|
Post by Adrian Gregg on Jul 19, 2008 7:03:32 GMT
Yep I mean Ambassadors of Death. Yep i know all the in's and outs of TR's but why retain and then sell the B&W tr? wouldnt be eaiser to sell the story and Mute the colour on the VT?. my question is where did the TR come from. was it from BBC Worldwide? or from the ABC? and how many more B&W TRs exist of colour tapes. i know there has been a list in DWM or some wab page. but I never knew AOD had a TR made and more importanly held on to for resale puropses
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2008 9:19:37 GMT
For whatever reason, it seems that BBC enterprises held on to a lot of b/w t/r Pertwees well after their selling period had ceased, including all of the first Pertwee season (7) - luckily for us. When BBC archives finally got it's act together and started retrieving material in the late '70s / early '80s, the cache of episodes at Enterprises was one of the first recoveries and that b/w run of many Pertwees was all that existed for a while in the '80s.
Before the colour restorations began in the '90s, the b/w copies of some stories (e.g. Silurians, Ambassadors, Autons etc.) were the only broadcast standard copies known to exist, bar the odd episode that escaped wiping. If the t/r of Ambassadors hadn't existed all along then there would have been no (albeit partial so far) colour copy of that story now (save for a fuzzy domestic off-air) as no high definition b/w image would be available to combine with a colour signal!
|
|
|
Post by Steven Sigel on Jul 19, 2008 15:31:20 GMT
Yep I mean Ambassadors of Death. Yep i know all the in's and outs of TR's but why retain and then sell the B&W tr? wouldnt be eaiser to sell the story and Mute the colour on the VT?. my question is where did the TR come from. was it from BBC Worldwide? or from the ABC? and how many more B&W TRs exist of colour tapes. i know there has been a list in DWM or some wab page. but I never knew AOD had a TR made and more importanly held on to for resale puropses When they made the T/Rs there were still a lot of countries that were broadcasting in B&W. Also at the time, film was a lot cheaper than videotape. By the time it got around to the mid 80s, I suspect that they shipped the B&W copies for consistency (same for the remaining color episode of the Daemons). By then as well, the film recordings had been transfered back to VT and everything was shipped around as VT.
|
|
|
Post by Paul Smith on Jul 19, 2008 23:02:12 GMT
Thanks again, Jon. That makes things clearer, although there are still oddities in the process. 1975 Frontier in Space and Planet of Daleks are withdrawn from sale by BBC Enterprises in London. BBC Sydney notified. (BBC Sydney probably instructed to wipe its colour copies of Planet; but Frontier is spared from this purge, and the tapes remain in storage. By 1976, BBC London has wiped eps 1,2,3,6 of Frontier and ep 3 of Planet. The fact that Sydney still has a copy of Frontier is omitted from records.) This raises questions about Enterprises' colour holdings. I would have thought they made their own dupes of the broadcast master tapes, in which case the wiping of those wouldn't necessarily affect the episodes' availability in colour overseas. Could it be that colour sales were so few at that time that Enterprises just made a dupe of the masters whenever they'd made a sale, so once the master were gone all they could sell was b/w telerecordings? What an odd way to operate! (I know VT was expensive, but still.) 1978 ABC buys a number of colour Pertwees: including Season 10 - but not Frontier and Planet of Daleks as they are "incomplete" and therefore not available. (No one knows the full copy of Frontier already exists in Australia!). Green Death is passed and screens for the first time. So does your evidence suggest the inestimable Mr Pixley is wrong to say in the DWM Archive that Frontier was repeated in 1978? Has he assumed it was because other Season 10 stories were shown then? (Rhetorical question, unless Andrew happens to be reading this.) 1981/83 ABC negotiates for another run of colour Pertwee eps. Frontier and Planet of Daleks still not available: however someone finds the full colour copy Frontier in Space in BBC Sydney's vaults. Frontier was returned in 1985. The story goes: ABC found it on its shelves, broadcast it and an Australian fan alerted Ian Levine it was being shown all in colour, who alerted the BBC Film & VT Library. Now this must be a too simple retelling if the tapes were actually at the BBC Sydney offices. Did they discover them and makes them available for purchase independently of Enterprises UK? Either way, would their screening have been part of the repeat run you mention (meaning it took a couple years more to actually get them back to the UK)? BTW Does your 1981/83 dating indicate two repeat runs, or that you're uncertain of the exact date of a single run? Cheers P
|
|
|
Post by Bobby Clark (synthpopalooza) on Jul 20, 2008 3:38:54 GMT
I just realized something ...
