Tech Ops correspondents’ professional eye view on recent TV productions.
“The Last Kingdom”
(October/November 2015 BBC2)
Roger Bunce
I caught the first episode of “The Last Kingdom”. I hadn’t intended to watch it. The trail discouraged me (Bernie – teach them how to make appetising trails!). But it held my attention, unlike most dramas these days. Bernard Cornwell is a master storyteller.
“The Last Kingdom”: a classic ripping yarn; I’m really enjoying the plot; the historical details are largely accurate, and I haven’t seen any crossed eyelines, BUT the settings. . . Why is it always winter? They’ve met, married and had a baby, all in the same winter? Shouldn’t these things take nine months? And why do film makers imagine that the Dark Ages were dark? It was a warm period, which is why the Vikings were able to colonise Greenland, and reach America in relatively ice-free seas. And why is Wessex portrayed as a wilderness? It was a wealthy agricultural area, a few forests preserved for hunting, but mostly farmland! End of grizzle, but I’m still really enjoying it.
Geoff Fletcher
Why is Uhtred always in the same clothes? Where are his arm rings? Why is Uhtred dark haired? The books emphasize the fact that he has fair hair which enables him to easily pass as a Dane. Why have Uhtred’s maritime activities been missed out, like so much of the plot of Bernard Cornwell’s superb books – major stuff I mean. Why have the time lines in the book been so drastically altered? If they can’t afford to do a decent adaptation, why bother? There is so much of what goes to mould Uthred’s complex character missing.
Having said all that, I also enjoy watching it. Alfred is a piece of inspired casting I think, and they make a fair go of the shield wall fighting for example. The Danes are also pretty believable.
I know what some will reply – its all down to cost and running time. That still doesn’t excuse the adaptor changing basic things like Uhtred’s hair colour.
“The Detectorists”
(October/November 2015 BBC2)
Gary Critcher
For me, it was the best comedy of last year.
The second series starts again on BBC4.
If you like slow, developing comedy, with laughs along the way, this stars Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones (who, up until yesterday, I didn’t know is the son of actor Freddie Jones, I’m sure we all remember him in myriad roles in the 1960s and 1970s).
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Keith Wicks
Series 1 was superb. Most stuff transmitted under the title of Comedy these days has little to make me smile, so this series was such a welcome relief. I hadn’t lost my sense of humour after all –- I was just waiting for the right stuff to come along!
A trailer for the new series worries me as it does not reflect the subtlety of the humour that was the hallmark of the first series. I hope this is just an inappropriate trailer and does not indicate that Mackenzie Crook has been persuaded to change his approach. After all, Series 1 was just about perfect.
Roger Bunce
Superb characterisation, lovely scenery, and delightfully ambling plot development. Every time you think you can see where it’s going, it doesn’t bother! I’ve worked with Toby Jones in the past (and Freddy), both great character actors – comic or straight.
Actually, I liked the irony of the trail, but I just hope the second series maintains the standard. The old, mad land-owner, with his invisible dogs, doesn’t seem to be in the first episode, and he was one of my favourite characters. I hope he reappears.
Question – Is this love of Nerds and Nerdy hobbies a bloke thing?
“Downton Abbey”
(01 November 2015 ITV 1)
John Howell
I do think that the Downton Abbey team are to be congratulated on their sequences at Brooklands. It all looked very real and exciting. I did however expect some smoke from the car exhausts, the clearances in the engines of the day wouldn’t have been so tight as to prevent the blue haze!
But very well done! Even the PA microphone looked like a 4017 with its terminals on the back.
Dave Plowman
I thought it looked nothing like the Brooklands I’ve seen in pictures. Not that I expected it to. I expect the reason they didn’t use the bits of the track that still remain are the different road surface from the track they did use.
The cars which obviously were running didn’t produce much in the way of smoke.
I do like the series, but thought last night’s episode had the schmaltz level on ‘kill’.
Ian Dow
But why say in the script that they are going to Brooklands when the location looks nothing like it! No banking in sight, not a fast oval track, hills in the background!
I accept it was not possible to shoot at present day Brooklands and recreate the days when it was a race track – so just invent a fictional track! Brooklands is such an iconic track that a significant minority of viewers would be very aware that the location was nothing like the reality, which then takes away the image created by the rest of the programme.
