|
Post by Steven Sigel on Jul 12, 2008 14:53:56 GMT
Dupe negatives were also created. I can't recall there ever being a case when someone holding a Doctor Who episode, missing or otherwise, had a negative. Especially from a film collectors point of view, what would be the attraction, given that you couldn't properly watch it? StevenS - From your experience, would negatives hold any attraction for people in the collecting community? Richard Hmm, first time I've ever seen anything about dupe 16mm negatives being created. Which does lead in to one obvious question. Ian Levine once stated that there were 28 copies made of EVERY episode (barring DMP7). Now why would a person of Ian's standing say THAT?? Don't forget, Ian is one of the few people alive who has ever had access to certain records. So it seems VERY odd that he would just pluck a number out of thin air. Anyway, it is definitely known which episodes came back from private hands (and those episodes are probably still available for inspection). So relatively speaking it should be simple to have a look at them to see whether they are 'positive' or 'negative'. Is there any way that anybody can do this?? Also it has not been answered what form 'test or viewing' prints take. Positive or negative?? Anyone know the answer?? These are ALL important questions that need answering as soon as possible because it could help us to discover if at least one of the private prints was a negative. Which like I say, would have therefore either had to have sprouted legs and jumped out of a skip, or sproutd legs and ran out of Villiers. If none are negatives, then it would more or less prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that NOBODY removed ANY reels of film from the skips at Villiers, either whilst they were in the skip or after they had been carted away. Or that none had gone out of the back door either. We would then only have the question, if NONE of these private prints came from Villiers, then where did they come from. Because that would in itself lead to questions of other sorts, such as if 1 complete story was in private hands (Time Meddler) whilst it was still considered 'lost', what are the chances 'other complete stories' could also be in private hands using the same method that 'Time Meddler' was obtained. After all it would seem VERY odd for a person to just obtain by whatever method was used 'just 1 story of Dr Who'. 1) all "PRINTS" viewing and otherwise are positive... a Negative is not a print. A Viewing print is simply a print struck with appropriate density for direct projection while a broadcast print is one struck with appropriate density for 1960s TV broadcast (today, they can broadcast anything - much better technology). 2) Enterprises had both negatives and positives as did (and does) the film library-- so just because no one has a negative proves NOTHING about where the prints came from (or didn't come from).
|
|
|
Post by Richard Bignell on Jul 12, 2008 14:54:02 GMT
Ian Levine once stated that there were 28 copies made of EVERY episode (barring DMP7). Now why would a person of Ian's standing say THAT?? Because, quite honestly, he was talking rubbish! We already know that they're all positive prints. If you made a viewing print, it would be a positive. There wouldn't be any point giving someone a negative. It wouldn't prove anything of the sort. The store room at Villiers House held positives and negatives. Richard
|
|
|
Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 12, 2008 14:59:11 GMT
Slept after reading the postings, and you know what they say about a good night's sleep. socially aware up this morning and realised there IS a way to check the history of a 'missing' ep that was returned from private hands. Just look at the print. As far as 'I' know, the ONLY 'negatives' of the prints were the original BBC 16mm's held by Enterprises. 'Positives' were struck for other TV stations. (Anybody know what format 'test prints' or 'viewing prints' take? Positive or negative?) Because if the answer in both cases is 'positive' then a look at the print of a 'missing' ep returned from private hands would easily tell if it was positive or negative. Therefore ANY returns which were 'negative' can ONLY have been from Enterprises. (I'm surprised no one seems to have raised this point before) In which cases, they could only have either come out of a skip, or not even seen a skip. Though without sight of those fabled index cards, or pieces of paper that 'unaccounted for episodes' may have been written on by Ian/Sue etc, no one can say which scenario would be the case. However the stronger of the two possibilities would have to be that they were from out of a skip. Which would prove my original point, that episodes signed off as desroyed and put in a skip, WERE indeed then 'rescued'. Which begs the question. Does anybody know whether the 'lost' prints from private hands (and I'm not just talking Dr Who here)are positives or negatives ?? If those of Time Meddler for instance