the pictures were easily 3 or 4 frames late compared to the sound: it seems that someone didn’t really check somewhere downstream.
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Sound Levels circa 1961
Sound Levels since 1961
General discussion of sound levels and the inconsistencies across and between programmes. The two pages overlap to a large extent – the division is somewhat arbitrary.
Sound Levels circa 1961:
What people said…
Sound Levels since 1961:
What people said…
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Sound (Trolley) Stories
Never knew that rigging and derigging sound could be so much fun? hassle? problemmatical?
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Studio sound and talkback, Eurovision and Dana …
Converstaions about studio sound levels lead on to a story about the Eurovision Song Contest, the Beeb’s approach and the Irish insurance policy.
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SYPHER
SYPHER is “SYnchronised Post-dub Helical-scan and Eight-track Recorders”.
John Eden-Eadon was responsible for progressing the concept and for the operational specification of the system – and gave it that name. The BBC Engineering Monograph number 108 December 1977, section 3 mentions how the name came about.
John has offered a copy of the engineering monograph, and people who used SYPHER describe how it was used.
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TC7 1967
Barry Bonner found a picture that he thinks is Peter Hider in TC7 around 1967.
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That’s Why we had Cameramen …
A new game – “Find the newsreader” (with variants, like “Find the interviewee”) – and get the white balance right.
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The Case of the Disappearing Image Orthicon
A fictionalised account of something that really happened.
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The Joy of Location Accommodation
Shed A anybody?
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Restaurants round the Bush
The places to eat – and be seen eating – around Shepherds Bush Green.
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TOTSIs
What did TOTSIs stand for and what did the qualification entail?
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TV Pilots
Christopher Perry is trying to make a definitive list of TV pilots for a book he is writing.
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TV programmes about WW2
The 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings (06 June 2014) was the catalyst for Tech Ops people to remember BBC-TV programmes about World War 2.
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TVC
More comment about the destruction of Television Centre.
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Vintage Photographs
Mike Jordan has offered a couple of photographs which he says are quite good in a sort of historical sense. Not quite HD nor yet 4k TV!
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VT Tea Two
More VT Tea.
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A discussion of the various VTR formats and those used for archiving. This follows on from discussions as to the use of CSO from VTR – see Inlay, Overlay and CSO.
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Wardrobe Malfunction
A new term for an old happenstance. All will be revealed…
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We Were There – Winston Churchill’s Funeral 50 Years On
At home, at school, in the studio, on OBs. Winston Churchill’s Funeral and Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation were defining moments in BBC Broadcast TV history.
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Who gets the Credit?
TV cameramen hardly ever got a credit whereas the few seconds worth of film insert into a TV programme always had the film cameraman credited. Some crews had mascots that they put somewhere on the set – at least the crew would be recognised by those in the know.
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