Background
Ampex designed the format and built the first 2-inch videotape recorder in 1956: this was the VR-1000: 2-inch quadruplex was the first videotape format, so named because of its two-inch wide tape and 4-part record pattern, which used tape created by the 3M Company. The two debuted in 1956.
Ampex released the VR-2000, a colour machine which could perform edits electronically. Ampex labelled this editing technology the Editec system, and offered it as an upgrade to all existing Quad machines. These first electronic edit machines provided on-the-fly assemble editing. They could switch from playback into record at the touch of a button, something their predecessors couldn’t do. They couldn’t, however, record audio or video independently
[http://www.videomaker.com/article/1221-edit-points-a-history-of-videotape-editing]
Bernie Newnham
I think Editec – in this case meaning editing through the studio on one machine – went away because of the endless ways it could and did go wrong. You really needed a cast and production team who knew what was going on, and were together enough to make it happen cleanly.I’m sure plenty of us here worked on the Peter Cushing Sherlocks – even, like me, as a ped tracker.
The sequence would go –
“Stop recording, set up for the next scene, studio”. VT plays back and studio technical manager presses a button to put the pip on the tape. When the studio was ready, VT plays forward and everyone can hear and see the out-going scene. At zero the machine goes in to record and the actors run the next scene.
I worked on one of the series, and several times, as the VT played back, the sequence went –
Floor manager: “Playing back, stand by Peter…”
Floor manager:”Three two…”
Cues Peter….
Peter (watching his recorded performance) : “Oh sorry, what was that, old boy?”
Floor manager : “Once more please.”
Which was a good bit of the reason for the great disaster, with a part edited episode going out. Much much easier for the production team to move downstairs and sit with two machines and an editor rather than a whole studio full of people.
Graeme Wall
Was it that series that somehow got “Play School” recorded on the master tape of one of the episodes? I remember being involved in reshooting a few scenes because the series had been sold to Australia or somewhere.
Mike Minchin
I was the cameraman most intimately connected with the unedited Sherlock Holmes episode.The show was planned with a number of Editec joins between scenes, and all seemed to be going well, until something went wrong in mid scene (was it a fluffed line?) and the take was abandoned, with my camera in MCU of Brenda de Banzie (who was playing some sort of Housekeeper). I let go of my panning handle and the shot drifted down towards her chin while the director and the Editec operator agreed on an edit point – which turned out to be the start of that same shot. You could hear the Floor Manager telling the actors (especially Brenda) what would happen, and I framed up properly. And on cue, away we went. Later (but before transmission) we heard that the Editec cuts were not satisfactory (all flashed??) and they were hastily cutting a new version, using the conventional back-up tape. On transmission I sat down to watch and was amazed to see the whole incident still there. The new version had only used the pre-planned editing points. I remembered the show being in the Peter Cushing colour series, rather than the Douglas Wilmer black and white one. When the Cushing series came out on DVD I bought the box-set and was surprised to find no episode featuring Brenda de Banzie. My partner, Margot Hayhoe, also remembers the incident (not having realised my involvement) and also thinks it starred Peter Cushing. She also says that the faulty tape was used for the repeat – while I thought they had rectified it. Does anyone know better? Does anyone know what the episode was?
David Brunt
The unedited show was “The Dancing Men”, one of the ten missing episodes. 23.09.1968 The Dancing Men
Adapted by Michael Hardwick and Mollie Hardwick.
With Grace Arnold (Mrs Hudson), Maxwell Reed, Judee Morton, Brenda Bruce, Edward Brayshaw, Gwen Nelson, Richardson Morgan, Norman Caley, Henry Gilbert, Annabella Johnston, Frank Mann, David Simeon.
Chris Booth
May I reply to this from the other side – the Basement!
Here is the full story from Geoff Taylor and the late Roger Harvey.
The true story of Sherlock Holmes episode “The Dancing Men”…..restarts on air and all!
After the studio recording (Editec) the programme was not complete so it was edited both in-house (Geoff Taylor confesses to this!) and at an outside facility house. Despite all this work it was still overlength by a couple of minutes and I suspect there was a bit of horse-trading to try and get the duration accepted – which it wasn’t, as, on the morning of transmission, it was booked in for a cut edit to bring it to time.
The director (or producer – not sure who) did a paper edit using the script, and found two ‘chunks’ to get the programme to time. RDH was the editor who drew the final short straw (sorry, got the booking), and he removed the two bits, and then they spooled the tape end to end to get a duration, which was obviously OK.
RDH also had the ‘luck’ to transmit the programme as well later that day. He went on air and, after a while, the progress of the story stopped, everyone sort of hung about on the set. Presentation were taken aback by this and it took them a finite time to go into a breakdown mode, with a caption etc. RDH was asked to find where the action re-started and cue back ten seconds. Presentation then re-joined the programme and RDH sat back with a quiet “Phew!”…….
