Alec Bray
The first appearance of The Beatles on TOTP was Film Recorded from the TVT (see this Tech Ops page) but it does not seem to have been kept or archived.
But I have come across this:
“Early unseen lost footage of the Beatles performance on Top of the Pops 1964 TOTP”
taken on an 8mm camera hand held somewhere near a TV and vaguely pointing at it.
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Is restoration and cleanup possible– or is it a lost cause?
Here is a still from the video:
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David Brunt
Someone has redubbed the clip from the records and they match quite well.
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It’s actually two songs. It starts out “Can’t Buy Me Love” and becomes “You Can’t Do That” near the end. Both from the same edition of TOTP.
Bernie Newnham
Fairly lost, I would have thought.
I’ve run it through ‘After Effects’. I can stabilise the wobble. I can re-shape it to make it look like the view is square on, and that works pretty well, but the actual picture with all the flicker, rolling bars etc I can’t do anything with.
I think it would be possible, if one took it very seriously, to stabilise the picture enough to be able to remove the strip near the top. And I expect if you took it very, very seriously you could remove the rolling hum bars by syncing up a negative version.
Alec Bray
Many thanks to Bernie for trying with this clip: it is after all the only record of that performance that I have yet come across.
“Rolling bars” was a scourge of anyone trying to get a still photo off CRT TV , let alone movies (!), as the phosphors, although long persistence, gradually dimmed until refreshed on the next scan, and getting the shutter speed right to compensate for this was tricky!
And, of course, the film is overexposed (Pat Heigham).
Pat Heigham, David Brunt
I worked (on Crew 3) in the TVT in the 1960s and this is my story of my first encounter with The Beatles.
I worked for BBC TV Tech Ops during the 1960s and on a Light Entertainment crew which did “Crackerjack” and “Pops and Lenny” for the kids (“Crackerjack” at 5 o’clock).
Each week we used to have a pop group in to do a number – might have been Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddie and the Dreamers – whatever. We had a standard mic rig – covering lead, rhythm and bass guitar and drum kit, plus vocals, so it was pretty well (yawn) “Oh, another lot!”. I used to operate a mini-Fisher boom, located on the circle of the TV Theatre, looking after a side set on the stage apron.
During the Beatles number, for it was they (“Pops and Lenny” from the TV Theatre on 16th May 1963), I was aware that the whole circle was vibrating. Looking round I saw that the complete teenage audience were legging it for the exits, presumably to get to the stage door.
Years later, I was recording an interview with Paul McCartney and chatting with him, told him that this had been my first exposure to The Beatles – and we had a good laugh.
Sorry that they’ve had their sadnesses with life and death and personal affairs, but for a couple of Liverpool lads who had their songs covered by the likes of Sinatra…..got to be good?
Oh, and I worked with Mrs.Starr on “The Spy Who Loved Me”.
Collecting autographs was frowned upon at the Beeb, but never a problem when I shifted to the Film Industry, in fact, on Spy, the producers let us choose several publicity photos and we trotted, cap in hand, to have them signed by the great and good!
Geoff Fletcher
My first diary mention of The Beatles in my BBC TV years is this one from December 1963.
| Saturday 7th December 1963 |
| More play. We all plugged in to the Beatles in TL6. Rex Palmer brought his girlfriend in. Play wasn’t too bad. Home with Jim at night. Watched TW3 with girls downstairs. Sound packed up…. |
Tieline 6 ?
Incidentally, I was then on Crew 4, having joined BBC TV Tech Ops on October 21. I had finished my first spell on cameras attached to Mike Harrison, and been moved over to sound on Dec 2. I was on my first week of my on-crew rotation to sound.
David Brunt
The Beatles were in Liverpool that day, appearing on a tape-delayed “Juke Box Jury” (14:15 for same day TX), followed by a tape-delayed concert from the Odeon Cinema at 15:45, again for later that Saturday.
Could the TL6 be a live direct feed from the recording?