that were returned from private hands ARE negatives (and test/viewing prints ARE positives), then that is undeniable proof that 'entire stories' never mind single eps were either rescued from skips or sprouted legs and ran out of Villiers upon hearing the screams. No idea what you are saying here. The only recoveries from negatives that I'm aware of came from the episodes that were at enterprises in 1978 when Ian and Sue went looking for them. As for coming out of skips etc --- that's just not true Just as an example (I believe these are correct): -- Dalek Masterplan (5,10) were found in a basement of a building that used to be a BBC facility (was at the time a church) -- Ice Warrirors was found "misfiled" at a BBC facility -- Tomb of the Cybermen was found in Hong Kong at the TV archive -- Dalek Masterplan (2) was held by an engineer who had taken it home after it was used as test film. -- Celestial Toymaker was found by the ABC in Austrailia there are many more examples... BTW - as an aside -- if a print actually made it to a skip, it was probably on a core (or worse, unspooled into a heap), outside of a can (they recycled the reels and cans), and so it wouldn't last more than a few days before getting severe moisture damage. So the point is that the fact that a print is positive, tells you nothing about where it came from. And furthermore -what does it matter anyway??? I'm not talking about those prints that you mentioned. I'm talking about the others. More specifically 'Time Meddler' from private hands, Evil Of Daleks and The Faceless Ones, the two that were returned by Gordon Henry. Is it known if ANY of these are negatives? If it is not known, can it be checked? Because like I say, at least in England, the only negs were held by the BBC, so if 'one or some of the above eps' are negs, it would seem undeniable fact that they are the bbc's prints, which can only mean they were either removed from a skip or spirited away before they even got to one, which would in itself lead to more hope that 'others' were rescued from a skip or that others never even saw one.
|
|
|
Post by Steven Sigel on Jul 12, 2008 15:05:13 GMT
No idea what you are saying here. The only recoveries from negatives that I'm aware of came from the episodes that were at enterprises in 1978 when Ian and Sue went looking for them. As for coming out of skips etc --- that's just not true Just as an example (I believe these are correct): -- Dalek Masterplan (5,10) were found in a basement of a building that used to be a BBC facility (was at the time a church) -- Ice Warrirors was found "misfiled" at a BBC facility -- Tomb of the Cybermen was found in Hong Kong at the TV archive -- Dalek Masterplan (2) was held by an engineer who had taken it home after it was used as test film. -- Celestial Toymaker was found by the ABC in Austrailia there are many more examples... BTW - as an aside -- if a print actually made it to a skip, it was probably on a core (or worse, unspooled into a heap), outside of a can (they recycled the reels and cans), and so it wouldn't last more than a few days before getting severe moisture damage. So the point is that the fact that a print is positive, tells you nothing about where it came from. And furthermore -what does it matter anyway??? I'm not talking about those prints that you mentioned. I'm talking about the others. More specifically 'Time Meddler' from private hands, Evil Of Daleks and The Faceless Ones, the two that were returned by Gordon Henry. Is it known if ANY of these are negatives? If it is not known, can it be checked? Because like I say, at least in England, the only negs were held by the BBC, so if 'one or some of the above eps' are negs, it would seem undeniable fact that they are the bbc's prints, which can only mean they were either removed from a skip or spirited away before they even got to one, which would in itself lead to more hope that 'others' were rescued from a skip or that others never even saw one. What you say makes no sense... As both Richard and I have said - they had both positives and negatives in the archives/ents. I don't know where Gordon Hendry's prints came from, but I think the extra Time Meddler prints that Ian Levine found, came along with several other prints that were held by another former BBC engineer. In any case it's hardly relevant anyway...
|
|
|
Post by Richard Bignell on Jul 12, 2008 15:05:50 GMT
Is it known if ANY of these are negatives? If it is not known, can it be checked? As I've already said, we already know that they are *all* positive prints. None of them are negatives. Richard
|
|
|
Post by Phillip Culley on Jul 13, 2008 3:16:17 GMT
Ian Levine once stated that there were 28 copies made of EVERY episode (barring DMP7). Now why would a person of Ian's standing say THAT?? Because, quite honestly, he was talking rubbish! Is this related to his comment on The Missing Years about how he rescued 28 reels of 'The Daleks' (7 positive and 7 negative in English, and 7 positive and 7 negative in Arabic)?
