O/T: Q about BBC broadcasts from film in the 70s

[David Huggins]

Got a couple of queries about the BBC's broadcasts from film in the 70s and wondered if any of the experts here might be able to help. When did the BBC stop transmitting feature films from 35mm or 16mm prints? I'm guessing this was some time in the mid 80s, but would welcome any info on this.

I'm writing an article about the film Work is a Four Letter Word (dir. Peter Hall, 1968), which was broadcast by BBC 2 on 30th January 1974 (BBC Genome link). Is this likely to have been TX'd from film?

If so, what would normally happen with feature film prints after transmission? Would they go straight back to the distributor, or be temporarily kept in the BBC film library? I'm curious about this here because the film's production company (Cavalcade Films) dissolved many years ago, and there has never been a home video release. The BFI have 35mm prints, but I wonder what happened to the original masters and negatives after the production company closed down.

Here's a brief clip from the film (complete with incidental music by Delia Derbyshire), from a 1997 documentary on Cilla Black. The b/w 'behind-the-scenes' clip at the start is narrated by Melvyn Bragg, for the BBC 2 arts programme Release.

[Gary Critcher]

I'm pretty sure it would have been TX'd from whatever the print was, in this case probably 35mm. After TX it would have gone back to the Film Library in Brentford until it's next TX or when the contract was up for BBC use, then returned to the owners.

[davidstead]

1987 they stopped transmitting direct from film prints.

[Richard Marple]

There's a home recording doing the rounds of an film HTV showed in the 1980s where the telecine malfunctioned.

[John Green]

Oh, I used to puzzle about this one. Was a film mediated in some way, or was it put into a 'broadcaster'? Were we looking at a projection of the film?

[David Huggins]

Feb 13, 2017 15:20:38 GMT John Green said:

Oh, I used to puzzle about this one. Was a film mediated in some way, or was it put into a 'broadcaster'? Were we looking at a projection of the film?

Hi John,
Film is transferred to video using a telecine machine - you might find these YouTube videos on the process of interest. The second one goes into a lot of detail.

[David Huggins]

Thanks Gary Critcher , davidstead and Richard Marple for your replies on this, it's much appreciated.

I'm intrigued by the brief clip of "Work Is..." used in that 1997 Cilla documentary. The clip is in letterboxed 4:3, so presumably it's a more recent TK transfer done some time after the BBC's broadcast from film (perhaps in the 80s or early 90s). Odd to think that there's probably a letterbox transfer of the film sitting in vault somewhere, as it hasn't been broadcast in decades and there's no home video release.

Would the BBC have shown a widescreen film like this in letterbox 4:3 as well? Not sure if 1974 is too early for "pan and scan." I guess if they did show it letterboxed in '74, then some of these black bars would've been lost in the overscan of contemporary CRT televisions.

[Richard Marple]

Feb 13, 2017 13:35:29 GMT Richard Marple said:

There's a home recording doing the rounds of an film HTV showed in the 1980s where the telecine malfunctioned.

Here's what I was referring to:

link

[John Smith]

Feb 13, 2017 18:10:31 GMT David Huggins said:

Thanks Gary Critcher , davidstead and Richard Marple for your replies on this, it's much appreciated.

I'm intrigued by the brief clip of "Work Is..." used in that 1997 Cilla documentary. The clip is in letterboxed 4:3, so presumably it's a more recent TK transfer done some time after the BBC's broadcast from film (perhaps in the 80s or early 90s). Odd to think that there's probably a letterbox transfer of the film sitting in vault somewhere, as it hasn't been broadcast in decades and there's no home video release.

Would the BBC have shown a widescreen film like this in letterbox 4:3 as well? Not sure if 1974 is too early for "pan and scan." I guess if they did show it letterboxed in '74, then some of these black bars would've been lost in the overscan of contemporary CRT televisions.

I think the circulating copy seems to be NTSC in origin, so maybe the clips in the documentary are sourced from an overseas archive? either way thanks for flagging this bizarre film up to me with your post, i actually had never heard of it but have tracked it down and will give it a viewing soon

[David Huggins]

Feb 13, 2017 19:49:33 GMT John Smith said:

Feb 13, 2017 18:10:31 GMT David Huggins said:

Thanks Gary Critcher , davidstead and Richard Marple for your replies on this, it's much appreciated.

