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Post by Stephen Neve on Feb 2, 2005 13:50:40 GMT
Paperwork at the NZBC says The Macra Terror films prints were destroyed on 27 June 1974. Fact. And by destroyed this means running the films through a band saw. Fact. A sworn affadavit is signed for all destructions. This is sent to the BBC to confirm their destruction instructions had been carried out. Fact. The bits of film were taken to a rubbish tip. Fact. The only refuse site open during 1974 was sealed up in 1975, and is now a sports recreation ground! Fact. So unless someone was able to 'steal' the films before the band saw got them, then whoever was responsible for destroying the films would have put their jobs on the line by signing an affadavit that the films were now mulch. Fact. Conclusion: it is therefore highly unlikely The Macra Terror exists. Jon Preddle Interesting! Since Neil swears seeing the first two episodes in late 1974, early 1975 that means he SAW them after the documentation said they were destroyed, Conclusion: so it is therefore likely that somehow two episodes escaped the destruction and found there way to a School. It would be interesting to know if the prints Neil saw were edited, that would mean there CERTAINLY came from NZBC as they edited the Macra Terror.
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Post by Richard Bignell on Feb 2, 2005 17:28:55 GMT
I don't know what the difference between a negative and a positive is, but can you explain to me Richard how about a dozen episodes have been found in private hands in the UK, when if we go by the documentation they shoulden't be there, they had been destroyed. Hi Stephen! Without appearing to be rude, I'm genuinely quite staggered that someone who has so much interest in missing film prints doesn't know the difference between a positive and a negative, but there you go! Okay. It's exactly the same as with film you put in a stills camera. What you use is negative film and what you get back after developing is a set of negative strips - with all the lights and darks in reverse. From these negatives, your positive prints are made. The same is true of 16mm film prints. What BBC Enterprises paid for was a telerecording negative. From this, they could run off as many positive prints as they wanted, and they would all be the same quality. Those positive prints were sent all round the world whilst the master negatives were kept safely in the Villiers House vault in London. When BBC Enterprises junked their telerecordings, what they were getting rid of were their original negatives. If they had spare positive prints in stock, then these would be disposed of at the same time. Once the negatives were gone, no further prints could be produced, but that didn't mean that the copies that they had already made and that were still circulating around the world were being destroyed at the same time. The BBC paperwork refers to what the BBC did with the material that was in their possession at that time - not what was floating around the rest of the globe. There has never been *any* proof that people were stealing film prints directly from BBC Enterprises in the 1970's. Many film collectors develop contacts all over the world, so they could have arrived at their copies from any number of different routes and from any number of different countries. In other words Stephen, your basic assertion is incorrect. With what I've just said in mind, but I bet you can't give me a single example to back it up! Richard
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Post by Richard Bignell on Feb 2, 2005 17:35:11 GMT
...at least two episodes of Macra Terror screened at a school in masterton around late 74 to 75. seeing it with my own eyes was what led me to believe that missing episodes existed in new zealand in the first place. Having been told by a NZBC employee how stuff went "walkies" Im pretty sure that what I saw was ex NZBC and not a private collectors "import". Hi Neil! Out of interest, you leave a reasonable window open there with your "late 74 to 75" viewing date. Is there any room for suggestion that "late 74" could have been nearer mid-1974, still allowing it to tie in with NZBC's destruction dates (assuming as you say, that this was an NZBC print and not one from elsewhere)? I certainly can't remember back that far with any complete accuracy as to dates! ;D Richard
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Post by Jon Preddle on Feb 2, 2005 20:12:55 GMT
One of the problems with research is we keep finding new information all the time that contradicts what we knew before! Previously it was assumed that programmes were not edited in NZ. Then Graham Howard finds the Web of Fear cuts, and I find the censor's documents, which completely throws those earlier beliefs out the window! And now having published my findings at the censors office in TSV recently (that's our fanzine) I've since discovered some more info - some of which contradicts what I wrote (so expect a follow up in the next TSV!)