|
|
|
Post by Jon Preddle on Jul 13, 2008 4:39:51 GMT
If this collector rescued 321 reels of film from the Karori dump, what has become of the 320 others? It would be interesting to know what else was saved. Was is all foreign (BBC) stuff, or was there more importantly BCNZ recordings too? Is there a list of the recovered films online anywhere? There is no online copy of the list. Until the 'owner' of the list gives his permission, the list will never be put online. Of the other 320 films he saved, he kept (and still has) most of the ones he wanted, and sold or gave away the rest. It was mostly US film series, and a few nature documentaries.
|
|
|
Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 13, 2008 5:59:50 GMT
I'm not talking about those prints that you mentioned. I'm talking about the others. More specifically 'Time Meddler' from private hands, Evil Of Daleks and The Faceless Ones, the two that were returned by Gordon Henry. Is it known if ANY of these are negatives? If it is not known, can it be checked? Because like I say, at least in England, the only negs were held by the BBC, so if 'one or some of the above eps' are negs, it would seem undeniable fact that they are the bbc's prints, which can only mean they were either removed from a skip or spirited away before they even got to one, which would in itself lead to more hope that 'others' were rescued from a skip or that others never even saw one. What you say makes no sense... As both Richard and I have said - they had both positives and negatives in the archives/ents. I don't know where Gordon Hendry's prints came from, but I think the extra Time Meddler prints that Ian Levine found, came along with several other prints that were held by another former BBC engineer. In any case it's hardly relevant anyway... Sorry about the posting which seemed 'out of place'. I did notice we were online at same time, and i just took longer to write and post than you did. Anyway, onto 'the point' of the posting/thread. I was trying to establish the likelihood that 'junked prints' from villiers may have been rescued from a skip. And thanks to information by you and Richard, this now seems, unfortunately, VERY likely to have NEVER happened. (Pamela needs to recieve a medal for efficiency) Yes, ents had both positive and negative prints of Dr Who and all the other TV it was 'junking'. And one can not now know the history behind some of the Dr Who prints from private hands or of the other tv progs that have been recovered too. But what is known now, is that seemingly NO negative prints of anything have ever been found AND also handed back. The law of averages is going to say that if 'prints' were rescued from skips. That at least some of them would be negatives as well as positives. And since no negatives have ever been handed back it would therefore seem (unless negatives have been deliberately kept by a rescuer, and realistically there is no reason for this) that indeed NOTHING was ever rescued from skips at villiers house. Which seriously damages ANYBODY's hope that there are still missing episodes of Dr Who out there. Realistically, the only hope that episodes still remain (at least in UK) is if positive prints sprouted legs and eventually ran into someone's house. Or, 'unaccounted for prints' which could not be found come junking time, (however without sight of the precious index cards we will NEVER know if there are any of 'those kinds of prints' still left out there). Does anybody know if the index cards at ents listed only the negs, or the pos's as well. If they only listed the negs, then it could well be that there are 'no unaccounted for negs' left, but if records of pos prints were not made, then one can not possibly hope to know the number of 'unaccounted for positive prints'. The amount of TV prints (and there seems to be a fair number of them) handed back/found over all the years though is baffling now that the 'rescued from skips theory' seems to have been completely disproved. Because if (and on the surface this would seem to be the case) the 'saved' TV is all stuff that was 'taken' by BBC (ex)employees. Then how come nobody seemed to notice it?? I mean, 'Time Meddler' for example, 4 cans of film are hardly something you can put in your pocket. Or was it just that the removal of prints was SO endemic that everyone just turned a blind eye to it as long as it was not a negative print, from which another positive could be made.
|
|
|
Post by John Andersen on Jul 13, 2008 13:59:32 GMT
I was trying to establish the likelihood that 'junked prints' from villiers may have been rescued from a skip. And thanks to information by you and Richard, this now seems, unfortunately, VERY likely to have NEVER happened. (Pamela needs to recieve a medal for efficiency) That medal has been awarded to her at other forums already. I had very high hopes in the 80s that a lot more material would be returned from overseas television stations, but unfortunately those stations were telexed with specific orders to destroy their prints as well.
