In case you missed it, this is the Eng Inf from
1970 that covers film at the Spur:
https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/archive/pdffiles/engineering/bbc_engineering_81.pdf
There's a loop on the front-left transport in the
picture. We rarely if ever ran them on the Keller,
because of the propensity to chew up the stock and
cause chaos, but... this makes some sense:
It's loaded on the second record-capable
transport, and would be long enough for probably
about 15-20secs. Assuming the drop-out capability
was tweaked-up (i.e. _stopping_ recording
cleanly), you could drop a disk of traffic or
anything else onto it.
This would mean you could drop-in on the main
record transport anywhere you needed to, without
getting an audible discontinuity ("punch-in" in
recording studio parlance).
Obviously there was an edit or drop-out (not
dropout!) somewhere on the loop, but it would
always be in the same place. Handy for tricky
transitions and/or awkward gram-spinning
sequences. I once did an entire cricket over (it
came in to us entirely mute!), complete with bat
hitting ball and crowd reaction, off disc. Nobody
was more surprised than me when it worked! I think
we broke it down ball-by-ball...
Of course it might just have been a loop of tone
for line-up!
Aside: Loops were extensively used in cinema for
dialogue replacement. The sound assistant editor
would prepare them with location-recorded dialogue
lines, and actors would work through each scene,
hearing their live version to help with lip-sync.
It's known as 'looping' or ADR (automatic dialogue
replacement), and is still very common, although
these days all digital.
We couldn't do any of that safely on the Keller,
but when the dubbing theatre was upgraded to
Perfectone Rapimags in the early 1980s, the
transports were vertical in 19" bays (electronic
sync by shaft encoders and pulse counters).
Loops could then be accommodated by a sort of
clothes-horse arrangement, sticking out sideways
from the top of the bay, and rollers with weights
on provided the necessary tension. It was hardly
ever used.
SCHEDULING:
Back on telly news, there was an early editorial
meeting, where the overnight journalist(s) would
brief the editor on stories of interest, and
planned stuff in the newsroom diary would be
considered also.
Film crews would be allocated and dispatched.
At 0930 there was an early meeting for main
players on the programme: journalists in-base,
film editors, the studio TM and Sound Super (SS),
graphics, and anyone else who needed to know
detail. The provisional running order was
explained. Any issues arising could be further
discussed, for example if a second sound person
was needed to swing grams, I'd be calling the
audio office to get someone allocated to us
(unusual to get that much notice!).
Most filming happened in the morning, and would've
already been under way by the 0930h meeting with a
deadline of 1100h or 1130h for the film cans to be
with the dispatch rider. They'd aim to be back in
base by 1200-1230h, and the film went straight
into the lab. Transfers, if necessary, would start
in TK (for commag) as soon as it was dry, and
cutting the story as soon as possible after that.
Both the film crew staff and the journalists had
PMR back to the newsroom. Our base station was on
Mendip mast, so covered the region pretty well.
There was a second meeting around 1400h, covering
a (nearly) finalized running order, confirming
studio requirements and other issues. There were
usually fewer journalists in that meeting (they
were either writing, still out, or in the cutting
rooms, working on story and script).
Journalist and editor together would build each
story. If there was time and availability they
might record a commentary (OOV "out of vision")
script in the dubbing theatre to picture, or
'wild' in the actual TV studio, to 1/4" for
transfer to sepmag. Often, the journalist would do
the voiceover live, from an unused presenter desk
in the studio.
Studio afternoons could also get busy.
We'd sometimes get time to see a mute piece of
film run from TK, so we could prep sound FX for
it. Much time was spent doing transfers from TK to
VT. More on this in a sec.
When it got colour videotape, Bristol originally
had a only an edit pair of VR2000 quad machines,
but they were necessary for Points West: the
shortest item in the programme was a minimum of
15secs (a simple news item read by a presenter).
That's too short a time to cue up a TK machine, or
VT for that matter.
Important aside: news film used a different leader
to network programmes (on film).
