How thorough have telesnap searches been?

[ianphillips]

I’m sure there’s been a thread similar to this at some point in the past, but there hasn’t been one for at least three years. So, everyone knows that the John Wiles era has no telesnaps, but as has been states here and elsewhere, that doesn’t prove there were no telesnaps taken (Verity Lambert (as far as we know) did not purchase telesnaps for Marco Polo, but we have them all (except for episode 4) because Waris Hussein bought them). My question to you is this: how through have searches into telesnaps been? I’m sure that most surviving directors from this period have been approached at some point in the past about this (as directors seem to be the most likely to have telesnaps), but have actors ever been questioned? It’s uncommon, I know, but it’s not unheard of for actors to purchase tele snaps (see Michael Wolf). Have directors like Bill Sellars who only ever did one story been questioned? Have the families of late directors such as Michael Leeston-Smith and Douglas Camfield been asked. I know it’s a long shot, but any surviving images from these stories would be invaluable. We didn’t know about the Marco Polo telesnaps until 2003, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that a handful of telesnaps might be held by someone involved in the production of a story who is not very active in the Doctor Who community or who has since passed away. Again, maybe these avenues have already been explored, but if not they would certainly be worth a look.

[Richard Bignell]

Jun 14, 2018 5:35:55 GMT ianphillips said:

I’m sure there’s been a thread similar to this at some point in the past, but there hasn’t been one for at least three years. So, everyone knows that the John Wiles era has no telesnaps, but as has been states here and elsewhere, that doesn’t prove there were no telesnaps taken (Verity Lambert (as far as we know) did not purchase telesnaps for Marco Polo, but we have them all (except for episode 4) because Waris Hussein bought them).

Actually, that's incorrect, Ian. We knew before they were discovered that telesnaps for Marco Polo had been taken as the production paperwork showed that part of the production budget had been spent on them. So likewise, we know that telesnaps for The Wall of Lies (the one episode Waris didn't direct) were also taken, but no copies are currently known to exist.

My question to you is this: how through have searches into telesnaps been? I’m sure that most surviving directors from this period have been approached at some point in the past about this (as directors seem to be the most likely to have telesnaps), but have actors ever been questioned? It’s uncommon, I know, but it’s not unheard of for actors to purchase tele snaps (see Michael Wolf). Have directors like Bill Sellars who only ever did one story been questioned? Have the families of late directors such as Michael Leeston-Smith and Douglas Camfield been asked.

I did a very comprehensive search of directors and actors back in 1997, when I was researching and writing my article on John Cura for Nothing at the End of the Lane #2. I wrote to all the surviving actors who appeared in missing episodes that I could find. That also included the directors as well - including Bill Sellars and Michael Leeston-Smith in South Africa. Ironically, Waris was one of the ones I couldn't trace back then as I think he was living and working in America at the time!

Very few of the actors I contacted were even aware of John Cura and his services. From memory, only Norman Mitchell (from The Daleks' Master Plan) had purchased tele-snaps from Cura, but not for Doctor Who. That was for his appearance in The Brothers Karamazov in 1964.

Certainly, Douglas Camfield didn't have any. His photo collection has been extensively gone through in the past.

[ianphillips]

So we know that John Cura bought a second television set in the 50s(?). If what I've learned is correct, from April 21, 1964 on there were three channels: BBC1, BBC2, and ITV. That means that Cura could only take telesnaps from two of the three channels during the Wiles era. I'm sure it's unlikely given how many telesnaps were destroyed, but if we could correlate when programs aired, is it possible that there are any Doctor Who episodes we can definitively say were not telesnapped if two other programs that aired at the same time have, or at one point had, telesnaps?

[brianfretwell]

If he bought a second set in the 50's/very early 60's he would have had to buy another for BBC2 anyway as that one would have been 405 line only.

[rmackenziefehr]

Jul 16, 2018 21:48:35 GMT ianphillips said:

So we know that John Cura bought a second television set in the 50s(?). If what I've learned is correct, from April 21, 1964 on there were three channels: BBC1, BBC2, and ITV. That means that Cura could only take telesnaps from two of the three channels during the Wiles era.

The issue here is that there are conflicting claims involving Cura's capacities- on the one hand, family sources suggest that he might have had more than two sets that used to take pictures:

www.the-mausoleum-club.org.uk/Cura/Cura.htm

On the other hand, sources from the BBC seem to imply that he couldn't take pictures of multiple programs at the same time:

www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/jbctv.2016.0298

Ultimately, the major limiting factor is, given the complete lack of any records from Cura concerning his work, there isn't really a way to determine the answer to this question- the sources we have are too diffuse and fragmentary.