While I'm not denying that Neil thinks he saw Macra Terror in 1974 or 1975, with all due respect Neil, when you first told that story about seeing an episode of DW at school when we first met back in the mid-1980s, I'm pretty sure you said it was an ep of The Abominable Snowmen! (I might be wrong though!)
Anyway, Macra Terror is recorded as being destroyed on 27 June 1974. Yes, it is possible your teacher 'borrowed' the films from someone at NZBC and returned them afterwards, where they were introduced to Mr Bandsaw.
Sure, I hope the NZBC records are wrong, but from what I've seen and researched in recent years, they have proven to be mostly correct. Until someone locates here in NZ an ex-NZBC TV film that is recorded as "destroyed" then I will certainly accept that there's more to it.
Neil, your mission, mate, should you decide to accept it, is to prove me wrong!
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Post by Wright Blan on Feb 3, 2005 2:35:25 GMT
with apologies to Jon and Richard in advance....(whose research i greatly admire) but.... to paraphrase Troughton, "paperwork ,my dear Zoe, merely allows one to be wrong with authority" at least two episodes of Macra Terror screened at a school in masterton around late 74 to 75. seeing it with my own eyes was what led me to believe that missing episodes existed in new zealand in the first place. Having been told by a NZBC employee how stuff went "walkies" Im pretty sure that what I saw was ex NZBC and not a private collectors "import". Neil, have you ever gotten in contact with your former teacher or principal about this? Are they still alive? I'm sure they (or mabye their family members) could help you out on this one.
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Post by R H Cotwood on Feb 3, 2005 2:39:12 GMT
Do any of your ex-classmates remember seeing the episodes?
Theymight be able to confirm which ones it was you saw.
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Post by Wright Blan on Feb 3, 2005 3:01:07 GMT
Do any of your ex-classmates remember seeing the episodes? Theymight be able to confirm which ones it was you saw. Worth a shot, but I doubt most of the class is/was as obsessive about Doctor Who as we would like to believe.
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Post by Neil Lambess on Feb 3, 2005 5:12:45 GMT
In the mid 90s, i went back to Masterton and contacted the school and got the name of the ex teacher in charge of the av equipment .. by the time i tracked him down he was deceased , and his collection had been passed on/ sold off.
so its unfortunatly a dead lead at this point (no pun intended)
Richard , im fairly certain about the dates...But i agree it is a long time ago , im starting to have trouble remembering what happened last week, let alone 30 years ago LOL
The reason im pretty sure of the time frame is that i left my country school in late march 75 to go to a private school...and the friend i remember watching it with only came to our school in mid 74. so it had to be around then..... incidently the screening occurred at a interschool sports day that rained out and we left when our bus came to pick us up and take us back to my school....which is why i only remember 2 episodes screening......they could have shown all 4 for all i know !!!)
Jon ... Challenge ACCEPTED!....(.I have to find another missing episode anyway just to prove the first one wasnt a fluke......LOL!) . Its possible "the abominable Snowman" thing you remember came from me probably telling you about the ice sculptures in japan short that preceeded the screening...and if ANYONE can identify that short (which also featured speedboats and an ice sculpture of THUNDERBIRD 2 , i would be a very happy man indeed)!
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Post by Neil lambess on Feb 3, 2005 5:30:25 GMT
Just to help clarify things a bit more...
although My friend Andrew arrived at My country school in mid 74 ,it was an athletic type sports day that was cancelled due to the rain , which means summer as the time frame .
mid 74 is winter here , late 74 is summer....
the last time i saw Andrew ( or most of my schoolfriends from that time ) was in 1977 when I left Masterton for Whangarei
having said that it could be interesting to track him down and see what he remembers!
