Bill Jenkin
I can’t remember if we used VT clocks or some other sort of idents on Film Recordings (only). I remember doing “Play School” on awful 16mm f/r and am fairly certain we used a clock, but did they use anything before VT if on f/r. I suppose it was mostly live in those days.
I am particularly interested about the 1966 “Talking to a Stranger” set of four plays directed by Chris Morahan which was on 35mm f/r and it was very good by then.
Hugh Sheppard
I went to see “The Father” at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford at the end of March. Wonderful, with BAFTA winner Kenneth Cranham in the title role. It’s a wonder if in acting out dementia it doesn’t turn his mind.
Tall. elegant man with a stick and an equally elegant wife (comparing him, not the stick) in the foyer; Chris Morahan and Anna Cartaret that’s who. My wife and Anna immediately in conversation, having met them there a couple of years ago, while Chris and I recalled the early “Z-Cars”, David Rose, John Hopkins and yes, Judi Dench; in one episode on my camera as a tomboy breaking into a flat and as such a star in “Talking to a Stranger”.
Rarely has it been more true to say: “…They don’t make them like that anymore…”, on any number of counts.
Alec Bray
As far as I can remember – from my time at the BBC (1963-1967) – film recordings for a full programme ran to time, as if it were a live programme. It was the TOM’s or later TM2’s responsibility to make sure that f/r was running. There were some items or inserts which were done as film recordings: here the f/r was started, then the item “transmitted”.
The VT clock at this time was used to cue the VT on REPLAY and recorded at the head of the programme to prevent a VT edit (!) whereas film recordings would always have a standard BBC film leader spliced at the start for cueing on replay, so a clock was not needed.
There were some (very few) occasions where I believe f/r was used in place of a second VT as backup (many programmes were recorded on two VT machines and the recordings spot checked before the studio was released from recording: if one VT machine was used the whole programme was replayed by VT before the studio was released from recording). In this case, a VT clock was used for the VT recording.
Here is proof of one program where film recording was used as a backup to VT. It was on “The Idiot”. The second episode was Film Recorded at the same time as the VT recording (and not off-air): the recording details are/were:
RECORDING: (VT/6T/30377 & 16/6ENT/30377) 7.30 – 9.45
Alasdair Lawrance
My lasting memories of f/r are trying to give a little more headroom depending on whether it was 16mm or 35mm, because the pull-down wasn’t good enough. Everyone had a different opinion, and felt free to voice it…..
Dave Plowman
Didn’t the TX monitor in TC5 production (B&W days) have a electronic ‘white’ border to show the telerecording cutoff?
Pat Heigham
Re: telecine leaders for film recordings. I would concur with Alec’s explanation.
I have mentioned elsewhere our course at Wood Norton making a telecine insert to the end-of-term programme. I shot it on 16mm negative, and managed to lay hands on a negative telecine leader – which, when I had a reduction print made for my own library, yielded a Std 8mm BBC leader!
Another post mentions the top of frame cut-off safety area if film recorded. I always understood that the fast pull-down for film telerecordings (I think were Mitchell cameras aimed at a TV monitor) would lose the top two lines of the TV scan. Not a lot, really.
But I do recall an electronic white frame for ‘safe title area’, in case home receivers were not set up to properly display. Do I remember most portable video cameras having this as a switchable function? I think my semi-pro Sony Hi-Def camera offers this overlay in the viewfinder.
Accurate cueing of Telecine or VT was in the hands (or stopwatch) of the gallery PA.
As a result of my film career, I can attend Pinewood’s Theatre 7 for screenings of features for our guild’s viewings and if on 35mm, are supplied on 2000′ spools – there being no pancake feed to the projectors. I was always impressed that the projjie knows his machines’ run-up and laces up the Academy leader accordingly. If I don’t spot the cue dots, the change-overs are impeccable! However, most presentations there are digital, now.
Tony Grant
As far as I can recall, the TK leader ran from a figure ’10’, but the run-up time was 8 seconds. There were lots of hairy moments when a TK insert was run into a live programme, especially things like “Z Cars”, where the poor PA had to judge the dialogue from rehearsal, and cue the insert, whilst all held their breath for the correct lines to be delivered at the rehearsal speed. 8 seconds is a V E R Y L O N G T I M E in live TV!