Peter Neill, Graeme Wall
TOTP didn’t start until January 1964—in Manchester. When it moved south it was initially in TC2, moving to Studio G (LG) on the introduction of a live orchestra. It only returned to TC (usually 6 or 8) when it went colour. In Graeme’s experience, TOTP was always TC8 once it went colour.
Geoff Fletcher
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This is me tracking Johnny Lintern on Camera 1 on a Heron at the opening of the TOTP tx ( check the time on my watch – just after 19:30 hrs) on 16 Feb 1967 in a photo by Harry Goodwin. This was in Studio G and the director was Stan Dorfman. We all went to a combined booze-up afterwards as Stan was leaving TOTP and Jim K was leaving Crew 11. Can’t believe I ever looked that young!
David Brunt
From http://z6.invisionfree.com/popscene/index.php?showtopic=8915
16-2-67: Presenter: Alan Freeman (Wiped)
| 1 | Petula Clark | This Is My Song (and charts) | |||
| 12 | New Vaudeville Band | Peek-A-Boo | |||
| NEW | Paul & Barry Ryan | Keep It Out Of Sight | |||
| NEW | P.J. Proby | Nikki Hooky | |||
| 20 | Sandy Posey | Single Girl | |||
| NEW | The Beatles | Strawberry Fields Forever (video) | |||
| NEW | The Beatles | Penny Lane (video) | |||
| 7 | The Tremeloes | Here Comes My Baby | |||
| 1 | Petula Clark | This Is My Song | |||
Geoff Fletcher
Thanks for the TOTP running order. I wasn’t sure exactly when the “Strawberry Fields” and “Penny Lane” “videos” were first shown on TOTP. I think they were actually shot on film and were early manifestations of the now familiar pop-video genre. I recall the studio audience didn’t know whether to dance to them or just stand and watch them on the studio monitors.
Alec Bray
TOTP was still coming from studio G LG in May 1967 (as it did on 18th May 1967)
This was my very last programme as a TO (before then going to college). I had a 12” lens on the turret. The last group on this edition (the then number one in the charts) was the Tremoloes with “Silence is Golden”. The Mole, moving across in front of me to get ready for the final wide shot from the right hand side of the set, got its cable trapped round my ped, with the result that my very last shot ever on TV, a CU on the lead singer on the 12” (so that the Mole could get the wide shot) – was shaky. Ohhh.
A YouTube purporting to be from TOTP – isn’t this date’s version!
18-5-67: Presenter: Jimmy Savile (Wiped)
| 1 | The Tremeloes | Silence Is Golden (and charts) | |||
| NEW | Engelbert Humperdinck | There Goes My Everything | |||
| 4 | The Who | Pictures Of Lily | |||
| 11 | The Beach Boys | Then I Kissed Her (video) | |||
| NEW | The Troggs | Night Of The Long Grass | |||
| 2 | Mamas And The Papas | Dedicated To The One I Love | (crowd dancing) | ||
| 7 | The Kinks | Waterloo Sunset | |||
| 13 | Jimi Hendrix Experience | The Wind Cries Mary | * | ||
| 15 | Jeff Beck | Hi-Ho Silver Lining | |||
| 1 | The Tremeloes | Silence Is Golden |
* although this show is wiped, this performance still exists (somewhere) …
see also: Jimi Hendrix
Ian Hillson
More here:
http://wogew.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-on-top-of-pops.html
(although this repeats sections from the Tech Ops website!)
BH (extension) TV studio was also used for groups unable to go to Manchester, Studio A for TOTP (though not The Beatles).
http://www.tvstudiohistory.co.uk/old%20bbc%20studios.htm#BH
Ideal for miming though as it was in the basement next to the underground line which runs under the road in Portland Place. Probably why it was never used as a sound studio – I seem to remember going past Mixer B9 to get there.
http://www.orbem.co.uk/bh67/bh67_1.htm.
