or rather, following the post about Young Dudley!
Alternatively, this could be titles “Our first go on cameras”. Or “Peds we have known”.
Ian Hillson
Weren’t those peds dreadful? Full of springs and a tray of counterweights. Pah!
We had them in Studio A at AP holding up the Marconi Mk 7s and the EMI 201s before them.
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These peds feature in my recurring nightmares because the floorboards (!) in Studio A at AP were so uneven by the late 1960s that they had been covered in hardboard, I seem to remember. When you tracked one of these heavy beasts across a join you could easily rip it up! I had assumed that they had large tiller rings for the Marconi Mk 7s but that EMI 201 pic (early 1968?) seems to have one.
Dudley Darby
There was also one at the back of the Audience at the Greenwood Theatre. At least it didn’t move a lot. Balancing for change of load could be a fairly hazardous operation, those springs had sharp edges and corners. They were made as a cheaper option than the HP.
Roger Bunce
Spring peds. One of them was still being used at the Greenwood Theatre, when "Question Time" was shot there. It was parked at the back, taking frontal shots of the panel from behind the audience.
Steve Edwards
That’s an interesting bit of history as I had wondered which studios had used these dinosaur pedestals. I rescued a few some years ago – they were unbelievably heavy and the most difficult thing I’d moved in ages. Perhaps not one of Vinten’s best design achievements.
Where else were they used – and are there any other pictures of these peds in use? It just might help complete the picture.
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Pat Heigham
The picture of young Dudley so reminds me of the first time I was put in charge of a camera!
Studio G – LG on Grandstand – the teleprinter, only needed to frame up and focus with a CPS Emitron. Perhaps I got it right! Maybe that’s why I elected for Sound.
Ring peds were a problem to Sound, as the chain grate was very audible. But maybe the audience didn’t notice.
Tony Grant
Me too!, although it wasn’t the teleprinter, it was the football results caption, totally static of course, but hey – I’m live, on air, and there are millions watching! Deep breaths, keep calm, and Snr Cam Dickie Ashman keeping a watchful eye over my shoulder, with a pair of cans plugged into the cam t/b to keep an ear on the rest of the prog. Whew.
Clifford Young
My very first time was on "Captain Pugwash", back in the late 1950s, where four cameras were locked off pointing down at very large drawing boards, on which various cartoon scenes were occasionally changed, none of which required even a slight re-framing. So you just watched John Ryan and his team of animators, knelt below the boards, tweaking, twisting, turning and sliding the cardboard levers which created the movements. Fascinating stuff!
Alec Bray
I worked on a number of Pugwash programmes – and I am pretty sure that (at least some) of the cameras panned etc. Shown below is part of a Pugwash caption and it seems clear that the camera needed to pan (4:3 aspect ratio).
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Also, in my time in LG G, two cameras did the football results, "leapfrogging" each other (or rather, going behind the back of each other) so one camera would do league Division one and Division 3 South, and the other Division 2 and Division 3 North and so on. So there was a bit of adjustment to frame up the division charts when in position. As I recall, with the CPS Emitrons, there was always an element of barrel distortion on those football results.
Pat Heigham
And those awful cans which we were issued with. I was asked to give them back when I left – delighted!
Ian Hillson
They were made by STC for telephone operators, poor girls – dunno how long a GPO shift lasted. At least the Mickey Mouse rubber ear attachments made them a little more comfortable, providing you didn’t mind sweaty ears.
