I'm not attempting to lecture or claim a moral standpoint, but I do think that this forum generates an immense amount of rubbish about the subject of missing television. Why do I think that? Largely because of the large amount of mixed up data, misinformation and cod theories often presented as fact.
I couldn't agree more. I don't want to get into a big debate about why things were kept and why they weren't. Suffice it to say that I am happy that we have so much material surviving. But criticising any company for a past policy regarding archive retention is pointless. I think we can take it as read that everyone here would prefer that more material survived the ravages of time. Beyond that there is nothing more to be said because it's just crying over spilt milk.
So, moving things on a bit, I'm sure some want to know what material is likely to be seen in the Apollo 11 programme. To outline what material I began with is a good place to start. There are 12 reels of original videotape material in the BBC archive which are 60 and 90 minute spools. These consist of (roughly) the following:
1. Astronaut interviews/Launch day
2. Telecast/Michael Charlton
3. Telecast - Lunar Module
4. Telecast - Lunar Orbit
5. Lunar Landing/Charlton
6. Moonwalk 1
7. Charlton/Moonwalk 2
8. Moonwalk 3/Charlton
9. Lunar Ascent/Charlton
10. Splashdown 1
11. Splashdown 2
12. Splashdown 3
In addition there are 5 DAT recordings, dubbed from Off-Air quarter inch tapes. These cover the following:
1. Launch Programme (slightly incomplete)
2. Various bulletins including Lunar Orbit programme
3. Lunar Module Highlights programme
3. Moonwalk (First Hour)
4. Lunar Landing
5. Lunar Ascent
6. Splashdown
My brief was to recreate as far as possible the various broadcasts over the 8 days into a 2 hour programme. I firstly, having logged the existing material looked at the previous broadcasts of Apollo 10 and Apollo 8. I also looked at how Apollo 12 had been handled as I felt that this may give me a clue as to how items had been packaged. Apollo 10's launch programme was also the first to use the Space Studio with the same set and moon model that was used for Apollo 11. It was tempting to use material from this programme which dealt with explanations of the mission but I decided to remain pure to the Apollo 11 material.
In addition I also had access to film insert material. Having said that, much of this was logged under a different programme number to the videotape spools and consisted of the following:
1. Kennedy Speech
2. Spacesuit
3. Blast Escape Room
4. Saturn V
5. Command Module
In the main these items were presented by James Burke and some of it was also logged under Apollo 10...but only with a main title of 'Space Films'. Much of the rare material that's in the programme from film wasn't logged under Apollo at all but under the spurious 'Space Films' title! Some only came to light last week. Another film I have used which was listed under Apollo 10 was 'Weightless Flying'. This I think was originally an insert for 'Tomorrow's World'.
To assist in telling the story of Apollo 11, I also filmed some links with Patrick Moore plus some new voice over which helps clarify certain material where I don't have the original commentary, or where our knowledge of the moon has moved on.
I also had access to the BBC News film items which were all in colour. That said, the only one I wanted to use was a film piece about how to escape from the Saturn V in an emergency, presented by Reg Turnill from the Apollo 11 launch pad. I would have used this if I had not found the 'Blast Escape Room' film which was the actual film insert used in the launch programme. So the running order of the programme is as follows.
Moon Night Link
Titles (Created from Nasa Stills +plus original Apollo 11 logo)
Patrick introduction
Launch day - This features the live satellite feed from Cape Kennedy and Michael Charltons live commentary.
Blast Escape Room film insert - introduced by Cliff Michelmore
Launch with Michael Charlton live commentary
Patrick Link and astronaut film of Transposition and Docking
Command Module film - presented by James Burke
Telecast - Earth. Lunar Module checkout.
At this point I should add that I do not have the BBC audio for every broadcast, so I am indebted to Graham Briddon who has leant me a 16mm film of certain key moments from the mission. This is a highly unusual film in that it contains what seems to be a film recording from an off-air video recording. The sound is very good, better that the quarter inch PasB's. It features a clip of a film insert with James Burke practicing weightless training, the lunar module entry which seems to be from a highlights programme and live recording of Buzz Aldrin in the lunar module itself. All of this has a commentary from James Burke plus a closing in vision link from Burke in the Space Studio. You even get a glimpse of Patrick Moore! This telecast material does indeed survive in colour. The entry into the lunar module is not though on the BBC's insert tapes but the lunar module checkout is. I have used both, getting the colour pictures from Nasa (who sent me 21 hours of footage).
I should add that although the BBC material is a 525 to 625 conversion done live using the old standards converter from a dodgy satellite feed, it is superior in many ways to the footage supplied by Nasa which are (good) colour film recordings.
I have used at the end of this an edited interview with mission director George Hage who was interviewed live I think by Michael Charlton. Again this is colour material although I have taken the liberty of correcting the 5 frame audio offset!
We then have 10 minutes (it was 23) of the lunar orbit telecast. This was broadcast live by the BBC and is commentated by James Burke, Michael Charlton and Patrick Moore. It is basically live coverage of the moons surface from lunar orbit. It is fascinating. This material was once again in the BBC library and I have added the PasB audio to it.
There are three areas where I have used Nasa footage to tell the story that couldn't be told in 1969. There was no live video material of the landing or lunar ascent from the moon. Here I used the Mission control vision from the BBC mastertapes, added the audio from the PasB audio recording and then used the 16mm film footage shot from the lunar module for both. OK, it's not as was broadcast but the alternative is a shot of Mission control during these sections with some on screen graphics. I have used quite a lot of this during the landing.
For the Moonwalk, the BBC has a complete copy which is also on VT. Nasa sent me a film recording! The BBC's is one of the better quality ones although it has suffered two satellite journeys and is very noisy. The moonwalk has James Burke and Patrick Moores commentary from the audio PasB plus the live video material which as you all know is black and white. I have edited this material down from two and a half hours to around 40 minutes. To be fair, the bulk of the most interesting material is in the first hour and the live Burke/Moore commentary only covers this period, the audio PasB stopping after that amount of time. I have also added some colour 16mm footage to this. I was quite careful because I didn't want to lose the impact of the live pictures, so I haven't used the colour footage of Armstrong making his first step but stayed with the grainy black and white images.
I have also added a motion blur filter to this footage. Before anyone accuses me of tampering I should explain why I did this. Firstly, the pictures are extremely noisy. With a low bit rate broadcast on BBC4 the picture would display compression artefacts worse than anything I could do to it. Secondly, the camera that was used to relay the pictures back was a 320 line tube camera outputting 10 progressive frames per second. These pictures were then scan converted to 525/60 and satted to Houston. They were then satted to London and put through the BBC converter.
Because of the low electronic frame rate I have worked out that there is a new frame approximately every 2.5 frames. Therefore I can add a motion blur effect across two frames without affecting the motion within the video stream. What it does do though is smooth out any noise. The visual appearence then is of very clean images in comparison to what was there. Those keen enough will spot one very short section that I missed. You can make your own judgement on the result.
Finally, I have also used some colour 16mm footage that Buzz Aldin shot from the window of the lunar module of the landing site plus some footage Michael Collins shot from lunar orbit. The closing is shots of the splashdown and the Apollo crew in quarantine on the USS Hornet.
Music to open and close is the identical orchestral version of Also Sprach Zarathustra which was used for the Apollo Space Unit broadcasts!
So, there we have it. The programme lasts 1 hour, 58 minutes and two seconds and I hope you all enjoy it, particularly the one or two surprises I've not mentioned.
If you do enjoy it please do offer feedback to the BBC. It would be great to do a series of these archive Apollo missions and there is a lot more material for other missions in the library.
Regards,
Paul