[Ed: present-day Booklands Museum brochure here:]
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Andrew Dixon, Geoff Fletcher
I reckon it was shot at Goodwood. View of Goodwood in 2005:
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Hugh Sheppard
The ‘Brooklands’ race was shot at Goodwood – and very well done too. But maybe the post-accident fire scenes were at Brooklands, but if so, why did they make so little of the banking?
John Howell
Fair comment, I did miss the banked track, but the excitement of the race and the family’s reaction to it was well handled. The shaky shots and fast cutting, were supported by matching the engine sounds to each car all with a sympathetic music track, great stuff! I forgave them the occasional Scottish ‘age related’ number plate.
What date is it supposed be? I wonder if the PA was a bit too good. The commentator’s microphone wasn’t a 4017, it’s more like an American Turner 99.
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Bill Jenkin
Could it be an RCA type 50A (1933 so not totally accurate for the 1920s)?
Hugh Sheppard
Only on this site would anyone pick out the microphone type in a reconstructed sequence for “Downton”. You could almost smell the nostalgia.
360 degrees of “Strictly Come Dancing”
4th October 2015
Alec Bray
“Strictly Come Dancing” (results show) on 4th October 2015 had a professional’s dance with an additional recording in 360 degrees.
I think it may have been this camera as circled, which I certainly didn’t notice on the original transmission!
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Jeff Booth
Yes. It is vertically above the piano and to the left of the strings.
My question … Why?
Could have been rigged after TX and the sequence re-run (before the Sunday show was recorded).
At least the Sunday show used to be recorded after the live show (because Goodman had to fly to the States to do the US version).
Mike Jordan
“Ariel” seems to have noticed it as well
[Ed: article in Ariel no longer available … sorry…]
“…”Strictly Come Dancing” is the first BBC Entertainment show to experiment with virtual reality and 360 degree video.
Using special cameras, the aim is to deliver a new experience from the centre of the Strictly dance floor, giving fans a never seen before perspective of the professional dancers, the judges and the studio audience. …”
Alec Bray
Queries:
- Are the pictures soft?
- Multi-cameras and 360 degree views – are they in conflict?
“Ariel” reports the Director of Choreography, Jason Gilkison, saying:
“… view through the 360 camera would be able to see things not necessarily picked up on our studio cameras….”
Certainly true – got a good view of the SteadyCam!
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Pat Heigham
I wish someone would tell the Director to instruct the SteadyCam operator
to frame full length, always.
In the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rodgers era, Astaire insisted that he was always
shot ‘head to toe’, during a routine.
The judges on “Strictly… “ can see the footwork – the viewers need to as well!
Peter Cook
Every time I watch dancing or skating on TV, there is a little chip in my head which, after years of “Come Dancing” and “Holiday on Ice”, repeats the instruction “KEEP THE FEET IN SHOT” – it’s a bit like ‘Don’t cross the Line’ which I see now is de riguer even on “Downton…”, with characters flying across my screen as cuts occur.
John Nottage
I googled Youtube360 – went straight to it. Then I sat there with my phone in my lap thinking – why am I just seeing a blurry bit of pink – then I moved my phone and it all came clear! Well …ish anyway. The images weren’t very sharp, but quite fun despite. Not much point in viewing it on your desktop though!
Jeffrey Booth
When my wife watched it, she commented, “What is that cameraman doing there?” Clearly oblivious that cameras have to be there to get the shots!
I think the next development in technology should be ‘virtual SteadyCams’ – get the SteadyCam shot without a SteadyCam!
I have to say the SteadyCam team on the show deserves a pat on the back.
Brian Curtis
Thoroughly enjoyed watching the Strictly360 YouTube video! Yes, watched it on my desktop (one with plenty of grunt I use for video editing work) and using Chrome. Whilst the picture quality was not brilliant I was, like Jeff Booth, very impressed by the work of the SteadyCam operator!
Will be showing this to my “student crew” so that they can get a good insight into just how much a SteadyCam op does!