I'm intrigued by the brief clip of "Work Is..." used in that 1997 Cilla documentary. The clip is in letterboxed 4:3, so presumably it's a more recent TK transfer done some time after the BBC's broadcast from film (perhaps in the 80s or early 90s). Odd to think that there's probably a letterbox transfer of the film sitting in vault somewhere, as it hasn't been broadcast in decades and there's no home video release.

Would the BBC have shown a widescreen film like this in letterbox 4:3 as well? Not sure if 1974 is too early for "pan and scan." I guess if they did show it letterboxed in '74, then some of these black bars would've been lost in the overscan of contemporary CRT televisions.

I think the circulating copy seems to be NTSC in origin, so maybe the clips in the documentary are sourced from an overseas archive? either way thanks for flagging this bizarre film up to me with your post, i actually had never heard of it but have tracked it down and will give it a viewing soon

No worries, glad it's of interest! I stumbled across the film whilst looking into Delia Derbyshire's music. I think it's a hidden gem, deserving a wider audience. Parts of it veer into Monty Python-esque surrealism, and I love the anarchic energy conveyed by David Warner's character.

Maybe the BFI would consider it for their Flipside range, or perhaps Network.

Last year I bought a DVD of "Work Is" from a US website, which on arrival I discovered to be an unofficial NTSC DVD-R mastered from what looks like multigen VHS.

The site claims that "Work Is..." has fallen into the public domain, but I'm not so sure. The film was a co-production between Universal Pictures and Cavalcade Films in 1967... Cavalcade dissolved in 1999 but you'd think that Universal would still hold the rights. Hopefully all the original film elements were kept in their archive.

It was apparently distributed by Rank Film Distributors here in the UK, so perhaps some film copies were kept in their archives. The BFI list several 35mm prints on their site, which I guess may be useful if there's ever an official release.

[John Smith]

Yes i managed to acquire 2 versions, one appears to be from the aforementioned DVD, and the other appears to be a little lower res but from a lower gen (no blown out whites!)

[timmunton]

Almost saw it - on Channel 4 prob - circa 1985-1987.
Unfortunately heavy drinking meant I fell asleep just after it started!
Someone who was there who stayed awake said it was very good.

A bit hard to appreciate now as that DVD-r from the USA is so lo-fi as to be watchable but somewhat dampening of the experience ( & I don't mean the psychedelic fungus! ) - but as far as I can gauge it; it is a very good film.
( The dvd-r I have came with, ie. on the same disc, some - non-rare I think - 1960s pop music )

Can't see why it shouldn't clock up enough sales to get an official release by Network or whoever - seeing as it has Cilla, David Warner & one or two other well known faces.

Shame in the meantime no one taped the 80's broadcast for unofficial better source viewing.

[Mark Tinkler]

It looks to me that that the clips from WORD IS A 4 LETTER WORD could have been taken from the 1980s Channel 4 version (which I think I also used in the 30 Years of Cilla celebration prog I A/P-ed yonks ago) - Channel 4 had tele-cine facilities in house and all films were transferred, in the 1980s, to 1"

The lines of blacking were called affectionately in-house as "the Bob Gillette" standard which think was 11 blank lines top & bottom which was used to show as much of the frame as possible on a 4x3 TV screen without some people moaning about too much black on their TV screens (which they did at the drop of a hat)

Bob Gillette was the deputy head of VT at C4 who came up with this idea - really nice guy

C4 spent many hours on their film transfers - I think it was BILLY LIAR which took over 2 full days to pan & scan as it was a cinemascope film, to show as part of a 60s season. I can't remember (I worked at C4 from 1984-86) if any cinemascope films were shown letterboxes ever, just panned & scanned - though I do remember that when we had FUNNY GIRL, C4 got a 16mm print which didn't really stand up to pan & scan so I think was shown letterboxed and lo, the viewing public complained...

And WORK IS A 4 LETTER WORD is owned by Universal and not PD - there are probably some underlying rights in it as well but I certainly licenced it from Universal which I used a clip.

[Richard Marple]

I remember a lot of letters to Teletext & Ceefax in the late 1990s about whether films should be letterboxed or not.

Some films have scenes where the action happening at the sides of the picture that make pan & scan hard to do.

[Mark Tinkler]

...but if a Channel's policy was to pan and scan, that's what had to be done - it was down to the telecine operator to decide which side of the action was the one to be seen.

I guarantee that films like THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY were shown in 4x3 in the 1970s before people though about panning & scanning - that must have looked very odd!!