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Post by Stephen Neve on Feb 3, 2005 12:42:52 GMT
Hi Stephen! Without appearing to be rude, I'm genuinely quite staggered that someone who has so much interest in missing film prints doesn't know the difference between a positive and a negative, but there you go! Okay. It's exactly the same as with film you put in a stills camera. What you use is negative film and what you get back after developing is a set of negative strips - with all the lights and darks in reverse. From these negatives, your positive prints are made. The same is true of 16mm film prints. What BBC Enterprises paid for was a telerecording negative. From this, they could run off as many positive prints as they wanted, and they would all be the same quality. Those positive prints were sent all round the world whilst the master negatives were kept safely in the Villiers House vault in London. When BBC Enterprises junked their telerecordings, what they were getting rid of were their original negatives. If they had spare positive prints in stock, then these would be disposed of at the same time. Once the negatives were gone, no further prints could be produced, but that didn't mean that the copies that they had already made and that were still circulating around the world were being destroyed at the same time. The BBC paperwork refers to what the BBC did with the material that was in their possession at that time - not what was floating around the rest of the globe. There has never been *any* proof that people were stealing film prints directly from BBC Enterprises in the 1970's. Many film collectors develop contacts all over the world, so they could have arrived at their copies from any number of different routes and from any number of different countries. In other words Stephen, your basic assertion is incorrect. With what I've just said in mind, but I bet you can't give me a single example to back it up! Richard This begining to turn into a slanging match when it wasen't supposed to be. You and Jon Preddle were saying thats its 100% gospel with the Paperwork. While admire the good work your doing I am trying to get the point of that its not 100% gospel and there are a few flaws. Richard, how could people possibly get a film print from Nigeria to the UK. We know that Foreign countries either sent them on, returned them to the BBC or destroyed them and sending the BBC a document to say they had been destroyed, they were no different from the BBC. Thus it would have been extremly hard for collectors to obtain such material across the otherside of the world. The guy who returned Masterplan 2 pinched it, okay he was nothing to do with being assigned to destroy it, but can you say such things could not happen again. Also no prints found in the UK were edited, if they had come from abroad they would have been edited. Also Masterplan was only sent to Australia, and only two sets of prints struck. The fate of the Australian ones are unknown, so 5 and 10 came directly from the BBC. Its possible that Australia returned them to the BBC but there is no evidence to support this.
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Post by Richard Bignell on Feb 3, 2005 17:55:15 GMT
This begining to turn into a slanging match when it wasen't supposed to be. LOL! I don't intend it to be either, Stephen! It's an interesting discussion! ;D No, I don't think that's the case. You have to take whatever evidence physically exists and use that as your starting point. So it's both fair and acceptable, from a historical research point of view, to take what the documentation states as being the case and as being truthful, unless other evidence presents itself to contradict that view. A good example of this was given by Jon in his previous postings. What doesn't make sense is to take the evidence that does exist and then just ignore it in the hope that something else might have happened, when there is no actual basis for believing that to be the case. That's not to say that making assumptions and good old-fashioned guesswork doesn't have its place. But if you're going to try and extrapolate worthy and meaningful conclusions, you need to at least base them on some kind of solid evidence. Because film collectors *have* obtained material from overseas. It's been done! In theory that's what should have happened, yes. However, there's no hard evidence to say that this happened in every case. The vast majority of BBC Enterprises paperwork from the 1960's and 70's has been archived off to permanant storage, so we can't be 100% sure of all the countries that each story was sold to - and we certainly don't know the fate of each film print that was struck. So whilst BBC Enterprises might have instructed "Country X" to destroy their film prints after transmission, we do not know if they, or anyone else, gave any definitive indication back to BBCEnts that this had actually been done. Anyhow, I thought you were the one saying that you couldn't trust the documentation! ;D Francis Watson, as a young engineer, was *assigned* the task of clearing out a room full of junk at the BBC and the two cans of film he found was material that had been used to test 16mm projection equipment. He was given the job of disposing of the material. So the prints were being thrown out. That's rather different to "pinching" them! That's a rather wild assumption! Just because both Australia and NZ edited material, you cannot draw the assumption that every country did so! Just take a look at the film prints of Tomb of the Cybermen. Returned from Hong Kong with no edits whatsoever. Once again, you're putting two and two together and getting five. Australia did indeed receive DMP and rejected it but there is no evidence to back up your claim that only two sets of prints were made. We don't know how many were struck and indeed, there may have been other countries that did receive it. Richard
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Post by Jon Preddle on Feb 4, 2005 0:07:43 GMT
Regarding BBC Enterprises' original negatives, and the destruction thereof...