Graham Maunder
Here, from the horses mouth (well – the dancing Steadicam Op anyway) is an explanation of why the quality seems to vary:
“… Graham, I can answer the video quality issue though… The 360 rig was 2 Red Dragons shooting 6k with Go Pros (yes Go Pros) strapped at 90 deg angles round the other 3 sides and the footage was just stitched together!..”
So now we know!!
Keith Wicks
I see from comments online that a few others have difficulty viewing this file too. Some got a blurred images and others just got a black screen.
I had no problems using Chrome and Firefox on a Mac.
Mike Jordan
Is this another thing to get us to part with our hard earned money as in 3D TV, curved screens, sound bars instead of decent speakers in the teles, no analogue “in phase with the picture” audio o/p on the tele (as in our Panasonic plasma) to connect a simple amplifier or wireless headset for ease of hearing or for poor hearers?
Dave Plowman
The only analogue audio output most sets seem to have these days is the headphone one – are you saying that is out of sync?
Mike Jordan
The Panasonic does have a headphone socket but there seemed to be loads of residual (out of audio band) interference from the plasma coming out as well which caused trouble with our wireless headset transmitter. Of course feeding the transmitter from anything other than the TV o/p (like direct from the Sky box or the DVD) is useless as it would be out of sync due to all the multitude of processing delays in the TV.
The tele does have audio over the HDMI but converter boxes aren’t available as that is designed to feed a soundbar (though why on an HDMI). In the end we got an optical to phono box and that works fine.
Pat Heigham
My second set is a Samsung Smart TV, and yes, the analogue headphone outlet is out of sync – not surprising, as the audio is derived from the digital signal.
A guru I know who is more informed than I, says that it’s no good chasing sync with the built-in audio delay facility in the set, as the processing time for the picture varies according to the complexity (busy-ness) of each shot. Thus it’s always varying compared to the audio.
Let’s just hope that faster processing chips will arrive. After all, one can get microcards with memory storage which would have been unbelievable a few years ago!
Dave Plowman
I also have a Samsung, and the headphone socket wasn’t out of sync. But had a fair amount of background noise on it – so not exactly Hi-Fi.
I use a toslink to analogue converter box to feed the Hi-Fi – which has the added advantage of not having a ground path so no chance of an earth loop.
But on a set costing a great deal of money is it really too much to expect a proper analogue sound output? After all most decent amplifiers still have analogue inputs.
The Cenotaph
08 November 2015
Dick Blencowe
The Remembrance Sunday broadcast from the Cenotaph had good pictures but where was the sound? The band was ok-ish, two rifle mics could be seen just in front of the conductors rostrum and the sound was as would be expected. However when the pipes played at the rear of the band, apart from the bass drum, the pipes were nearly inaudible. The “Last Post” was played by the buglers in big close up shots but the it sounded as if the mic was in the next street.
A sound version of “crossing the line” maybe. We sound guys always tried to match the sound to the pictures but maybe I’m getting old!
Dave Mundy
The trouble is that is isn’t BBC Tel.OBs doing it anymore, they were sold off for a pittance and then closed down. Mot of the guys are now working for BT at Stratford Olympic Park.
Colin Hassell
I’m sure it all came down to planning and preparation – and it now doesn’t matter who owns the kit, the Producer says how much gets spent on planning and rigging days – and you can bet it isn’t as much as it used to be in the good old BBC days.
And I have to disappoint you, the ex-BBC OB guys aren’t all working in Stratford for BT.
As you may know I do work here and can confirm that last Sunday only 1 of the 12 sound crew we had in was with SIS (BBC OBs) at their end. 1 other had jumped ship shortly before it went down, and the only other ex-BBC OB person was me, and I left in 1997.
Similar story on a recent Champions League night, out of 18 crew working 3 were at some point ex-BBC OBs. There are a lot of good people out there, and some not even BBC trained!
But rest assured, our recent colleagues from BBC OBs are working, and often on the same jobs they used to do with BBC OBs – it’s just that the BBC doesn’t own the trucks any longer.