Alec Bray
At the time I was a TO, the run-up time for VT was 15 (fifteen) seconds. That is a very long time! There were a lot of VT inserts into TOTP, of course, and I was seriously impressed by the DJs who during the last rehearsal just blathered away, then on transmission could speak coherently and come out dead on cue as the floor manager counted down using the fingers.
Alex Thomas
I worked in Telecine from October 1959 until March 1960.
The Cintel 35mm machines (TK 3 & 4) ran up in 8 seconds from a figure 10 in the gate. The picture was stable very quickly but the sound, often from a sepmag track, was not usable until 8 seconds had elapsed.
The EMI 35mm flying spot machines(TK 1 & 2) were a different sort of beast. They could run up almost instantaneously. Very crude 30 Kv EHT system using a transformer but a very elegant system to drive the motors. As I understood it, the frame pulses from CAR were fed to a lot of KT series valves and refined into a 50Hz sine wave. There was also a stop button which, if kept depressed, applied DC to the motors and the machine would freeze immediately.
The 35mm Mechau machines, imported from Germany immediately post war had sepmag machines united to them with a selsyn. Very stable picture immediately on run up but the sound took a good 8 seconds to be stable. Mechau TK8 was modified to show Cinemascope films. It could run at any speed by using a leather clutch. The mirror drum produced a sensible picture at all times, stationary or moving.
I am not sure whether the Mechau machines were war reparation or paid for by Auntie. They ended their professional career doing fog, rain and snow loops.
Chris Eames
I can’t remember where I was told this story about the Mechau TK’s, but I’m pretty sure it was a fairly reliable source.
Apparently, the machines were ordered from Germany shortly before the outbreak of the war. Obviously when war broke out, they were not delivered, and forgotten about.
When the Mechau factory was occupied after the war, fortunately by British troops, the machines were found already crated and addressed. They were promptly sent to their destination. The BBC did not pay a penny!
Pat Heigham
I was copying “This is the BBC” (1959), and a shot in the Production gallery clearly shows TK being cued with ‘8’ in the gate..
Alec Bray
This is the frame that Pat saw in “This is the BBC”
The TK machine is definitely showing an Eight in the Gate.
(Click on the picture below to see a larger or clearer version of this picture:
Click the “X” button (top right) to close the newly opened picture.)
However, this is the News from Ally Pally, and the TK machine is in Bristol: the cue is
“Run Bristol Telecine”.
If there was no sound track – no sepmag for example – it could have a faster start, presumably – and the aircraft taking off could have the sound – non-synched – played from Grams ?
And in any case, as this being “News”, would a faster start on TK be permitted in any (every) case?
The previous scene in the control gallery showed NO TK pictures:
As far as I can tell from the two pictures, some 40 seconds have elapsed between there being no leader showing from TK and there being an 8 in the gate.
Warwick Cross
I seem to remember from my brief time in News at Ally Pally that news 16mm film inserts ran off an ‘8’. I think they were run off a 6 second cue but it’s a long time ago.
Most certainly for TX, all telecines ran off a ’10’. The ’10’ referred to length not time. The numbers on the leader being graduated in feet of celluloid. A cue off a 10 in the gate took 8 seconds to get to the first TX frame on a polygonal prism TK machine.
Ian Hillson
I seem to remember that most News stuff was run from a 5 second-ish start for speech & FX and 10 seconds on the odd occasion it had music (on sepmag). That photo is taken from footage shot in AP gallery B. Gallery A had Peek Freans soundproofing on the walls.
Don’t ask me any more though, it’s all lost in the mists of time!
Pat Heigham
I do recall one TK machine which would run up smoothly from still frame, and was used to animate a picture on the set wall, which was the first frame of the film insert, the studio camera tracking in to match, with a quick lap dissolve.
Would that have been the EMI 35mm?
Alec Bray
On “It’s a Square World” there were a number of times when Michael Bentine would interact with what was on film – an animation, for example. In this situation, we had Back Projection – a full BP projector and mirror onto a screen behind Michael. If there was to be a cut between studio and the film, a copy of the film was also threaded on TK. Now, both BP and TK projectors had to run in sync, but there was no electronic way of achieving this, it was verbal cues and button presses on the individual machines (especially as the big old BP projectors seemed to me – at the time – to huff and puff their way up to running speed.) Most of the time it seemed to work, usually only one or two frames out …
Pat Heigham
I can’t remember the show, but in TVT, a screening of the “London to Brighton in 4 Minutes” film. Very large BP screen for the audience to see, I was tracking the Vinten motorised and lined up squarely to the screen, camera frames up to the projected picture, and it was a strange experience as it felt as though I was driving the Vinten down the railway tracks! Even leaning into the curves! Mix through to TK running the same film, and I thought that the machines might have been selsyn interlocked, but I don’t know exactly how this was achieved. (could be confusing this with how BP was synced with film cameras at Pinewood).
