| Another classic from John Summers It was morning in Studio A. Apart from me it was deserted. I was operating camera 4 that day and was the last camera to be lined up; the rest of the crew was down in the restaurant having morning coffee before rehearsals started. The emitron camera was set up on Test Card "C". I had used my headphone lead to measure the distance from camera to the testcard, and made sure it was squared up. The focus check had been finalised, and racks had said that I could mark in the limits. Remove viewfinder ground glass screen, apply liquid soap from the "gents", and use "bronco" loo paper to wipe off the "old" limits. Back to the Studio, mark in the "new" limits with pencil, after inserting the glass screen and focusing viewfinder. Having "capped up" I was just leaving the Studio for a quick coffee, when Dickie Meakin came limping over to me from racks. His face was ashen, and what seemed unbelievable – he had a 3ft long spike sticking out from both sides of his blood-soaked trousers! "I’ve had a terrible accident Bo, see if you can get Nurse to come up and help me" I heard him say. With out any hanging around I rushed out and along the corridor, down the back stairs to her surgery. Nurse was sitting comfortably, sipping her coffee and reading the newspaper. "Come quick Nurse – Dickie Meakin has had a terrible accident!" I blurted out. Nurse looked at me calmly, glanced at her watch, and said "Tell Dickie I’ll be up in a few minutes". I could not believe what I was hearing, but I was far too young and inexperienced to argue – I just dashed back as fast as I could to see how Dickie was. Studio deserted – no Dickie. Into racks, and there he was, sitting on the high chair, smiling. He saw the look of total disbelief on my face, and slowly pulled his trouser leg up, above his shoe, to reveal the latticework of an artificial leg! Using some "stage" blood, and some white powder from makeup, old trousers from wardrobe, and a spike from the "stagehands" he had completely fooled me! |
| From Terry Brett How I got into lighting sooner than I intended. . . . The scene is studio R2 (Riverside) on a Saturday afternoon with BBC2’s brand spanking new alternative to sport, ‘Open House’. Both Riverside studios were used to produce this magazine show hosted by Gaye Byrne, of the ‘Late Late Show’ on RTE. Stewart Morris produced the show (shudder!). There I was, a mere stripling of a lad, doing one of his first cameras. Standing behind a Pye Mk5 camera on a spring ped with a Varotal Zoom. Unfamiliar with this combination? Well aren’t you the lucky one! For the uninitiated the spring ped was a cheap alternative to the Vinten gas peds and used springs to balance the weight. They were exceedingly heavy and the column range was negligible. The Varotal zoom was a bolt on device with cable operated zoom and focus. Not the most responsive device as it seemed you had to take up the cable slack before anything happened and then overshot at the end. Well here we are on air, a fashion display. Model walks forward with your truly tracking back in front of her. Yes tracking, we didn’t really believe in zooming anyway in those days. Suddenly the ped grinds to a halt. Cameraman and model start to panic. The floor in R2 was notoriously uneven and the ped had stuck to the floor. I, a shadow of my present self, hadn’t the weight to shift it. Stu Lindley came to the rescue and with a bump we were off again, accompanied of course by the kind of sympathy only Stewart Morris can provide. So a very young cameraman, nerve totally gone, faces his next task - a black tap dancer, dressed in black dancing on a black floor! This man was like Sammy Davis Jr. on speed. Guess who had to do the close ups of his feet? Yup, and remember what I said about the zoom? Well with that combination not much was in focus of course - more encouragement from Mr Morris. Shortly after that I was called to see Gwillym Dann and asked if I would like to join the Vision Section. . . . . . |
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