BBC Breakfast and BBC News
Graham Maunder
I did something I rarely do and watched BBC Breakfast (for 12 minutes!) (01 July 2015) During that short time they managed the following:
1. Transmit the weather from the studio with the time of day graphic over the times for the weather chart so it was impossible to know when the various elements would arrive
2. Do a live cross-over to Wimbledon for the sport where they had a ‘live from Vancouver’ graphic over a shot of the presenter (Sally?) clearly standing in Centre Court
3. An interview with a man about putting ice in towels (thrilling) where they seemed to be panning the only HMI they had between him and Sally resulting in plenty of darkness on faces.
4. Back to the studio, followed by another live link to Wimbledon for the weather which had no sound.
5. Back to the studio and another attempt to go back to Wimbledon with the same lighting fiasco as before.
Am I being unreasonable in expecting a better standard from the Beeb?
Barry Bonner
Going down hill? It’s already at the bottom! Last Sunday’s evening opt to BBC London News was fed with BBC News Sport’s bits, no sign of London News, all we go was sport eventually rudely interrupted when at the end we came back to national weather. Red Bee Media apparently do the routing. No apology in the later bulletin. I emailed BBC London News but have not had a reply. Does nobody have an off-air monitor?
John Nowell
Only us it would seem!
I think they’ve probably got it right, if no-one reports a problem, there isn’t one.
Dave Plowman
You don’t need to monitor off air. It’s an automated system, and automation never goes wrong. Only humans make mistakes. And those on duty probably aren’t allowed to touch anything automated anyway. Too far down the pecking order to be allowed to think for themselves.
Graham Maunder
Oh and I almost forgot (until they repeated their laziness on the news), when talking about the 3rd runway at Heathrow, they had shots of an EasyJet plane taking off followed by a Ryanair plane landing! Neither of which happens at Heathrow. Just lazy!!
Geoff Hawkes
As you probably know, as part of the grand reorganisation with the closure of TC, “Breakfast News” comes from Salford but I forwarded these comments to a contact that I have in News at NBH to see what he thought and here’s the reply:
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“…Attached is a classic framing issue. I commented that it was well framed for Radio… When I spoke to the guest (in Leicester), he confirmed that the man that set him up only “did radio”….”
This is one of the problems. Radio people are being allowed to do TV and think they can re-invent the wheel. It makes me extremely frustrated.
Regarding spurious robotic camera moves that it seems aren’t infrequent, particularly on the BBC News Channel, he added:
“…The problem is that the technology isn’t designed to work with our workflow…..that’s why many of the mistakes happen. The technology has an issue that you cannot correct a problem until the technology has “finished” with its action. So an automated camera move cannot be corrected until it has finished its move…”
Nice one, eh?
Ian Hillson
On “Ten O’Clock News” 01July 2015, was it, a red and white stripe super came up that just said “NAME”.
The “world class content” of which the Beeb is so proud – I notice that “Britain Beneath Your Feet” (o2 Jul 2015) was described as “wide-eyed and tiresome” – so glad I didn’t watch it (from the trail it looked to be a breathless-running-around show of the type we used to do back in the 1980s to keep the people working on it employed).
And at this time last week the “Victoria Derbyshire” show (it goes out on BBC1 AND the BBC News Channel after “Breakfast”) was attempting to cover the Souse killings by getting talking heads in to the booked studio to talk about them. Presumable all the hard-news (and hard nosed) people go away to have croissants during this talking heads slot as Freeview channel 130 is effectively off air. Many complaints about that, to which “Newswatch” gave a very brief mention,
Dave Buckley
Ref: London News Sunday 28 June 2015 – my wife and I were in Lanzarote during May and the hotel had feeds of BBC1 (London), BBC 2 (probably England), an ITV region and Ch4 (but no Ch5).
On the Sunday we were there, we watched the BBC 6pm news and the presenter did the usual hand over to the regions, but instead the feed seemed to go back to a 24 hour news studio but with no London news. At the end of the short bulletin came a weather forecast, which ended abruptly with a jump cut to the same presenter looking at camera and then starting another forecast!
How standards have gone down!
Pat Heigham
The gradual demise of Broadcasting standards as once practiced by us – proud to be trained Tech-Ops people, and of the demolition and selling off of all the superbly equipped studio premises over the years, must surely date back to the brainwashing of John Birt by the Daleks: “Ex Terminate, Ex Terminate!”
