A few memories of Riverside Studios

I was hoping that the recent trawl for missing BBC programmes would unearth 35mm copies of ‘Troubleshooters’, the BBC drama series about the oil industry. In the mid-sixties I took part in a short lived BBC trial using 35mm Arriflex cameras with an industrial type vidicon camera bolted to the side deriving its image from, I believe, a special mirror shutter fitted to the Arris. I think a similar system using Mitchell cameras had been called ‘AdVision or ‘AdiVision’. The intention was to produce ‘Troubleshooters’ in the normal way ­ a two day rehearse/recording using three cameras as if recording on tape but instead of a video tape master, the end result was to provide a 35mm film copy that could be sold overseas without the degradation of converters. The recording took place at Riverside Studio 1 and the show was rehearsed and shot as a multi camera production. The vision mixer cut between the non­broadcast industrial cameras to provide a video ‘guide’ track whilst also running the Arriflex cameras just before each shot was taken. Her job was to economise on film and therefore she would run the appropriate film camera from the gallery just before it was required and when it was up to speed, cut to the industrial vidicon then run the next film camera, cut to that, and then stop the first camera. On a fast cutting sequence the cameras were left running but the system hiccup from the cameraman’s point of view was that as the film camera got up to speed his picture, derived from the shutter, broke up completely and only settled mini seconds before the shot was to be used. At the crucial moment when the shot was needed, after re­positioning and framing, the viewfinder picture broke up and by luck and by golly you hoped that it was sharp and framed at the point the picture settled and you were instantly cut to. Film from all the cameras were then edited against the ‘non-broadcast’ video master. But as cameramen, our troubles did not end there. The 35mm Arriflex, heavily blimped, were hefty items to crab and crane around on their peds. We attempted to shoot ‘Troubleshooters’ with normal video camera development but found it an uphill struggle. When we saw the finished result ­ the film from the three cameras edited together and projected on a normal cinema screen we discovered even worse problems. The low quality industrial cameras provided a low quality viewfinder and the focus zones were so much more obvious on a large projected image than they had been in the viewfinder. Any camera movement on shot jumped and bumped over Studio 1 floor and that gave us cause for concern as well. The condition of Riverside Studio 1 floor was the result of a number of ‘tough’ productions across it in the preceding years such as ‘Six Five Special’. There was a musical called ‘Carissimia’ with Ginger Rogers and David Hughes set in Vienna complete with mini canal and Gondolier – the canal leaked during transmission. And there was a Western (I think starring Rod Steiger) using Studio One and Two. I believe the production could only afford one horse so it was constantly led back and forth at the end of the western street in long shot. Hancock, Quatermass, Dixon of Dock Green and an ill-fated weekly soap ‘Starr & Co’ also came from Riverside. A rowdy gang of teddy boys once threatened to disrupt a live transmission of Six Five Special. Their favourite “joke” was to stand on camera cables and bring you to a shuddering stop. An enterprising floor manager a few minutes before transmission ran into Studio Two where Dixon was being rehearsed to follow on from Six Five and enlisted the help of a number of police “extras”. The South Kensington actors in uniform enjoyed their moment of glory and cleared the offending teddy boys out of the studio. Riverside Studios, before TV Centre was opened, was better equipped than the Grove and was certainly a more pleasant place to work. There was a terrace outside Studio 1 overlooking the Thames which was a favourite ‘resting’ place during summer afternoons. It was often used to mount a camera for the Boat Race but for one edition of Barry Bucknell’s ‘Do­It­Yourself’ programme, the director put a camera out on the terrace. The programme often started with a shot of the item that Barry was going to build or repair. For this edition, the camera panned across Hammersmith Bridge at the top of the show, no doubt attracting considerable interest from do­it­yourself enthusiasts across the UK who fancied themselves as hardboard bridge builders. Barry was known by sound mixers as the hesitant hammer. He had a trick of starting a sentence, raising his hammer as if to strike thereby causing the sound mixer to pull back the fader to avoid an overload. Barry would then speak a few words to finish his sentence forcing the sound mixer swiftly to bring the mod back up again just at the moment Barry crashed the hammer down wrapping the PPM needle around the end stop.

I’ve explained to seemingly gullible people many times that most progress in consumer gear is not because manufacturers want to give us new marvels, but that they just need to sell us different stuff otherwise they go broke. In TV, colour was an obvious step forward, but from stereo sound on, it’s that seven year product cycle driving everything. It’s interesting to watch two current ones overlapping, so they can sell us first a CRT widescreen tv, then an LCD or plasma one (though none to me yet). And very soon an LCD HDTV, or possible a DLP one.