|
|
|
Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 13, 2008 14:45:40 GMT
I was trying to establish the likelihood that 'junked prints' from villiers may have been rescued from a skip. And thanks to information by you and Richard, this now seems, unfortunately, VERY likely to have NEVER happened. (Pamela needs to recieve a medal for efficiency) That medal has been awarded to her at other forums already. I had very high hopes in the 80s that a lot more material would be returned from overseas television stations, but unfortunately those stations were telexed with specific orders to destroy their prints as well. That's not to say that foreign stations, particularly in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and especially the African countries may not still have prints. After all I imagine that looking through literally thousands of prints etc in order to weed out the ones no longer wanted was, and probably still is very time consuming, and therefore an expensive waste of resources. Far cheaper, quicker and easier to just sign the piece of paper and say it was/has been destroyed). However the likelihood of fans (and) or BBC employees ever being given direct access to foreign archives in order to look for missing tv is remote to say the least. And especially from the BBC's point of view, it would seem to be an expensive waste of resources for possibly no reward at the end. So unless someone in a foreign archive has the spare time, and the will, plus (especially speaking for the African countries) the equipment necessary to play 16mm prints. Then realistically no more material is ever gonna come back from a foreign archive. Short of a search warrant to look in the properties of all ex and current BBC employees who were around during the period from say 72-78. Then things aren't looking good for more Who. Things aren't looking good at all.
|
|
|
Post by Steven Sigel on Jul 13, 2008 14:51:13 GMT
I was trying to establish the likelihood that 'junked prints' from villiers may have been rescued from a skip. And thanks to information by you and Richard, this now seems, unfortunately, VERY likely to have NEVER happened. (Pamela needs to recieve a medal for efficiency) Yes, ents had both positive and negative prints of Dr Who and all the other TV it was 'junking'. And one can not now know the history behind some of the Dr Who prints from private hands or of the other tv progs that have been recovered too. But what is known now, is that seemingly NO negative prints of anything have ever been found AND also handed back. The law of averages is going to say that if 'prints' were rescued from skips. That at least some of them would be negatives as well as positives. And since no negatives have ever been handed back it would therefore seem (unless negatives have been deliberately kept by a rescuer, and realistically there is no reason for this) that indeed NOTHING was ever rescued from skips at villiers house. Which seriously damages ANYBODY's hope that there are still missing episodes of Dr Who out there. Realistically, the only hope that episodes still remain (at least in UK) is if positive prints sprouted legs and eventually ran into someone's house. Or, 'unaccounted for prints' which could not be found come junking time, (however without sight of the precious index cards we will NEVER know if there are any of 'those kinds of prints' still left out there). Does anybody know if the index cards at ents listed only the negs, or the pos's as well. If they only listed the negs, then it could well be that there are 'no unaccounted for negs' left, but if records of pos prints were not made, then one can not possibly hope to know the number of 'unaccounted for positive prints'. The amount of TV prints (and there seems to be a fair number of them) handed back/found over all the years though is baffling now that the 'rescued from skips theory' seems to have been completely disproved. Because if (and on the surface this would seem to be the case) the 'saved' TV is all stuff that was 'taken' by BBC (ex)employees. Then how come nobody seemed to notice it?? I mean, 'Time Meddler' for example, 4 cans of film are hardly something you can put in your pocket. Or was it just that the removal of prints was SO endemic that everyone just turned a blind eye to it as long as it was not a negative print, from which another positive could be made. To answer some of your points: 1) You are correct that it is very unlikely that stuff was rescued from the skips or landfills... One reason is that in a lot of cases (not sure about the BBC) the films were taken off their reels, possibily unspooled into a mass of tangled film, or even cut in half with a bandsaw making it very difficult to rescue. 2) There weren't that many prints "removed" as far as I can tell -- most returned TV has been from prints used for overseas sales. For instance, one film dealer in Australia bought an entire warehouse full of TV prints from a former distributor and sold them off to film collectors. Most of the stuff was US shows, but there were some UK shows (both missing and non-missing) in the batch. (Yes, the missing stuff has been returned). 3) IIRC, the Time Meddler prints (I think it was only parts 1&3) were located along with several other prints that a former BBC engineer had in his posession. Same for Francis Watson who had "Day of Armageddon" and "The Expedition"... 4) In the 80s someone "borrowed" about a half dozen prints (or negs?) and had copies made up. So, it would appear that it wasn't that hard to get films out of the archives at that time. Not sure about the 70s.
