Monty Python Blu-ray set on pre-order !
Nov 17, 2019 15:20:03 GMT
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Nov 17, 2019 15:20:03 GMT
Wow!
Thanks so much for the thanks. 'Book at Bedtime' is the episode that started this all off, so let's start with that ep. It was originally recorded as show 3 and it was never intended to have the Party Political Sketch on the front. As scripted, it started with a series of captions. I've remade that opening in HD as part of the extras.
But during the production period, there was concern at the BBC about taste and decency, particularly from head of comedy Michael Mills. During the production of series 2, he had two references to cancer removed from two eps. The changes to series 3 mostly (but not exclusively) affected the final four episodes. The last episode to be recorded was what became episode 10. Except that all of the Thripshaw's Disease material was originally recorded for what was episode 12 and became episode 13. The Party Political sketch was also recorded for episode 12. But ep 10 suffered a catastrophic round of cuts. Wee wee wine tasting, Half a Bee and Revolting Cocktails were all cut and Big Nose Sculptor abandoned. Thripshaw was transported to make up the lost time. Book at Bedtime was under-running. 26' 32" was a bit short for Python, so during the re-editing, a second version was created, moving the Party Political sketch from the end of episode 13 to the beginning of the new episode 12. This is the version of Book at Bedtime we have restored on Bluray, complete with original VT clock.
It was shown in NI as far as I know on the original TX in January 1973, but when it was due for a repeat in March 1974, the political climate had changed. There had already been one election with another in the offing, and the BBC removed anything that could be deemed as political bias from various programmes. A third version of Book at Bedtime was created, this time starting with just the opening titles. This is the version that has been seen ever since. Apart from in the US and elsewhere around the world. An NTSC version was made for the USA and those tapes were knocking around until the mid 1980's. The original TX version was shown on many PBS stations up until Autumn 1980. After that, it was a lottery what you would get. Either the third version, the one we're all used to, or the earliest version, the one that started with the captions, the short 26' 32" version. Now where did that come from? After all, it was superceded in late 1972. But something happened in October 1979 that had a big impact on the archive status of several episodes, the Pythons got back the non UK broadcast and other rights. The BBC then had a small rationalisation of tapes they held, and handed over several of the original tapes to the Pythons. They were distributed by Devillier Donegan and during that brief period, the 'captions' version of Book at Bedtime could be seen on PBS channels in the USA.
So, what was the fate of all of these recordings? The original TX master, complete with the Party Political sketch was wiped. No idea when. The only surviving original tape is the one from the 1974 repeat. We used the BBC's film recording to repair the Bluray, complete with colour recovery.
The original version, as previously mentioned ended up in Los Angeles. It appears that it was wiped in 2007, along with several other important tapes.
It was due to David Morgan posting Greg Duffel's off-air recording of 'Book at Bedtime' on YouTube in 2006 that first got me interested in restoring Flying Circus. Until then, I assumed that all the cuts had been restored. When I looked into the archive status of that episode, I discovered that the VT clock was contemporary of 1974 and recut at an outside facility. It says on it "(Minus Tease)" with a re-edit date of March 15th 1974, two days prior to the repeat.
The 16mm film recording neg was there and also the A&B negs and prints of the film inserts. I also later discovered that the neg for the Dad's Pooves/Doctors was also kept because it was used in this episode, but originally shot for show 1, Whicker's World (which is how we were also able to restore the film inserts for that episode). The captions version was nowhere to be seen. But David Morgan sent me his off-air recording and even better, a copy he'd made from the Python's US office copy, an NTSC umatic recording.
For the restoration, we used a transform decoded and burst to chroma phase corrected uncompressed capture from the BBC's D3 archive master of the 1974 repeat, the colour recovered version of the original version from the BBC's black and white film recording and the 16mm negatives. I was torn between using the sound from Dean Monti's off-air or the 16mm optical soundtrack. I opted for the latter, with a bit of the film insert audio.
Most satisfying.
Paul
Thanks so much for the thanks. 'Book at Bedtime' is the episode that started this all off, so let's start with that ep. It was originally recorded as show 3 and it was never intended to have the Party Political Sketch on the front. As scripted, it started with a series of captions. I've remade that opening in HD as part of the extras.
But during the production period, there was concern at the BBC about taste and decency, particularly from head of comedy Michael Mills. During the production of series 2, he had two references to cancer removed from two eps. The changes to series 3 mostly (but not exclusively) affected the final four episodes. The last episode to be recorded was what became episode 10. Except that all of the Thripshaw's Disease material was originally recorded for what was episode 12 and became episode 13. The Party Political sketch was also recorded for episode 12. But ep 10 suffered a catastrophic round of cuts. Wee wee wine tasting, Half a Bee and Revolting Cocktails were all cut and Big Nose Sculptor abandoned. Thripshaw was transported to make up the lost time. Book at Bedtime was under-running. 26' 32" was a bit short for Python, so during the re-editing, a second version was created, moving the Party Political sketch from the end of episode 13 to the beginning of the new episode 12. This is the version of Book at Bedtime we have restored on Bluray, complete with original VT clock.
It was shown in NI as far as I know on the original TX in January 1973, but when it was due for a repeat in March 1974, the political climate had changed. There had already been one election with another in the offing, and the BBC removed anything that could be deemed as political bias from various programmes. A third version of Book at Bedtime was created, this time starting with just the opening titles. This is the version that has been seen ever since. Apart from in the US and elsewhere around the world. An NTSC version was made for the USA and those tapes were knocking around until the mid 1980's. The original TX version was shown on many PBS stations up until Autumn 1980. After that, it was a lottery what you would get. Either the third version, the one we're all used to, or the earliest version, the one that started with the captions, the short 26' 32" version. Now where did that come from? After all, it was superceded in late 1972. But something happened in October 1979 that had a big impact on the archive status of several episodes, the Pythons got back the non UK broadcast and other rights. The BBC then had a small rationalisation of tapes they held, and handed over several of the original tapes to the Pythons. They were distributed by Devillier Donegan and during that brief period, the 'captions' version of Book at Bedtime could be seen on PBS channels in the USA.
So, what was the fate of all of these recordings? The original TX master, complete with the Party Political sketch was wiped. No idea when. The only surviving original tape is the one from the 1974 repeat. We used the BBC's film recording to repair the Bluray, complete with colour recovery.
The original version, as previously mentioned ended up in Los Angeles. It appears that it was wiped in 2007, along with several other important tapes.
It was due to David Morgan posting Greg Duffel's off-air recording of 'Book at Bedtime' on YouTube in 2006 that first got me interested in restoring Flying Circus. Until then, I assumed that all the cuts had been restored. When I looked into the archive status of that episode, I discovered that the VT clock was contemporary of 1974 and recut at an outside facility. It says on it "(Minus Tease)" with a re-edit date of March 15th 1974, two days prior to the repeat.
The 16mm film recording neg was there and also the A&B negs and prints of the film inserts. I also later discovered that the neg for the Dad's Pooves/Doctors was also kept because it was used in this episode, but originally shot for show 1, Whicker's World (which is how we were also able to restore the film inserts for that episode). The captions version was nowhere to be seen. But David Morgan sent me his off-air recording and even better, a copy he'd made from the Python's US office copy, an NTSC umatic recording.
For the restoration, we used a transform decoded and burst to chroma phase corrected uncompressed capture from the BBC's D3 archive master of the 1974 repeat, the colour recovered version of the original version from the BBC's black and white film recording and the 16mm negatives. I was torn between using the sound from Dean Monti's off-air or the 16mm optical soundtrack. I opted for the latter, with a bit of the film insert audio.
Most satisfying.
Paul