I understand an additional set of negatives was also struck off and supplied to the BBC's office in Sydney. BBC Sydney then struck off their own positives for sale to TV stations in the South Pacific region - eg Australia, NZ and Asia...
And before anyone asks (!), yes, BBC Sydney has been contacted about this, and they say they no longer have these films.
So there is a VERY REMOTE chance that some negatives and positives exist in Australia! Jon
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Post by Stephen Neve on Feb 4, 2005 11:44:48 GMT
LOL! I don't intend it to be either, Stephen! It's an interesting discussion! ;D No, I don't think that's the case. You have to take whatever evidence physically exists and use that as your starting point. So it's both fair and acceptable, from a historical research point of view, to take what the documentation states as being the case and as being truthful, unless other evidence presents itself to contradict that view. A good example of this was given by Jon in his previous postings. What doesn't make sense is to take the evidence that does exist and then just ignore it in the hope that something else might have happened, when there is no actual basis for believing that to be the case. That's not to say that making assumptions and good old-fashioned guesswork doesn't have its place. But if you're going to try and extrapolate worthy and meaningful conclusions, you need to at least base them on some kind of solid evidence. Because film collectors *have* obtained material from overseas. It's been done! Australia and New Zealand, Canda and the US perhaps. But how can you get a print from Nigeria or from other African countries. Film collectors would have been few and far between in Nigeria, if any. I can honestly say during years of looking for missing episodes, I have polietly contacted many collectors and have never come across any film collectors in Africa, or even Asia. I even tried Singapore, and coulden't find one collector. I did manage to find one collector in Cyprus though. I would have thought if any collectors obtained episodes from Australia or New Zealeand they would have been edited. In theory that's what should have happened, yes. However, there's no hard evidence to say that this happened in every case. The vast majority of BBC Enterprises paperwork from the 1960's and 70's has been archived off to permanant storage, so we can't be 100% sure of all the countries that each story was sold to - and we certainly don't know the fate of each film print that was struck. So whilst BBC Enterprises might have instructed "Country X" to destroy their film prints after transmission, we do not know if they, or anyone else, gave any definitive indication back to BBCEnts that this had actually been done. Anyhow, I thought you were the one saying that you couldn't trust the documentation! ;D Francis Watson, as a young engineer, was *assigned* the task of clearing out a room full of junk at the BBC and the two cans of film he found was material that had been used to test 16mm projection equipment. He was given the job of disposing of the material. So the prints were being thrown out. That's rather different to "pinching" them! It was still not his property, that is still "theft". But diden't the BBC do that with a lots of episodes as well, what about episodes being dumped in a landfill site. That's a rather wild assumption! Just because both Australia and NZ edited material, you cannot draw the assumption that every country did so! Just take a look at the film prints of Tomb of the Cybermen. Returned from Hong Kong with no edits whatsoever. No prints have been found edited either, given that over a dozen have been found in the UK I would have thought a least a few of them would have been edited. Once again, you're putting two and two together and getting five. Australia did indeed receive DMP and rejected it but there is no evidence to back up your claim that only two sets of prints were made. We don't know how many were struck and indeed, there may have been other countries that did receive it. Richard Theres no evidence either to prove there were more than two copies sent. There is "no evidence" to suggest Masterplan was sent anywhere else other than Australia who rejected the prints for some reason. You are accusing me of making wild assumptions Richard when this is what you are doing about how many prints were struck of Masterplan. The evidence thats available tells us there were two sets of prints struck. It maybe possible that other countries did purchase it, but untill such evidence becomes available we have to draw the conclusion that only two sets were struck! Your a researcher Richard!. I am an investigator and as such takes every bit of evidence and examines it thoroughly and then makes a decision on the validity of the evidence. I don't totally dispute that the BBC documentation says the episodes were destroyed, but I have to look at the evidence that over 12 episodes have been recovered from private hands in the UK. Firstly how did they get into private hands, came from the BBC or from another source. Okay I am open to the suggestion that some might have come from abroad, very unlikely that they could have come from Africa or Asia, so that leaves Canda, USA, AUSTRALIA, and New Zealand. Canda only showed the first five stories, so the recovered prints coulden't have come from there, USA only purchased black and white Doctor Who after the junking process, so they coulden't have come from there, that leaves Australia, New Zealand and the BBC. Australia and New Zealand edited episodes, if they all came from there surely at least half of them would have been edited, none are edited. So that leaves the possibility that some, if not all came from the BBBC.
