A fictionalised account of something that really happened.

 

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.  He looked up and around the crew stand before him in a semicircle. “Come on, crew, we’ve worked on “Dixon of Dock Green”, we know what to do, we know how to get to the bottom of this!”

Camera 2 was missing.

We had come in Saturday morning to rig for one of the second series of “That Was The Week That Was”.  Piled into  – no, sort of ambled into the Tech Stores of Studio 2 TVC to start getting the Cameras ready for the show. It wasn’t so much that we had to get the Cameras ready for rehearsal – we had rehearsed the same sketch for seven weeks running – and never used it – but the rig required Autocue on the cameras, and headlights sometimes, so that each camera cable had to have these other cables wrapped round them and fastened with camera tape.   Dirty horrible job.  Then there were the floor monitors, the PA rig (with monitors)…  A lot of work in a relatively short time.

Cameras on peds and cranes were bought out of store.  Camera 1 was on the Mole, cameras 3 and 4 were on peds.  But what about Camera 2?

There was the ped, nicely locked down – but there was no camera on the pan and tilt head.

     

“I’ve heard of a disappearing image – but never heard of a disappearing Image Orthicon!”
“Who’d want an Image Orthicon?”

“It’s a closed room mystery!  A favourite scene for crimewriters.”
“Yeah …  Closed room – no one comes in, no one can get out, but a crime has been committed in the room.”
“It must be a security issue.  Security is the key!”
“In this case, it’s a case of not the key – the studios and store rooms are never locked.”
“Oh!”
“It’s only the mics that are kept locked up in stores on floor three.”
“You don’t need a key for those – only paperwork.”

The Senior Cameraman scratched his head.

“Well, perhaps there was a fault with camera,” he said, “and perhaps Racks have got it!”

So off we went to the Vision Apparatus Room and accosted the Technical Assistants manning the vision stuff there.  

“You got Camera 2?” we asked.  
“No, why, what’s up?”
“Camera 2 is missing!”
“Can’t be.  It was there yesterday.”
“Well, it’s not here today.”
“Dunno.  We don’t know where it’s gone.”
“What about its CCU?”

So Racks looked about, and sure enough, the Camera Control Unit for Camera 2 was safely there in Racks. (Not safe and sound, surely!)

“Perhaps the camera was left out after the last show, and the audience rostra have been built on top of it!”

This was a bright suggestion from one of the crew.  TW3 did not have one of the portable, extendable (retractable) seating units that were used in most of the studios.  

     

No!  The audience seating in TC2 for TW3 was made up of various sizes of hollow wooden rostra blocks, fastened together, on which the seats were placed. It was reasonably light, and not “braked” as the portable retractable audience seating was.  The complete audience rostra could be moved – one crew had already managed this with the Mole crane during one rehearsal.

So the lowest of the low on the crew were dispatched to crawl through the complete audience rostra in case the missing camera was inside.  No such luck! So, more dustier than usual.

“All the camera cables are here in stores, so it must have been taken by someone who has the CCU AND the right camera cables.”
“Perhaps Engineering have got it?”
“Surely Racks would know if Engineering have taken it?
“Not if they came down during the night.  TAs leave when the lines are cleared down or when the derig is complete (or before) as we do.”
“Let’s go and ask Engineering.”

Hmm.  There are a number of places to try.  RandD, CAR, at a pinch Standards Conversion and Network Control.  People were despatched to all Engineering areas – and drew a blank at every one of them.

“We’ll have to use the live spare!” said the Senior Cameraman.  “It means we will have no live spare for the show tonight!”

On live shows – and if there was a spare camera (which was not always the case,  especially in LG) – the spare camera would be cabled up, lined up and warmed up, mounted on a suitable mount and pointed at something of intrinsic interest to Tech Ops – often the quick change tent if there was one.  The idea was that if a camera had a major fault, the live spare could be substituted reasonably quickly. Well, that was the theory.  More often than not, a bit of percussive maintenance was applied to the ailing camera.

So the live spare was commandeered for the show.  Can’t remember what happened about the cue light.

Meanwhile, the crewed-out members of the crew continued to look for the camera.

They searched TC1, TC2, TC3,
They searched through the CAR, VAR and SAR.
They looked in the crew room, they looked in the loos,
And finally researched the BAR.

(Red tea bar, obviously, …)

They searched through the walkways, they searched through the docks.
TAs were questioned with glee.
They looked at the scene hoists, they checked lighting bars,
But the camera had vanished, you see.

 

     

 

As far as we know, the camera was never found…

Remembered by Alec Bray and confirmed by Doug Coldwell

PS – don’t trust the pictures – they have been heavily reworked in a graphics package.