The editing on that episode of "Carnival of Monsters" with the Delaware theme is a bit dodgy ... the cliffhanger from the previous episode doesn't appear until halfway through the story, and appears to be out of sequence with the rest of the episode. Is this because Aussie was sent the badly edited "71" copy of the episode by mistake? It'd be interesting to find out how the episode ran as originally broadcast by the BBC.
|
|
|
Post by Jon Preddle on Jul 20, 2008 4:14:30 GMT
Thanks again, Jon. That makes things clearer, although there are still oddities in the process. 1975 Frontier in Space and Planet of Daleks are withdrawn from sale by BBC Enterprises in London. BBC Sydney notified. (BBC Sydney probably instructed to wipe its colour copies of Planet; but Frontier is spared from this purge, and the tapes remain in storage. By 1976, BBC London has wiped eps 1,2,3,6 of Frontier and ep 3 of Planet. The fact that Sydney still has a copy of Frontier is omitted from records.) This raises questions about Enterprises' colour holdings. I would have thought they made their own dupes of the broadcast master tapes, in which case the wiping of those wouldn't necessarily affect the episodes' availability in colour overseas. Could it be that colour sales were so few at that time that Enterprises just made a dupe of the masters whenever they'd made a sale, so once the master were gone all they could sell was b/w telerecordings? What an odd way to operate! (I know VT was expensive, but still.) P Enterprises probably didn't hold their own copy as they didn't need to, as in 1973 no foreign stations who bought from the BBC were broadcasting in colour. The only known colour copies were sent to Australia, as ABC had indicated they would repeat Frontier once they started colour broadcasts in 1975. So does your evidence suggest the inestimable Mr Pixley is wrong to say in the DWM Archive that Frontier was repeated in 1978? Has he assumed it was because other Season 10 stories were shown then? (Rhetorical question, unless Andrew happens to be reading this.) P Yes, Andrew is wrong! 1981/83 ABC negotiates for another run of colour Pertwee eps. Frontier and Planet of Daleks still not available: however someone finds the full colour copy Frontier in Space in BBC Sydney's vaults. Frontier was returned in 1985. The story goes: ABC found it on its shelves, broadcast it and an Australian fan alerted Ian Levine it was being shown all in colour, who alerted the BBC Film & VT Library. Now this must be a too simple retelling if the tapes were actually at the BBC Sydney offices. Did they discover them and makes them available for purchase independently of Enterprises UK? Either way, would their screening have been part of the repeat run you mention (meaning it took a couple years more to actually get them back to the UK)? P The ABC cannot screen anything they don't have the rights to. They couldn't have just found Frontier and screened it without paying. BBC Sydney acted independently of Enterprises, yes. That's why it was set up in the first place, to act as Enterprises' sales agency 'down under' selling to the Australasian/Asian market. (The reason for this is simply to do with the time difference on the other side of the planet; foreign stations can't buy from a broadcaster that's asleep!) What I think may have happened is when the ABC asked of BBC Sydney what colour Pertwees they had, rather than looking at just the data base, they checked what tapes were physically held. They saw that Frontier was there, and offered it for sale. BBC Sydney completed the sale. Then later, Levine found out, and the rest we know... BTW Does your 1981/83 dating indicate two repeat runs, or that you're uncertain of the exact date of a single run? The tapes were found in 1981, but not returned to the BBC until 1983. Jon
|
|
|
Post by Jon Preddle on Jul 20, 2008 4:16:07 GMT
I just realized something ... The editing on that episode of "Carnival of Monsters" with the Delaware theme is a bit dodgy ... the cliffhanger from the previous episode doesn't appear until halfway through the story, and appears to be out of sequence with the rest of the episode. Is this because Aussie was sent the badly edited "71" copy of the episode by mistake? It'd be interesting to find out how the episode ran as originally broadcast by the BBC. The 'extended' episode can be found on the BBC video release of the story. The 'as-aired' version is on the DVD.
