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Post by Andy Henderson on Mar 1, 2006 18:49:54 GMT
again, all of this is conjecture (re the moon landing tapes), now it well be that two editions of 'Ask Zena Skinner' are on lovely 625 b/w VT and the Moon landing isn't so instead of having Moore and Burke we have Zena giving advice on how to cook egg yolk properly. No kidding either!
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Post by Westy 2 on Mar 1, 2006 19:42:40 GMT
Cracking prog, MR V !
(And made locally too - BBC Birmingham !)
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Post by Clive Shaw on Mar 1, 2006 20:18:57 GMT
I think the most likely situation is that the BBC studio output was never actually recorded in the first place. I'll give the BBC the benefit of the doubt on this, for major national events, the BBC do seem good as retaining copies of things, for all the other Apollo missions the BBC still have the tapes. So it would be odd indeed if the BBC had not recorded such a major event in the first place. If the tapes were accidently wiped then thats the BBCs own fault for not being more careful. Thanks Paul for your hard work in collecting together what remains, I have yet to watch it but from comments so far it is a must see
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Mar 2, 2006 0:00:28 GMT
Cracking prog, MR V ! (And made locally too - BBC Birmingham !) Thanks to all who watched and enjoyed the programme. Of course if you really liked it do show your appreciation and tell the BBC! To answer a few questions about this; the first black and white VT link with James Burke was taken from the 16/07/69 PasB recording of that nights '24 Hours', a current affairs programme. I was under some pressure to edit it to remove reference to Lunar 15 but I think we got away with it with Patrick's link. The poorer quality link with James Burke was originally recorded on some sort of 405 line video system, a reel to reel affair I suspect with dodgy reception. At some point in the past this was film recorded rather well to 16mm commag neg. This was the film loaned to me by Graham Briddon. It also contains a lot of sound which I didn't have on the audio PasB which was in the library from an off-air. I have taken some liberties again with the launch material. The original broadcast suffered from a disruption to the satellite feed. Michael Charlton is commentating to pictures he can see in Houston so he knows nothing of the reception problems in the UK and carries on. The pictures of the astronauts eating breakfast were preceded by pictures of them eating a meal the night before. I removed these because there is only so much footage of people eating you can usefully get away with. I also replaced this footage with a better quality conversion of the original rushes, tidying up one or two dodgy film edits along the way. By the time Charlton talks about "this great shot of the three astronauts leaving the manned spacecraft center" the pictures had been lost in the UK so we're effectively seeing them for the first time in the UK in context. There are one or two studio pieces from Michelmore, Burke and Moore plus the film of the blast escape room which which broke up the launch coverage from the cape and the latter is included virtually intact. I tidied up one nasty film join. The launch is covered in meticulous detail but limited to the shots of the rocket on the pad you can see. There is one humourous moment I cut out where the keyed silhouette of an operative from the ABC TV corp adjusts the live countdown caption and is himself keyed over the action. Again, I think the final 6 minutes and the earlier material is enough to convey the sense of watching the live event and I deliberately didn't use the Patrick Moore of today commentating over it. Michael Charltons contemporary commentary works so well. I cut out of the coverage after the point of first stage separation. I used some film that Nasa sent me of this as it was not clear on the live coverage. I should add that the separation I used is Apollo 11. The first stage separation used in the 'Days That Shook The World' programme earlier is from the film Moonwalk One' and I believe that that separation is in fact Apollo 12. All the later sections involving better quality images with Burke/Moore/Charlton live commentary has had the audio of the PasB sound retimed exactly to the correct vision, including the Moonwalk. I've tried to include all the contemporary commentary removing only as live 'errors' by Burke and Charlton. The one area where I was concerned things dragged a little was the 10 minute sequence of the lunar orbit. I think by adding Patrick Moore here we break up the monotony of the live pictures which although I find fascinating, I'm sure others do not! Hope you all enjoyed it. Cheers, Paul
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Mar 2, 2006 0:32:50 GMT
Re: the image change on the scanner camera. Aside from the different feeds, I now think the main picture alteration was made by Aldrin who is told to adjust the 'shadow' image and reset the camera to what sounds like F2 and 1/60 sec. Assuming that is his iris adjustment, the image does improve. Hi Andy. The astronauts don't make any adjustments to the camera on the lunar surface; they are able to make adjustments to the colour camera in the LEM but not the black and white Westinghouse camera on the lunar surface. The statement you hear is from Houston who tell Aldrin the shutter speed and f stop to set the onboard 16mm camera to "for shadow photography on the sequence camera". This is at an early stage where he is still filming Armstrong taking the contingency sample I think but could refer to the later 1 frame per second footage set going followed by Aldrin coming down the ladder. There is a document all about the lunar camera if you're interested in it. Cheers, Paul
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Post by Andy Henderson on Mar 2, 2006 0:48:06 GMT
Paul,
Yes. Many thanks, this now makes sense. Though that didn't sound right (the exposure) given the glare and I thought he meant adjusting the TV camera. The film must have been quite slow (ASA 25?) as F2 at 1/60 is quite a wide aperture and a slow shutter speed. On 16mm film I think. There must have been a good reason for using that b/w camera though. Perhaps it was very reliable.
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Post by Clive Shaw on Mar 2, 2006 8:04:36 GMT
I take back some of my earlier comments about the missing footage being 'not that important' as it was great to see those explanatory inserts from James Burke. He is such a great explainer of things and I learnt more about the mission and timeline then I ever have by watching those Discovery type documentaries. Indeed the whole event seems to have been covered expertly by the BBC team.
It was great that in most cases James and Patrick left the commentary to the minimum and left the pictures and Nasa Sound tell the story. Although the modern day Moore was at pains to point out why there were no stars in the sky and no fluttering flag.
