[Tech1] TV History

[Chris Woolf]

On 03/07/2020 10:00, Mike Jordan via Tech1 wrote:
> It isn’t just memories and tharsands of photos but all the Wood Norton 
> etc training information (back to first course) OB planning sheets, 
> souvenir booklets, programme videos...

The point to recognise is that, while many individual items may be of 
little historical worth, these artefacts add up to a record of a craft 
that has had a significant effect on our culture for ~70 years. It is a 
craft that is dying out because productions simply aren't made in the 
same fashion now, and won't be again in the future. Television will 
still exist but not the version that was forged from the 50s till the 80 
or 90s. Once automation, reduced crewing, self-shooting etc took over 
the old craft faded, and though there are remnants still functioning 
(and merging with established film techniques) they are at best obsolescent.

There are close parallels with some of the skills that arose during the 
early part of the industrial revolution, and disappeared by the end of 
it because the crafts were superseded by different techniques. As an 
instance, early traction engines were built on an individual basis by 
groups of craftsmen: later on factory building and standardisation of 
common parts changed all this, in much the same way that robot welding 
has taken over from craftspeople in car-making and other industries.

There's no point in weeping over such changes, but there ~is~ a powerful 
argument for documenting a craft before it becomes forgotten, and 
describing many of its details that would be hard to rediscover once 
everyone concerned is pushing Vintern peds and waving Fisher booms in 
the hereafter.

Chris Woolf


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