Mike Minchin
My only query about Chris’s story was that I don’t remember Presentation going into breakdown mode with caption etc. – I thought the tape just played “unedited”.
The others confirm that Peter Cushing was involved, and tell me that I was wrong about Brenda de Banzie; I can well believe it was Brenda Bruce. David says “The Dancing Men” was one of 10 missing episodes. The 2004 BBC Worldwide box set has “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (in two episodes), “A Study in Scarlet”, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”, “The Sign of Four”, and “The Blue Carbuncle”. Did we really record 16? It seems an odd number for a series that (presumably) they hoped to sell abroad. I’ve checked with my 1968 diary and I only worked on four episodes (the others were recorded on 12th August, 2nd September, 15th November). That year I also worked on “Cold Comfort Farm”, “The Railway Children”, “Middlemarch”, “Man in the Iron Mask”, “Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, and other drama serials, as well as “bread and butter shows”, and going on leave – and I have no note what the episode titles were, only which camera I operated! (On 23.09.1968 it was Camera 1, on a Mole Crane).
Ian Hillson
When I joined (newly colourised) News at AP we only had one colour (RCA) VT machine – so we had to use this form of editing to record News Review on a Sunday afternoon. This meant that at the next “cut and cue” edit, the VT man had to go back and replay the last electronic edit to make sure it had happened OK! The Beeb’s policy of buying kit from every manufacturer (so that no-one had a monopoly, and caused the others to go out of business) meant that the inferior kit (not just VT machines) ended up in News or out in the Regions. Manchester had an RCA TR-22 (?) too (I saw it when I visited TOTP in 1964). I was told that Ampex would replay virtually any tape whereas RCA machines preferred ones recorded on that manufacturer’s machines – don’t know how true that was. Electronic editing through the studio persisted even when backup recording machines became available as it meant less post editing time in VT, providing everything went according to plan
Alan Stokes
When I first mixed a show at Elstree, following the exit of ATV, the sound desks in D and whichever studio housed “EastEnders” in the early days (C?) had Neve desks with a button marked ‘EAR’. It was some time before I discovered that it stood for ‘Edit As Record’. I guess that this was the ATV version of Editec. Others may know exactly what the button did. Was it for monitoring switch-over? Surely the Sound Supervisor didn’t put the blip on to the tape? There was a general warning not to press it! Did anyone and what happened?
Dave Plowman
Perhaps access to the ‘Editec relay’ as fitted to some VTRs? This was a changeover relay which could be used to mute the FB speaker when the machine dropped into record.
Derek Martin
Speaking as one who defected to Sports Department in 1979, I became an expert at editing packages of sports highlights very quickly – VERY QUICKLY! Cutting the tape was an extremely useful tool throughout the reign of 2″ tape recording – it was a bit risky but you couldn’t beat it for speed as there was no dubbing time required. One supposed downside was that your dept had to pay for the tape as it couldn’t be reused but in Sport we got through so many I doubt anyone noticed.
John Nowell
Your experience with ‘recorded as live’ reminds me of one (or more?) “That’s Life” recordings which went wrong. There wasn’t time to re-do it even with Editec so at a suitable point there was a cut from VT to Live. I can’t remember if the audience were still there!
Alan Stokes
… it happened to me at TV Theatre (TVT) on a “That’s Life”.We had to stop and do an Editec pick-up and at the end of recording, VT rang to say that the edit was wrong and the colour phasing was incorrect, or something! We ran the VT as far as possible and cut live for the final ten minutes of the show. The audience were still there but I cannot remember whether I faded up the live audience for the VT section, probably not.
Dave Plowman
I seem to remember them (trying) to keep the audience there if there was a problem with the VT – and they might have to go live. Also remember one occasion where there was and they did a physical cut edit on the tape.
When I moved to Thames in 1976, I was surprised to find Editec in constant use at Teddington Studios for kids’ programmes such as “Rainbow”.Perhaps the main difference was the vision mixer being in charge of putting on the dot, etc – after all no different from a cut. I suppose it would have upset the pecking order in the BBC, though.
With all controlled by the VM, it was working very well. Programme totally finished at the end of the studio session. I also remember some early Beeb experiments with it going horribly wrong (“Troubleshooters”) so it seemed to get dropped as a production tool. I don’t if it started to be used after I left.
Tony Crake
I recall a whole series sometime in the early 1970’s when Editec was used exclusively (including CU drop ins at the end ) called “Brett.” Patrick Allen and Hannah Gordon were the main cast. Players, Wardrobe and Make Up didn’t quite ‘get it’: they had to do so many different set ups that they got quite cross. It was essential that you had a Foldback speaker in the set being used but not too loud and very soon the actors began to take their own cue….