A still from the trailer at the end of “Cameraman – The Movie”
see the whole movie here:
Wimbledon 2day
(Wimbledon Fortnight)
Hugh Sheppard
“Wimbledon 2day”: “Top Gear” meets “The One Show” meets the “River Pageant”?. Will Clare Balding ever put herself in the hands of the BBC again?
Mike Jordan
Not my sort of show anyway but caught a few minutes 02 July 2015.
I have to agree that it is more now of a chat show.
Apart from “trendy” set, what are all the (bored) people doing around the back? Invited to make it look as though people are interested in more than drooling over a guest (“One Show” background by BH?)
Why the uncomfortable seats – is it to “show some leg”.
More of the horrible (advertising containing) Radio Mic windshields. Isn’t the place reasonably soundproof? Especially why can’t Claire have a personal? But I suppose better than giving them all “Britney headsets” requiring fitting/adjusting (or not) and hopefully correct colour scheme if a non-pink person wearing them.
Tacky!!
Spencer Chapman
They must obviously use the great design skills of BBC associate producers for this Wimbledon travesty.
As a past member of what was the greatest television design and graphic department in the 1960s and 1970s, how can they put forward this rubbish which is now sadly becoming the norm.
Ian Hillson, Roger Bunce
“Wimbledon2day” to “evolve” (apparently) says W1A spokesperson.
Why didn’t they call it Win-bledon?
Newsnight
(various)
Mike Cotton
Last night (18th July 2015) I saw a bit of “Newsnight” whilst waiting for my recorder to sort itself out and saw an unknown (to me) BBC person and an unknown (to me) journalist both talking gibberish over each other, while the interviewer Evan Davies made ineffectual noises over both of them. Bring back Paxo.! And interviewees/spokespersons who are lucid.
I seems to me that proposals these are just a Green Paper for discussion and not what they intend to do to the BBC although the Corporation does need a bit of a haircut and shampoo!
My hairdresser, who comes once a year whether I need a haircut or not, was impressed that I worked for the BBC and told her 16 year old daughter who was with her, and didn’t even mention Saville et al. Perhaps she had her eye on the tip.
From the “Daily Telegaph” 19th July 2015:
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Dave Plowman
Quite. The BBC type was comparing the BBC to Apple. Didn’t quite get that one. And the journo was on about BBC news being the reason for the decline in newspaper sales. Or something.
Only light relief was the BBC types radio mic breaking up and having to go over to a rather distant backup. Which sounded just as ‘woolly’. Can’t anyone find the EQ these days? Perhaps they’re not allowed to touch it.
Alasdair Lawrance
It’s worth remembering that the Tories have a near pathological aversion to anything and everything that can be called a public service. Look at the situation with energy, now a cartel by any other name, the creeping privatisation of the NHS and the services that have been TUPE’d – the ‘Transfer of Undertakings (protection of employment)’ regs. In every case it becomes ‘Public risk and Private Profit’.
Readers of PE #1396 will see on p39 how ATOS, the French firm responsible for assessing benefit claimants, has handled setting-up the computer system for getting information out of GP’s surgeries’ computers. The NAO has stated that costs have gone from £14m to £40m, it’s 4 YEARS late – and it doesn’t work.
For all its faults, the BBC still provides ‘the least worse television in the world’.
Roger Long
The BBC is the least worst broadcaster in the world, good value at £145: I would pay that for R3, R4 and BBC 4, and it is still cheaper than the “Guardian”!
However the BBC has 10-deep layers of management and 10,000 journalists and no production resources and many managers on £180k – and Danny Coen on £385k +
It is profligate with buildings and establishment expansion and parsimonious with programmes. Time for a top down thinning me thinks
Dave Mundy
In the 1980s, when OBs covered party conferences, Margaret Thatcher was miked up ready for an interview and was chatting to Rupert Murdoch who was trying to get his fledgling ‘Sky’ off the ground. He was overheard saying to her,” How can I get the British people to buy my rubbish when they have got the BBC?”. Mrs. Thatcher replied,” We can fix that”. That, friends, is what this Tory attack is all about. Both the NHS and the BBC were set up as non-profit-making organisations to provide benefit to the nation as a whole, this is what they did until the money-men got involved. The rest is history.
