Sky at Night 50th Anniversary

[Paul Vanezis]

Hello all.

I'm putting together some material for 'The Sky at Night' 50th anniversary in April, but there doesn't seem to be anything listed in the archive for the first year, 1957. If anyone has come across anything in their travels and has it tucked away, or anything else from the series for that matter which may be of use I would love to hear about it.

I thank you all.

Cheers,

Paul

[peteseatonwsmuk]

there was some rare footage used in the 2005 shows

and other bits and pieces used during the sky at night night

[Gary Critcher]

Paul, can you make sure it airs BEFORE midnight this time?

[Robert Manners]

garyc said:

Paul, can you make sure it airs BEFORE midnight this time?

What do you mean??

[John S Miller]

paulvanezis said:

Hello all.

I'm putting together some material for 'The Sky at Night' 50th anniversary in April, but there doesn't seem to be anything listed in the archive for the first year, 1957. If anyone has come across anything in their travels and has it tucked away, or anything else from the series for that matter which may be of use I would love to hear about it.

I thank you all.

Cheers,

Paul

Patrick Moore said on a previous anniversary show the earliest recording was an edition from 1960; saying that the show went out live.

I'd suppose that the BBC; as with 'Blue Peter' didn't choose to record the show as a magazine whilst recordings were still made to 35mm and selective.

Also ponder that the earliest recording might date from 1960 as that was the date the BBC introduced VT; which would make a cost effective or easy to make recording as such; feasible. Even though the copy that exists now appears to be film.

[Gary Critcher]

John, I always thought it was the other way round.
The VT recording was the expensive one, and the to film record a programme was infinitely cheaper! How much would a 90 minute roll of 2" VT cost in 1960? Quite a lot, I'd warrant.

[Robert Manners]

garyc said:

John, I always thought it was the other way round.
The VT recording was the expensive one, and the to film record a programme was infinitely cheaper! How much would a 90 minute roll of 2" VT cost in 1960? Quite a lot, I'd warrant.

Yes I would have agreed with you on that one

[Peter Elliott]

David Croft, Dads Army producer says in the "Dads Army - The Lost Episodes" scriptbook that in the 60s a roll of VT not only cost around £200 but also came out of the shows budget.

"The Sky At Night" was probably produced for less than that in 1960 and before so videotaping the shows would had decimated their budget. I think its more likely the earliest existing episodes were live telerecordings as opposed to recordings from videotape. There would had been no need to spend budget on videotaping when it was much cheaper to record it to film.

Given the shows rather "topical" nature, I would guess the earliest shows were simply never recorded anyway. The earliest existing material is an insert film from 1958. Its a similar reason as to why new broadcasts are scarce and probably non existent from that time because who would had wanted to keep a newsreading that was instantly out of date? The BBC back then were more concerned with broadcasting the material... not archiving it since TV was still in its infancy and was generally believed to be like "live theatre" in that it vanished the moment you saw it. Of course there were exceptions - "Hancocks Half Hour" from 1959 onwards was pre-recorded on videotape and were shown from VT too - I believe most of the VTs of "Hancock" were wiped at the end of the 60s... after all most were telerecorded with foreign sales in mind so copies were kept whilst the VTs could be and were reused.

Furthermore, Patrick Moore himself has written about early shows in his autobiography such as him swallowing a fly live on air or playing a harpsichord rendition of the theme tune because they had left the record of the theme behind and lamented the fact that moments like these were simply never recorded in the first place though he does also remark about the BBC losing material, most notably the Apollo 11 shows.

BTW - The BBC began using videotape in 1958. "Hancocks Half Hour" was as mentioned above pre-recorded on VT in 1959. In fact Hancocks team used it to their advantage, trying out scenes and close ups and being able to have a playback to see not only how they looked but also if they worked or not so if a shot or scene didn't work, they were able to reshoot it.

[emitron]

The basic cost of recording an hour of BBC TV in the 1960s and the cost of recording on 35mm film (neg plus print) was much about the same.

The £180 to £220 spent on a hours recording on tape could be reduced by wiping the tape. There is a myth that cut tape could not be re-used, but this isn't so and Ampex even suggested this was perfectly possible.

At least one 1960s 405 line Sky At Night does appear to exist on tape because clips have been used from this.

[hartley967]

emitron said:

The basic cost of recording an hour of BBC TV in the 1960s and the cost of recording on 35mm film (neg plus print) was much about the same.

The £180 to £220 spent on a hours recording on tape could be reduced by wiping the tape. There is a myth that cut tape could not be re-used, but this isn't so and Ampex even suggested this was perfectly possible.

At least one 1960s 405 line Sky At Night does appear to exist on tape because clips have been used from this.

The main problem with videotape splices was the fact they could actually damage the machine (especially the head) when they went roaring through. Causing costly maintainance problems.
Besides the fact they were rather tedious to do, as the editor had to use a microscope and iron filings to find out where the frame line was.

So Andy although I respect your postings I cannot quite see a producer trusting a bumpy used, spliced up VT for his new prestige production.
Even new tapes in those days had to be inspected BEFORE use
for too much drop out , so where the splice was, oxide would rapidly fall off the tape and after a few years the splices would stretch anyway or fail altogether.

[Richard Bignell]

emitron said:

The £180 to £220 spent on a hours recording on tape could be reduced by wiping the tape. There is a myth that cut tape could not be re-used, but this isn't so and Ampex even suggested this was perfectly possible.

Interestingly, that's not the opinion of Ian Rutter, who worked in the BBC's VT department from 1968 through to 1997, as an engineer and editor.

"I do remember filling in a form once where any cuts to the tape had to be charged extra at £60 to the programme and also remember asking producers if they were prepared to accept this charge before putting in the razor blade. There was also a system that if the tape was cut the library would try to make an uncut length from the 90 minute tape into say a 60 minute tape. A programme was never recorded over a tape splice as it was deemed far too unreliable."

Richard

[John S Miller]

johnsmiller said:

paulvanezis said:

Hello all.

I'm putting together some material for 'The Sky at Night' 50th anniversary in April, but there doesn't seem to be anything listed in the archive for the first year, 1957. If anyone has come across anything in their travels and has it tucked away, or anything else from the series for that matter which may be of use I would love to hear about it.

I thank you all.

Cheers,

Paul

Patrick Moore said on a previous anniversary show the earliest recording was an edition from 1960; saying that the show went out live.

I'd suppose that the BBC; as with 'Blue Peter' didn't choose to record the show as a magazine whilst recordings were still made to 35mm and selective.

Also ponder that the earliest recording might date from 1960 as that was the date the BBC introduced VT; which would make a cost effective or easy to make recording as such; feasible. Even though the copy that exists now appears to be film.

Thanks for all the feedback on this which is fascinating. Would I be correct about 'Sky at night'; I now hear there my be insert pre recorded material for the 1958 period; though would it not have been categorised with such as 'Blue Peter' as the sort of programming that would need some warranty to justify telerecording off air?

I do love the show though and I wish you luck as always Paul with a very worthwhile project.