Network and Academy leaders counted in 35mm feet
(about 0.6-7secs per number in the countdown).
IIRC, the sync cross was 12 feet back from picture
start, meaning you'd cue a network show on TK from
the sync cross, for a 10sec countdown.
News leaders counted in seconds, not feet. To
match the original Quad VT cue-up point (giving 10
seconds to run up and lock to station pulses), TK
would cue up on "10" rather than the sync cross.
News leaders also had a vertical white bar moving
left-to-right between the numbered frames. This
meant at a glance you could tell if TK was running
and in which direction!
When TK ran, there should have then been 6+ secs
of tone, sync plop on '3' then 3 secs of silence
before first frame (this could also be first
shot's sound and picture early for fading-up
purposes).
But the sync cross (which you never see) was 20s
back from first frame (this is important, as
there's no audible sync point on '10'). Aside:
Sync plop is on '4' with an 'Academy' BBC leader.
Obviously if TK was lacing up a single item (very
unusual for a live show), they'd be doing it at
least two programme items earlier than it was
needed, at the latest (find the sync crosses, lock
transports together, run down single speed and
park on "10" for the cue).
TK usually had a made-up full reel for
transmission, with every item they were to play in
cut together in order. I'm not sure if the film
editor(s) did this or the TK operator - I think
the latter. Late items meant unloading the main
roll, lacing the item as above and the re-lacing
the main roll. I'm not sure how they achieved it,
but a film splicer might have been involved.
Why transfers to VT? If you had two "with moving
pictures" news items back-to-back, you had to play
them in from different sources, as no machine
(neither VT nor TK) could cue up in time for the
second item.
TK was particularly slow - I have a vague memory
that our earliest polyprism machine could only
manage single speed forward or reverse, and even
the Cintel Mk2 was only double speed. Either way I
have done a couple of horrendous live shows where
for some reason TK missed a cue near the beginning
of the show, and never caught up!
So a crucial part of the director's
responsibilities during the afternoon was
transferring film to VT as/when stories became
available to do it, and ensuring she hadn't got
consecutive items coming from the same source.
It was handy for me as a SS, as I had to be there
to take sound through the desk, and it was a
chance to spot lip sync errors and holes in the
soundtracks.
So, by around 1600-1630, hopefully all transfers
were done and scripts typed up. Thus a first
proper script-check, giving a chance to write notes.
There followed a rehearsal, initially a proper one
(as-live), but over the years this became a
stagger-through of any tricky bits, and finally no
rehearsal at all.
Finally, sometimes only a few minutes before
transmission, the opening sequence of the show
would be recorded to VT (I suspect it still is),
with "coming-up in tonight's show" clips and a bed
of music. This was brilliant as it allowed the
studio to calmly go live, with a minute or two's
straightforward stuff off VTA before actually
coming back to the studio live.
Obviously 'stuff' happened to derail all this
careful prep. Late stories were common, so I often
had film editors cueing me over my shoulder during
the live show, to hide gaps in sound or yelling
"cue" over talkback to their journalist in the
studio (nobody else knew where the cues should be
at that point in the day!).
This was a bit after we had mostly ditched film
for video on location:
My very first day on my own as SS (literally) it
was a quiet Monday, and I was working alongside a
radio producer I knew quite well, who'd recently
transferred across to television from Radio 4.
Sarah was very organised, and we'd got all the
transfers done by about 1600h, and even had time
for a coffee break (unheard of!). About 1630h a
breathless journalist poked his head round the
gallery door, to announce to the world "There's
been a riot in St. Pauls."
That woke us up a bit! The original script
immediately went out of the window (as did all the
timings). I was getting new script pages dropped
over my shoulder whilst still transmitting the
previous one, and a breathless journalist was
faded up as he clipped-on a personal mic in the
studio, whilst sliding into his seat. Both VT and
TK didn't even see the running order, let alone
have a make-up reel. Lots of stories were simply
dropped, which made life a bit easier, and I don't
remember we missed any of the cues at all.
Live TV news? Loved every minute of it.
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