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Post by steve davies on Feb 4, 2005 14:04:30 GMT
Hi Richard, Here is one that I hope you can confirm. Reading the info on the "Unlimited rice pudding/myth makers" website by Ash Stewart, dedicated to untangling the myths of episode rumours. He states that the source of sales is secondary as the paperwork has all been destroyed, the information gathered was done by using the actual overseas sales and residual payments to the actors. If this is the case, does this not make an accurate sales account i bit hard to do, and most certainly lead into speculation? Also am I right in saying that Damien Shannahan found a card for episode 4 of Celestial Toymaker being wiped several years before it was returned to the UK? If this is true, it does suggest not all paperwork is accurate. Also I find it hard to believe that no prints ever left the BBC, Several shows such as Scott on (not the biggest overseas seller) and the newly returned Z-Cars and Out of The Unknown episodes suggest that stuff has gone walkies. DMP 2 is one example, and its not unreasonable to suggest that other "finds" came from the same arena. Not suggesting a tidal wave of material went out the door etc and Not saying this to twist anything or try to catch you out, just interested in this interesting thread.
Thanks in advance
Steve
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Post by Richard Bignell on Feb 4, 2005 23:47:40 GMT
You are accusing me of making wild assumptions Richard when this is what you are doing about how many prints were struck of Masterplan. The evidence thats available tells us there were two sets of prints struck. Hi Stephen, This is precisely my point! You're taking assumptions that you believe to be correct and stating them as if they were solid, hairy fact. Look at how you express it: "Masterplan was only sent to Australia, and only two sets of prints struck." What do we *actually* know about The Daleks Master Plan? We know for a fact that five weeks after its UK transmission, the BBC Enterprises office in Sydney contacted ABC's Controller of Programmes to inform them that Galaxy Four, Mission to the Unknown, The Myth Makers and an 11-part The Daleks' Master Plan were now available to them. We know for a fact that ABC received DMP, viewed it and then rejected it. And that's it. That's *all* we know. The absolute most we can say for certain is that one copy of the story was printed and sent to Australia. Nothing else. We cannot say that DMP was *only* sent to Australia, because we don't know that. We know a lot of countries that DW was sent to, but the records aren't complete. As far as we can ascertain, none of those countries were sent DMP, but until we can go through all of Terry Nation and Dennis Sp ooner's royalty payments in the BBC's Written Archives, we won't know for sure. Neither can we say that there were *only* two copies of the DMP prints made. Once again, that's an assumption that you're making, but you're stating it as being a fact. The recovered episodes 2, 5 and 10 could very well be the prints that the ABC rejected and subsequently sent back to the BBC. They might not. But you're stating as fact something that you think to be the case because prints were sent to Australia and then various episodes turned up in the UK many years later. To say that this means that *only* two sets of prints were made is nothing more than supposition. You might say it's only semantics, but the differences are very important. It reminds me of someone on Outpost Gallifrey who insisted when Day of Armageddon was recovered that it proved that other episodes were out there to be found in the hands of the public. But of course, it didn't prove any such thing! All it proved was that DMP2 in private hands - not any other episodes! Then I'm wondering why you're making errors like these. Why is it "very unlikely that they could have come from Africa or Asia"? And what about Europe? We know that episodes travelled all over the world and from one continent to another. CBC in Cyprus for example sent various episodes onto Uganda whilst others were sent on to RTV in Hong Kong. Likewise New Zealand sent at least two of their Marco Polo episodes off to Iran and the whole of The Time Meddler to Nigeria. In short, episodes were bouncing all over the globe and from continent to continent so they could have come from anywhere. That said, it's certainly not impossible that one or more episodes could have been retrieved from those that had already been disposed of by BBC Enterprises - but then there's nothing to say that they did either. ;D Richard
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