|
|
|
Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 13, 2008 15:44:38 GMT
As regards the return of 'Time Meddler' from private hands. I do believe it was all 4 parts that the bbc enginner had. Certainly when I have written to such effect in this thread, Richard has not commented to say that that was not the case, and since joinging this forum I have noticed that Richard seems quick to point 'such inaccuracies' out. So unless Richard or someone else with qualified knowledge says it was NOT all 4 parts. Then I think we can safely assume that it was. Which WOULD give hope that other entire Who stories were removed (or copies made from the negs and then removed), but none of which have not turned up yet either through voluntary submissions or by death.
Anyone for that search warrant ?? (please treat that as a frustrated joke).
|
|
|
Post by Steven Sigel on Jul 13, 2008 16:12:08 GMT
As regards the return of 'Time Meddler' from private hands. I do believe it was all 4 parts that the bbc enginner had. Certainly when I have written to such effect in this thread, Richard has not commented to say that that was not the case, and since joinging this forum I have noticed that Richard seems quick to point 'such inaccuracies' out. So unless Richard or someone else with qualified knowledge says it was NOT all 4 parts. Then I think we can safely assume that it was. Which WOULD give hope that other entire Who stories were removed (or copies made from the negs and then removed), but none of which have not turned up yet either through voluntary submissions or by death. Anyone for that search warrant ?? (please treat that as a frustrated joke). It's not all 4 parts... I currently own the prints, so I think that gives me qualified knowlege... :-) Parts 1&3 only...
|
|
|
Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 13, 2008 16:28:01 GMT
As regards the return of 'Time Meddler' from private hands. I do believe it was all 4 parts that the bbc enginner had. Certainly when I have written to such effect in this thread, Richard has not commented to say that that was not the case, and since joinging this forum I have noticed that Richard seems quick to point 'such inaccuracies' out. So unless Richard or someone else with qualified knowledge says it was NOT all 4 parts. Then I think we can safely assume that it was. Which WOULD give hope that other entire Who stories were removed (or copies made from the negs and then removed), but none of which have not turned up yet either through voluntary submissions or by death. Anyone for that search warrant ?? (please treat that as a frustrated joke). It's not all 4 parts... I currently own the prints, so I think that gives me qualified knowlege... :-) Parts 1&3 only... In that case I bow to superior knowledge.
|
|
|
Post by JOHN SMITH on Jul 13, 2008 18:17:14 GMT
As far as ANY hope of future recoveries of Who goes, since it seems to have been established that none (at least in UK) were made from skips at villiers. The one encouraging sign seems to be how popular Doctor Who was 'to borrow'.
Assuming that the private recoveries of 'missing' Who were originally 'obtained' by different people. And although that's a big assumption to make, the available evidence would seem to indicate such since otherwise all the 'recoveries' would have been via just 1 private individual.
We therefore have
1: Francis Watson, an employee who eventually returned DMP2
2: The employee who held unedited prints of Time Meddler 1, 3
3: Reign Of Terror 6 came from yet another individual
4: Evil Of The Daleks 2, Faceless Ones 3 that were returned by Gordon Hendry from a car boot sale. Presumably came from yet another different fan at the BBC.
5: Wheel In Space 3 from yet another individual.
Richard B or anyone with similar knowledge, were there any more private recoveries of different missing eps made ? I have seen that apparently a conversation took place between Paul Lee, Richard Langden and Steve Roberts where Richard said that copies of Tomb 1-4 were in England before it was even found in HK. (Maybe Richard or Steve could shed more 'light' on this conversation'.
Also what does not seem to be written online somewhere are if there were any private recoveries of episodes that were already held by the BBC (barring those that were 'borrowed' and subsequently copied and sold in the 80's). Does anyone know if any such recoveries were made??
However even without 'answers' to the last few questions. We seem to have indications that at least 5 individuals 'borrowed' prints from the BBC. Yes, the BBC employ(ed)(s) many people. However a significant number of those probably had no access to prints. Which therefore narrows the % of available people who 'borrowed' 'Doctor Who' down quite a bit. Thereby increasing the % of people 'borrowing' Dr Who who actually had at least some sort of access to it.
|
|