Bernie Newnham

Someone sent me this BBC Production Planning Training Film (YouTube):
         

Alec Bray

Absolutely  fascinating …
BUT
What about these models of cameras, peds and cranes?  More to the point, where are they now? 

Gerry Blake, doing “Curtain of Fear”  (P. Heigham on Grams)  said that he had planned out the camera positions using matchboxes and lengths of string, so these models appeared sometime between 1964 and 1968.  Oh, what happened to those models….  I want one!  (would save having to design one in cardboard!)

Also … All the ** film cameramen and sound recordists each get a credit – and NONE of the studio crew do, although we see their pictures and hear their sound.. Unfair, I say!

AND:

in a FILMING studio?  Oh oh oh … It’s a Television Studio for a telerecording …

Pat Heigham

The film appears to have been around 1968 – the year I left, and I don’t remember these models when I was ‘planning’ during training for Sound Supervisor. They look beautifully made and like you, it would be fun to collect them!

The only models I recall were Dinky Toy OB vans.

As to screen credits, I was led to believe that it was insistence by ACT to credit film technicians, but the BBC steadfastly refused to give them to studio personnel. Around 1985, the Senior cameramen and Sound Supervisors were allowed a credit. The lovely Mike McCarthy collected quite a few ‘campaign medals’!

I loved working for Gerry Blake, but don’t remember the plot of “Curtain of Fear” except that the music was composed by the frightfully enthusiastic Dudley Simpson (d. 2017 in Australia).

 

Barry Bonner

Sound Supervisor credits were well before 1985, they were certainly around when I joined the BBC in 1965.

 

Dave Plowman

I remember them coming in rather later than that? Except for perhaps the odd prog? Anyone give chapter and verse?

 

Barry Bonner

Yes, you may be right about them being selective, I remember though Yogi getting a credit for an opera I worked on in 1965 directed by Paddy Foy.  It was in a series of "Great Characters from Opera” and was the first show I ever worked on when I joined the BBC in 1965. It was in TC4 on January 27/28th. with Mike Bond’s crew and starred Tito Gobbi. There was also a second pair of studio days in TC1 in February 10/11th. I didn’t go to Evesham until 10th. May because our intake was 83 and they split it as ETD couldn’t cope in one hit. In those days I wanted to be a cameraman….how things changed! (There is photograph in Mike Bond’s autobiography of us doing this show.)

 

Garth Tucker

I was made Camera Supervisor circa 1982 and I received credits from that time on. I believe more senior No. 1s would have received them before that.

 

Barry Bonner

Just looked at the credits on “The Stone Tape” on which I was a boom op in1972 with the delightful Jane Asher, directed by the not so delightful Peter Sasdy.  Credits for Sound Supervisor (Tony Millier) but not the senior cameraman. VT editor Geoff Higgs credited as well.

 

Dave Newbitt

I recall working  on the studio production of “Hassan” with Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Nyree Dawn Porter et al. Lit by Jim Richards with sound by the wildly eccentric John Staple. John “Dear God” Staple was a great friend so I think it fair to comment that he thought this his finest hour. You can imagine the Sound Control Room with the Delius full score much in evidence and plenty of arm waving from TV Sound Department’s very own maestro. I drag this up because this would have been 1970 ish and I believe John was on the credits at a time when, in my memory, this was hardly universal.

 

Barry Bonner

Here it is on IMDB….. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067188/fullcredits

 

David Brunt

As far as my understanding goes: If it was a drama serial or series the Studio Lighting and Sound, Make-up and Costume Supervisors would only be credited on the titles of the final episode of the run (sometimes also the first but this wasn’t consistent). I think it came in around the same time as Sydney Newman at the start of 1963.  Gradually this started to become the norm on Comedy and other shows. The result of the 1974 summer strike saw the PUMs and PAs get regularly credited on screen, along with the above credits now on all episodes of a programme run. Senior Cameraman, VT Editor, Vision Mixer, AFMs and Director’s Assistant/Production Associate joined the credits in 1979. These days everybody seems to be credited.

 

Graeme Wall

I suspect the models may have been made specially for the film! Incidentally can anyone identify the vision mixer? The face is familiar but I can’t put a name to her.

 

David Brunt

[The Training Film is]  covering the production of the “Z Cars” episode “What Do You Mean – Charity?”   The location film is from early February 1968, TC3 on 20 & 21 February. It’s the only surviving example of “Z Cars” in 1968 and also the only surviving material showing Joss Ackland in the series. And two years before “Z-Cars” got made in colour. There was a revolving door of Vision Mixers around that period, usually men. I don’t think it’s Shirley Cowerd so I assume it’s Nola Schiff.

 

Graeme Wall

It’s certainly not Shirley, I worked with her a lot as an inlay op.

 

Roger Bunce

What a fantastic film! – especially the toy cameras and cranes. Agreed. The Vision Mixer is not Shirley, nor Nola, who, in my memory, had short fair hair. In those days the BBC’s internal attachment system was flourishing, and a large number of Vision Mixers only appeared on 6-month trying attachments. Loved working with Chris Barry, always calm and well organised. In later life, I’m told I looked like him, but not at the same time. In 1968 I still had hair. Does anyone recognise the one cameraman who is seen clearly? My guess is that it could be Stuart Lindley.

 

Bernie Newnham

It does look like Stuart.

 

Mike Minchin

I’m afraid the name Nola Schiff doesn’t ring a bell with me.  It is certainly not Shirley Coward (now in retirement in Weymouth?). The Director’s assistant was Carole Bissett.

 

Dudley Darby

Agree [it’s not] not Shirley or Nola. I think she may have been one of the attachees from radio, only there for a short time. Definitely Stu Lindley on the camera. That model (or something very similar) appeared in a glass case for a short time in a corner of Reception (Stage Door as it later became) first with a sheet over it which those of us curious enough took a peek underneath. It disappeared from there and surfaced later in the back of the second floor observation room of, I think, TC3. It then disappeared, but for a while it stood in the Puppet Studio at the back of TC5.

 

David Brunt

Christopher Barry did his camera plans at home using the matchboxes and string method. I suspect the model studio was made for the national touring exhibition of 1967 showing how the BBC worked.

 

Hugh Snape (Facebook)

Wow, a fascinating time capsule of a film. Many years later (in the 1980s) I was sound supervisor on the location drama “Mitchin” made by TSW and also directed Christopher Barry so it’s really interesting to see him directing “Z Cars” here. I’d forgotten how bulky (and noisy) those old cranes were.

 

Garret Jackson (Facebook)

With David Maloney as the floor manager (PA). Would have been just before he started directing. Snippets of this was used on “Tales of Television Centre” so it’s fascinating to see a fair bit of the whole thing.

 

Dave Buckley

When I was with TV training, I showed this film (complete, as the clip is only half of it) many times to various courses. The print the department had was in much better condition than that one – which has many scratches and some film damage which has caused frames to be removed. As already pointed out, the Director is Chris Barry, who much later, came to TVT to assist in running courses (as did Barry Letts). I don’t know who the VM is nor the Producer’s Assistant. The producer was Ian Curtis (who also came to TVT a few years later as Admin Officer). I remember him saying about the filming – four film cameras all locked to studio syncs to avoid frame bars. Apparently, directing four film cameras in a TV studio gave him a bit of a headache! The Shaun Sutton shots at the beginning appear to have been shot in the Woodstock Grove Overseas training studio, going by the camera peds (spring loaded variety). Over the years, OS training declined and the studio was used for domestic training. The studio went colour in 1975. Can’t help with the models!