Aquestion about 8mm surviving clips

[Kevin Wilson]

The Macra Terror Remaining 8mm Footage
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CotGuskLGI

how come these are so short, and only bits a pieces. Did the original tape degrade, or were the full shows not recorded by these people. Seem odd that it is just a few seconds here and there

[Joe Haynes]

Its mainly because 8MM film was relatively expensive and would only record roughly 3 mins per cartridge. The maker of these clips recorded their favourite moments

[johnforbes]

Are these clips and all the others that the youtube user has posted, available on dvd (been cleaned up etc) can't say i've seen his posted footage from this and his other stories before.

[Marty Schultz]

The Doctor Who Lost in Time DVD set would be what you are looking for.

[Richard Bignell]

Nov 1, 2014 17:01:47 GMT Kevin Wilson said:

The Macra Terror Remaining 8mm Footage
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CotGuskLGI

how come these are so short, and only bits a pieces. Did the original tape degrade, or were the full shows not recorded by these people. Seem odd that it is just a few seconds here and there

They were originally filmed, just as you see them.

Although a popular hobby, 8mm film (which included the processing) wasn't that cheap. In the mid 1960s, a reel of Standard-8 film would cost £1.9s.7d, which would equate to around £26 in today's money. This would give you one 25-foot length of 16mm film. The film would be loaded, you would expose the 25-feet on one half of the frame, then turn the film over and reload before exposing the second half. In processing, the film would then be split down the middle and joined at the ends to create a 50-foot reel. On average, a 50-foot reel would last about four minutes, depending on the speed of the camera, so you could expose two minutes worth before having to reload. With Super-8 film, which came in a sealed 50-foot cartridge that didn't need reloading, you could expose the entire length in one go.

It's also worth noting that many cine cameras at that time were still using clockwork motors, that would often run only 5-8 feet through the camera before having to be rewound, so it limited how much you could shoot in one go anyway. You can also add to that that often any footage indicators on the camera that would indicate how much you'd used would all be a little rough in their calculation, so you never wholly relied on them.

As such, cine photographers would often be very aware of how long they were keeping their finger on the trigger of their camera for, as their precious footage was gradually eaten up. Back in 1981 (in my pre-VHS days), I took a reel of cine film from the last episode of Logopolis and my footage was much the same, short and sweet snippets of various scenes, but all the time being very concious of how much film was being run through the camera.

Due to the costs involved, you really wouldn't have found anyone recording an entire episode on 8mm cine film. To cover an entire episode, you'd need at least six reels, which would have amounted to an average man's wages for a full week back in the 1960s. Even then, it would have been silent, as sound film didn't come in until 1973.

[Peter Ledwith]

very interesting richard. good post.

[Kevin Wilson]

Thanks so much for the reply.

[Richard Develyn]

Have we ever found the person who filmed them? With TP4 in particular it looks very much like more was filmed than we have and that the bits that we have are what someone considered to be "highlights" - in particular, Hartnell's dialog.

[Richard Bignell]

Yes, the person who took them is known, but he had no desire for his name to be made public, which is fair enough.

The clips we have are as he shot them however. There is nothing more.

[George D]

Im sure this is around somewhere, but do we know what country they were recorded in?

[Richard Bignell]

The were shot in Australia.

[charles drummel]

Nov 8, 2014 15:14:54 GMT Richard Develyn said:

Have we ever found the person who filmed them? With TP4 in particular it looks very much like more was filmed than we have and that the bits that we have are what someone considered to be "highlights" - in particular, Hartnell's dialog.

It's like that for many of the episodes. It's surely no coincidence that we get Hartnell's last lines, Pat's first moments, and Steven's last scene, for example (the person seemed to capture a lot of Steven in general).

These serials were repeated in Australia, so it's possible that they were recorded on a second viewing to get the best parts. 

Richard: they're all confirmed to be from a single person, right? I respect their privacy, of course. But it's too bad as well, it would be nice to hear their story. I very much enjoyed the Special Feature about the people who recorded off-air audio.

[George D]

That's a valid question.
I'm curious of they have or were willing to write the story if their name wasn't attached.

[Jon Preddle]

To me, this reel of clips comes across as being a selection of edited highlights only. I think whomever it was who took them just pointed the camera at the screen and pressed the button every now and then, capturing bits and pieces as they went, a bit like John Cura snapping away taking odd shots every few seconds.

After the films came back, they then chopped out and discarded the parts they didn't want (possibly anything that was out of focus, had too much strobing, or was poorly framed -- i.e. too much edge of the TV screen?) or simply didn't like -- so the actual selection of the clips we now have was one made after filming rather than during filming.

It's pretty clear that the reel of clips we have seen has been re-edited into story order (but with some shots from Reign being miss-sequenced and a couple (such as Web Planet and Savages) somehow being duplicated) -- whether this re-ordering was done by the original filmmaker during their cull, or by one of those who later had possession of the films is unknown -- so we don't really know the actual order in which they were originally taken. If that order could be determined, we'd get a clearer idea of when and where the shots were taken.

(Doesn't 8mm have frame numbers printed along the sprocket holes? Whomever possesses the original strip of film could perhaps be able to determine the correct order by looking at those numbers?)

I doubt that they took shots during the repeats because they liked them the first time round, because that would mean they'd have a good recall of the stories, and which episodes they were, and knew exactly when each shot was coming up. (Plus, not all the stories were repeated, so those could only have been taken during the initial screening.)

FWIW, I reckon the clips were taken from the run that commenced in Sydney from 3 October 1966 to mid December 1966; this was the first run of Space Museum to Myth Makers, which was then immediately followed by repeats of Reign, Giants, Romans (of which there are no clips), and Web Planet.

Significantly, there are no images at all from the run of eps that covered the second half of Web Planet, Crusade (which were repeats), Massacre, The Ark, Toymaker or Gunfighters (first run) -- which was the block of stories that aired between mid December 1966 and 16 Jan 1967. Presumably they were away those weeks (Christmas holidays?) and unable to film anything...?

The person recommenced shooting a few months later with the first run screenings from 31 March 1967 to January 1968; hence the spread of clips from Savages to Faceless Ones.

There's also a big chunk missing from the middle of season four. It seems odd that they didn't film anything from that run. Or maybe they did! Maybe all those eps were filmed on the same roll of film, but for whatever reason the clips were not kept. (There's a multitude of potential reasons: the entire roll was out of focus; it was accidentally exposed before or ruined during processing; it got lost; the dog ate it...?)

[mattplace]

Nov 8, 2014 20:02:55 GMT charles drummel said:

Nov 8, 2014 15:14:54 GMT Richard Develyn said:

.. and Steven's last scene, for example (the person seemed to capture a lot of Steven in general).
s. 

Thats because Steven Rocks!!