Mrs. Thatcher had issues with both the BBC and ITV for refusing to ‘pull’ programs she didn’t like and set about bringing the British media to heel, freezing the licence fee, making both broadcasters give away 25% of their screen time to independents, making ITV companies re-apply for their franchises (surprise, surprise, many didn’t get them back and so we lost some of the best ITV companies), making Radio Times give away full program details to any publisher that wanted them (several new listings magazines sprang up thus reducing the Beeb’s income from RT). The list goes on.
Every politician has accused the Beeb of bias, no matter which party they belong to. If you want to see bias in action watch Murdoch’s reviled Fox News, sister channel to ‘Sky News’ in the US.
The conversation between Mrs. T. and Rupert wasn’t recorded, unfortunately, unlike Gordon Brown’s private mutterings on the radio mic, offered to him by Sky News, recorded and released to the media.
We have a real battle on our hands, the printed press seem scared of Rupert and many have shares in Sky, so they won’t rock the boat.
Dave Plowman
David Cameron was on the board(?) of Carlton TV which ‘won’ the London weekday franchise from Thames TV. Carlton was ‘owned’ by the Green brothers – large donators to the Tory party.
Does anyone remember any notable programme or series initiated by Carlton? I’ll bet many still remember lots from Thames – they’re still being shown.
Ian Hillson
Michael Green not only did a lot of damage to the UK TV production industry (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_Communications) through his acquisitions – but on the way there damaged equipment manufacturers, et al, through the acquisitions and “rationalisation” by Abekas before he decided to get out of manufacturing and into broadcasting.
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/carlton-communications-plc-history/
Just look up “Carlton” or “Abekas” and you’ll find companies which have fallen by the wayside – Quantel (before being bought back), COX Electronics (before being bought back), Solid State Logic…
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Ian Hillson
“Newswatch” on the BBC News Channel has just aired a viewer complaint about this “Newsnight” interview – James Purnell (BBC) versus Stephen Glover (“Daily Mail”) with Evan Davies (not) refereeing – needless to say, “Newswatch” didn’t take the subject any further…
There’s a clip of the “Newsnight” shouting match here:
Roger Bunce
The Gordon Brown’s private muttering thing always worried me. No Sound Man I know would continue recording the output of a radio mic when the wearer was unaware that he was being recorded – otherwise the BBC would have a large archive noises made by Paxo, Humphies etc. whilst on the loo! And even if something private was accidentally recorded, it would never be broadcast. It’s one of those professional codes. The Gordon Brown bigot-gate incident was so obviously dishonest, yet no BBC journalist commented on that aspect of it. Why not? Similarly, the BBC rebroadcast Channel 4’s leaked security-camera footage of the ‘Pleb-Gate’ incident. It had very obviously been edited to give a misleading impression of the timescale, and of events. Yet, again, no BBC journalist (and no Channel 4 journalist) pointed out the blatant dishonesty. Why not? Funny lot Journos!
Roger Long
It was a Sky News Pool feed from an OB staged event walkabout They fed it to the networks and it soon turned up on BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine Show, live with Gordon.
Remember Journos love SCOOPS. Nobody else is very bothered. Most embarrassing to all involved
Pat Heigham
The ‘Loo’ gag was used in one of the ‘Naked Gun’ films – to great comedic effect!
I worked for Michael Winner – he reduced the Continuity Script Girl to tears, three times in a morning.
Lunchtime – he ate with the lead actors in his private cabin.
The actors – big chaps – were fitted with radios which were still transmitting and I listened in.
They were castigating Winner for his treatment of the poor lady, and ‘suggested’ that he
should apologise to her.
I regret that I didn’t actually record the conversation.
In spite of what those at his funeral had to say about him, sycophantically, he was a two-faced individual, who dealt with his artistes in one fashion, and called his crew ‘arseholes’ at every opportunity. (Maybe affectionately……?)
Frankly, if he had addressed me in that manner, I would have smacked him. It would have led to the dismissal of the whole sound crew. But he DIDN’T!
“Sky High!”
To conclude this section, here is a PDF of the BBC Pensioners’ Association document written by Hugh Sheppard about the real cost of watching subscription television
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