|
|
|
Post by Adrian Gregg on Jul 20, 2008 8:20:14 GMT
Yep again I do know quite a lot about the whole issue but someone might have got some info so thanks for them. BUT what about the TR's of already existing Pertwees in colour. do we have a list of what the bbc retained and why. I mean after the colour tapes were found and the NTSC copys found. was it policy to keep hold of the TR's? is there TR's of say the monstor of peledon for example. are there TR's of say "monty python's Flying Circus" Hanging around never to be junked. and what about say Dad's army. The ABC had (from what I've read almost 25 years ago) loads of em on 625. the beeb had very few. so in a 80's repeat on bbc1 most were TR's until the ABC somehow informed the bbc or somthing? . I know sometime in 84-5 a commercial channel held the rights down under for Dad's Army as we got to see em on our NBN (newcastle) so presumbly the ABC "Lost" the rights to show em. now around this time the tapes were "discoverd" i think in 86. and the beeb then had colour copys of all (colour runs) of dad's army , apart from the one that got away. Its kinda like the pertwee dr who story ... Ain't it..
|
|
|
Post by Adrian Gregg on Jul 20, 2008 8:27:06 GMT
Another Idea. has anyone got TV guides from downunder to scan? and put here. I used to have a load of old TV guides but they got destroyed in a flood!! In the late 70's it was quite common to state next to the program in the guide if it was in colour or not. I mean how hard would that be.. to scan some !! I know its like some of us "real hunters" its doing rather than postulating on the net!! ;-)
|
|
|
Post by Paul Smith on Jul 20, 2008 10:20:36 GMT
Illuminating as ever, Jon. The tapes were found in 1981, but not returned to the BBC until 1983. Can I just ask what the source/evidence for this 1983 dating is? It's just that all the recovery reports I've been able to find put Frontier coming back in 1985, including Richard Molesworth's 1997 DWM report on the archives and Robert Franks' Quick Guide at The Doctor Who Gateway. Cheers P
|
|
|
Post by Richard Bignell on Jul 20, 2008 11:06:42 GMT
Can I just ask what the source/evidence for this 1983 dating is? It was reported in the September 1983 issue of DWM. Richard
|
|
|
Post by Rob Moss on Jul 20, 2008 19:33:41 GMT
Off at a bit of a tangent, perhaps Richard or someone else knowledgeable can answer me this... I have a (very poor) copy of a recording of part of an episode of Colony In Space, which was recorded off-air in Australia in the 70s (I believe). Would this have been txed from a b/w film print? It's just that it appears to be without music and sound effects, and I wondered whether the Enterprises b/w print of that episode is a recording of an earlier (pre-final dub) edit, or whether it came from somewhere else. Does the b/w film version still exist?
|
|
|
Post by Paul Smith on Jul 20, 2008 20:22:49 GMT
Can I just ask what the source/evidence for this 1983 dating is? It was reported in the September 1983 issue of DWM. Richard Well yes, alongside "mint, two inch Video Tape copies" of Terror of the Autons and Planet of the Daleks, supposedly. That report is so confused it's not very reliable. We have Mr Molesworth saying 1985 in all his writings on the subject, and the equally dependable Mr Pixley citing summer 83 in his DWM Archive. Is there any first-hand evidence to swing it one way or the other? Cheers P
|
|
|
Post by Paul Smith on Jul 20, 2008 20:28:29 GMT
Enterprises probably didn't hold their own copy as they didn't need to, as in 1973 no foreign stations who bought from the BBC were broadcasting in colour. The only known colour copies were sent to Australia, as ABC had indicated they would repeat Frontier once they started colour broadcasts in 1975. Well, except America. Ents (or Time-Life) must have made the NTSC conversions from something. Master tape or their own dupe? (I presume the former.) Yes, Andrew is wrong! Oh my god, the Darkness really is coming! P
|
|
|
Post by Jon Preddle on Jul 20, 2008 22:42:44 GMT
Illuminating as ever, Jon. The tapes were found in 1981, but not returned to the BBC until 1983. Can I just ask what the source/evidence for this 1983 dating is? It's just that all the recovery reports I've been able to find put Frontier coming back in 1985, including Richard Molesworth's 1997 DWM report on the archives and Robert Franks' Quick Guide at The Doctor Who Gateway. Cheers P Sorry for the confusion, I guess it depends on your definition of 'recovery' and 'return'. The colour copy of Frontier in Space was 'recovered' in 1981, screened in 1983 and 'returned' in 1985. I got a copy of the 83 screening in May 1984. The serial later screened in NZ in April 1986 once the tapes were back at the BBC. Incidenbtally, the copy of Frontier ep 5 we saw was the edited version that had screened in Australia (a scene of Jo being roughed up by the Ogrons (oo-er) was missing. And the BBC video that was available through Roadshow Australasia was also the edit, which makes we wonder that the wrong version of ep 5 was sent out. I don't think I've ever seen the uncut version of ep5. Can't wait for the DVD then!
|
|