Eventually everybody got used to it but it was hard work. The Director, somebody called possibly Phillip Jenkinson (?? ) said at the end of the last episode… ” I never want to do anything like that EVER again.. but thank you all very much!”!
Dave Wagner
“Going for Gold” with Henry Kelly which recorded from the late 1980s to the 1990s was done entirely with Editec and planned that way.
By the time we moved the show to Elstree we were doing 5 to 6 shows a day, all ready for TX at the end of the day.
All the sound FX including the studio applause came from my sampler mainly because it was very difficult to get any audience into the studio before the evening.
Henry Kelly was so professional that we very rarely had to do the edits more than once.
I had one very hairy evening when my sampler broke down and I had to do everything off ¼ inch tape. Nobody noticed apart from the Sound Supervisor (Alan Stokes I think) who was rather bemused by all the activity behind him.
I’m not sure I could do it now!
Alan Stokes
Yes, Dave, it was I mixing.
If I remember, John Mersh, Duty Manager at TVC, had to break in to Special Projects (or was it Special Facilities by then?) and find a replacement sampler. They had gone home for the evening. Fortunately, there was one sitting on the shelf. He sent it (or did he bring) it up to us in a Taxi and by the second show of the evening we (sorry, you) probably had it loaded and ready to go. I’m still not sure how you (we?) got away with that show off 1/4″, and without any run through, but as you say, nobody else noticed. For that series, I think the VT operator/editor was in a room overlooking the galleries. (Elstree D – ex-ATV) He had a pile of 1″ machines and could be found, often during meal/coffee breaks (nothing changes, by all accounts), ‘tidying up’ the odd edit, from a second, non Editec, machine. I think the editor was Brendan Mallon?
Incidentally, we did have an audience but it was usually very small. On one occasion we had six members of the local Derby and Joan Club and nobody else!
Brendan Mallon
Going for Gold started in TVC as a traditional edit but moved to Studio D in Elstree where it moved to Editec. I edited every series on location at Elstree and worked with many fantastic colleagues.
Initially we used Ampex VRP2 1” VTRs but moved to Sony BVH-2000. On average there were about three planned edits per show as pickups between rounds and as Henry Kelly was amazing the number of other edits per show were normally less than five. The process was I selected the “in” point and rehearsed that through the Gallery. On average the post production for a series of 48 episodes was a few days. This was mostly drop ins for prizes and the like.
Tony Crake, Ian Dow, David J Denness
When I went to OB’s in 1978 they were still using Editec in VT for things like “Gardeners World” from Percy Thrower’s garden, and we reviewed the entire seamless programme and before the end of the day the producer walked away with the tape in his bag complete with Opening Titles and End Credits. Very efficient! The edit point was put on by the VT editor.
And we used to get tea and cakes in Percy’s kitchen. Mrs Thrower had matching tea cups and saucers, it seemed like hundreds of them.
John Howell
I’m afraid the ‘let’s decide at the edit’ ethos was growing among production teams despite the skills of highly competent directors such as Pieter Morpurgo who could turn out a live show with apparent ease. So Editec became the victim of unfamiliarity.
Peter Cook
Talking of VT mis-cues and cock ups, they were not exclusive to TC. In 1981 I was on the camera behind the 16th Green at Royal St Georges, Sandwich where the Open Golf was being covered. Being a potential hole in one, this camera output was recorded continuously. There were 3 holes in one at that event, all on the 16th, for two of which I was on camera. Rex Palmer next day covered the 3rd, (Gordon Brand). The first was I think Roger Chapman who was at the time an amateur. As the previous match was clearing the green, one of the golfers on the tee was taking a practice swing, so I framed up to follow the ball. They don’t wait long! Luckily I glanced over the viewfinder to see two golfers practice swinging. 180 yards away it was only gut instinct which prompted me to whip pan to the golfer not in my frame, just as he struck the ball. I followed it through the air, onto the green and into the hole. I was chuffed at this but was soon equally unchuffed, as when it was transmitted, the AP in VT (one Dennis Kelly as I remember) had cued up the tape before the whip pan. Despite my protestations on talkback later, this error was not corrected. No-one bothered to re-cue the tape, so every time the shot was replayed it included the whip. As you can imagine, when Sam Torrance also scored a hole in one later that day both shots became news of the day and were re played time after time. I know that a whip pan was preferable to missing the shot, but I am sure that the viewing public noticed. How long would it have taken to put another blip on the tape? At least my Torrance shot was unblemished.
Alec Bray
Talking further of VT mis-cues and cock ups … I was working on one programme when the Director said “Run Ampex …” – and nothing happened. On enquiry by the TOM, the guy in VT said “The director said ‘Run Ampex’. I am not an Ampex VT. I am an RCA machine.” After incidents such as this, the general cue became “Run VT”.