A “Square World” story…
On the winning one for Golden Rose – I was on the boom over Mike Bentine’s counter, there was a large cup of tea in front of him. Superimposed was a telecine cartoon figure who wanders on, then dives into the cup! At that moment, the special FX man under the counter squirted a jet of liquid from underneath the cup – rather too hard, as the jet hit the mic fair and square and for the rest of the scene was dripping everywhere! The trusty old 4033 still worked in spite of being soaked in tea.
Geoff Fletcher
What number did TK machines go up to? I have a very faint recollection of seeing or hearing “Roll TK24” but that might well be erroneous. Also, did we not run TK in from sources outside the BBC on occasions? Or was that recordings carried out by non BBC sources when local TK and/or VT were over committed?
Bernie Newnham
Tk44, I think. In later days it was a Rank Cintel Mk3 which could spool. operators employment but very good for us.
John Howell, Geoff Fletcher, Albert Barber, Mike Giles
“Run” not “Roll” please! “Run” it surely was. Tam Fry used to say “Roll”, but then it’s always the exception that proves the roll!
Geoff Fletcher
Tam Fry inevitably gets a mention in the old diaries: for example, Sunday 18th May 1969, Apollo 10 launch programme:
“…There was a lot of trouble with Tam Fry in the evening over some music duration and a timed track by Frank (Wilkins) . Mum was the FM …“
John Howell
During my days in Pres A in the mid 1960s, TK24 was laced with the COI film at close-down. I have a vague feeling that the operator’s name was Pete Francis ?
Hugh Sheppard
By 1965, when I joined Presentation, Peter Francis (d. 2015) was an Asst. Pres. Editor who almost certainly was previously a regular network director.
Dave Mundy
For the record, another Peter Francis was a VT editor who was a sound enthusiast and had the most incredible audio set-up in his house where the Decca quality control manager used to go to hear how their LPs actually sounded! I also went there.
Alasdair Lawrance
There was a TK Supervisor in Cardiff who had to show new Production Staff the facilities, and how everything worked.
One day, when showing a group a commag machine, he was asked why the sound head was not as close as possible to the gate, since the sound and picture appeared in sync. on the monitor.
Back came the reply – “…It’s because light travels faster than sound. Now over here we have…”
Bernie Newnham
In promotions we used to do a lot of TK transfer of clips to VT. We had booked for us 2x 16mm machines and 2x 35mm machines because they could only go at one speed, so you’d have to run in in real time to find the pieces you needed. One day, one of the machines was a Mk3 – TK42, I think, and it could spool quickly through and work in 16 or 35. I went back to Pat Hubbard and said we didn’t need 4 machines any more, just one Mk3. Not good for TK operators employment but very good for us.
Peter Cook
OB colleagues will remember a rather novel use of a mechanical VT Clock on “Gardeners’ World”. With its help, Percy Thrower was a master at timing his end chat and programmes which he fronted seldom overran. When it came to the last segment of an editeched episode, the remaining time required to ‘stop talking’ was dialled into a VT clock. Tape was run to an edit point, Percy was cued and the VT clock started. When the clock stopped, Percy stopped. End title music was run and hey presto the producer (probably Barrie Edgar) would leave site minutes later with a tape, transmission ready. Well, 2 tapes usually, one programme before and one after lunch.
Worked just as well as fancy (ugly) technology of digital in ear devices!
Roger Bunce
I used to use Roman Numerals when marking up VT Clocks. Really annoyed the Production Team. “It’s not Take One Hundred and Eleven. It’s only take three!” Feels like Take One Hundred and Eleven to us on the floor!
Geoff Fletcher
Sounds like a good wind-up Roger.
Inscientiae quod est non semper null tripudium
What it says is “Ignorance is not always a joy.” and refers to those in the gallery who didn’t realise Roger was using Roman numerals. It was the nearest I could get to “Ignorance is not always bliss!”