It would be oh so different if this was done today, I cannot think of any modern TV Science presenters of the same calibre as Moore and Burke and Charlton.
The take-off was done very well, wish we could have seen the keyed-in CBS engineer who was struggling to place the countdown clock where it was not being obscured.
What was the problem with the Lunar 15 comment ?
One final question, the Apollo 11 roundel used at the beginning of the programme and also spotted on the studio snapshot, was this a BBC design or was it some NASA logo ??
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Post by Andrew Doherty on Mar 2, 2006 18:03:26 GMT
Having watched the programme, I was amazed by the amount of colour video footage and the surviving BBC commentary throughout the programme.
So much for the statement that 'little exists of the BBC Apollo 11 broadcasts'.
True, there was very little of the studio 'lead-up'. But I didn't seem to mind, since much of what I remember was shown in this programme.
Clearly, care and good quality research was put into the programme. Those who had difficulties in attempting to make previous anniversary programmes about the British television coverage of the Apollo 11 event should view this programme.
Yours,
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Post by Gary C on Mar 2, 2006 22:17:10 GMT
Just finished watching it. Brilliant stuff! I hadn't seen the colour VT from inside the LEM showing the control panels, amazed at the quality! Paul, can you tell me why James Burke wasn't involved in the making of this programme? I always thought he was a brilliantly informative presenter.
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Mar 3, 2006 0:15:05 GMT
Just finished watching it. Brilliant stuff! I hadn't seen the colour VT from inside the LEM showing the control panels, amazed at the quality! Paul, can you tell me why James Burke wasn't involved in the making of this programme? I always thought he was a brilliantly informative presenter. Hiya. All I was told about James Burke was that he was "unavailable". That came from his US agent. The colour footage from inside the LEM was actually a large part of what the BBC had recorded and kept. Some earlier material I had the commentary for but not the pictures and had to get those from Nasa (entering the LEM). Andrew Doherty mentioned the Lunar 15 reference. The wisdom was that it appeared out of the blue in the link and could have confused viewers. However, we got Patrick to back ref it in a link and it worked out OK. The logo was just copied from the one behind James Burke. in the 24 Hours link. I believe it is a BBC design! Cheers, Paul
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Post by Clive Shaw on Mar 3, 2006 7:54:17 GMT
Thanks Paul, I did a little Googling on 'Lunar 15' and apparently it was a Russian collect and return probe which arrived at the moon around the same time as Apollo 11. The Americans were worried that it's orbit might interfere with theirs but the Russians said they had no intention to cause problems for NASA.
Although not known at the time, Lunar 15 crashed into the moon. If it had survived, it would have returned to Earth with moondust before Apollo got back which may have been a little PR success for the Ruskies.
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Post by John G on Mar 3, 2006 11:12:47 GMT
I have been watching over 3 nights and can say now my earlier concerns were unfounded. I am glad of the length of it and chopping it into 25/50 minutes (with all the ' boring bits' cut out )would not have done it justice at all ! This programme surely must be the first reference point for anyone in the future interested in the moon landings? and wasn't James Burke superb? the great communicator of science ? I wonder if his 'The Burke Specials' still exist? Although I think it was 'Connections' which finished off his career at the BBC? Finally despite the VT its still looks from a long long time ago...must be getting old? well done to everyone involved
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John Stewart Miller
Guest
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Post by John Stewart Miller on May 6, 2006 23:28:37 GMT
Y'know a constant irritation to me on this site and many other websites are people constantly bemoaning how careless the BBC were. It is always easy (with hindsight) to criticize. Harder to justify. The BBC were running an efficient television factory. In business conditions, you do not usually think of what might happen 40 years later, let alone budget for it. Let's face it, the majority of 1960s b/w programmes are curios. With few exceptions, the public aren't interested. I haven't seen queues of people asking in 'Virgin Megastore' for the complete 'Z-Cars' either. Of course the fans would tell you how marvelous these old programmes are, but they are in a tiny minority. Then there is the social value point. Granted, some pro grammes are interesting, but for every one, there are ten or twenty pedestrian efforts as interchangeable as a modern episode of 'Holby City' or 'The Bill'. I think we are lucky that we do have as much as we do. You cannot change the past, but instead of moaning, you can still get off your backside and do some missing television digging. What might be more of interest is the nature of the moon landing in action transmission tapes you correctly quoted some time ago as existing. Apparently these exist but not the live studio links. Andrew Doherty offered a very interesting pointer on the situation with that portion of the broadcast. My query is; if only the live from the moon portions exist; was this a case of a seperate link to a different suite used; thus severing it from the linking studio material; or - was the VT only turned on for the live from the moon sections with the same channel fed to a seperate recorder? The reason I say this is, I just thought that if the latter was the case; fragments of the studio linking material would exist as a lead in or out surely, as the VT machine was initially turned on? If the former applied; presumably an instruction was handed to the department that action from the mission would be needed for use in the days news transmission recaps?
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Post by Brian Fretwell on May 12, 2006 11:53:31 GMT
Paul, Yes. Many thanks, this now makes sense. Though that didn't sound right (the exposure) given the glare and I thought he meant adjusting the TV camera. The film must have been quite slow (ASA 25?) as F2 at 1/60 is quite a wide aperture and a slow shutter speed. On 16mm film I think. There must have been a good reason for using that b/w camera though. Perhaps it was very reliable. I would think that the shadows on the moon, without diffusion from a sky would have been almost lightless except for local reflections so even with a medium spped film you would have needed an exposure like that.
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Post by Mark Boulton on May 12, 2006 12:20:25 GMT
Damn! I missed all of this! Had no idea it was going to be on!
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