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Post by ianphillips on Sept 9, 2018 16:13:50 GMT
Stories 47, 48, and 50 were all given to the BFI, and that's why we have them today. Do we know why the BBC didn't decide to donate story 49, The Space Pirates, as well?
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Post by gbaker on Sept 9, 2018 20:58:58 GMT
According to WIPED!, the Dominators, Krotons and War Games (but NOT Seeds of Death) were sent to the BFI in 1977. Apparently, BBC Enterprises held a copy of Seeds of Death in 1978 when Ian Levine came to the rescue. It seems that, for some unknown reason, one less copy of the Space Pirates was kicking around at the time. Again, according to WIPED!, the BBC did not have a copy of the Space Pirates (except episode 2) in November 1976 when the 'Whose Doctor Who' documentary was being planned.
On 4rh June 1975 a large barge of 1960's WHO was returned from Australia, including the Space Pirates. It is possible that this copy was sent to Zambia along with the Seeds of Death and the War Games for transmission there in 1976. Nobody seems to know whether these episodes were returned to the BBC (please correct me if I'm wrong). If they WERE, it begs the question as to why the Space Pirates was not retained by BBC Enterprises (as per Seeds of Death) or sent to the BFI (as per War Games). If they were NOT returned, then what happened to them? Phil Morris found no trace of WHO there in 2008, but could they have been 'rescued'? If so, heaven only knows where they are now. What we need is a TARDIS, a cloaking device and a Missing Episodes Detector....sigh....!
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Post by Chris Wilkinson on Sept 9, 2018 21:00:31 GMT
Stories 47, 48, and 50 were all given to the BFI, and that's why we have them today. Do we know why the BBC didn't decide to donate story 49, The Space Pirates, as well? I would imagine it's because they were offered circa 1977, by which time the negatives and remaining prints for The Space Pirates may have already been destroyed. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2018 16:07:12 GMT
Phil Morris found no trace of WHO there in 2008
Where is there? Zambia?
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Post by Robert Lia on Sept 10, 2018 21:05:15 GMT
You cant offer to the BFI or any one else what you have already wiped
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Post by Jon Preddle on Sept 10, 2018 21:20:22 GMT
It's a 'Chicken or Egg?' scenario. Did the BFI only take what little was still available, or did they choose a small sample from a bigger selection?
The BFI had limited budget - they had to buy these films; they weren't donated by the BBC for free. So it's more likely they only acquired 19 negatives and prints -- The Dominators, The Krotons and The War Games -- because that's all they could afford. And the ones they didn't buy were junked by the BBC.
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Post by Robert Lia on Sept 10, 2018 21:32:39 GMT
I take it he sales paper work for these story's to the BFI no longer exists, I had always thought that BBC Enterprises offered them to the BFI when they were going to be junked and the BFI took them. I had no idea that they were sold to the BFI. This makes me wonder if any other episodes were sold to non broadcasters (other than Ian Levine)
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Post by Chris Wilkinson on Sept 10, 2018 22:45:33 GMT
It's a 'Chicken or Egg?' scenario. Did the BFI only take what little was still available, or did they choose a small sample from a bigger selection? The BFI had limited budget - they had to buy these films; they weren't donated by the BBC for free. So it's more likely they only acquired 19 negatives and prints -- The Dominators, The Krotons and The War Games -- because that's all they could afford. And the ones they didn't buy were junked by the BBC. I'd take the first option. Looking at what they purchased, it seems as though they went for the acquisition of episodes where there existed both a print and corresponding negative. As indicated by the example given by Ian Levine on saving the original Dalek serial, the negatives, prints and foreign dubs were all bundled together for destruction. By that logic, an obsolete serial would not exist solely as a set of prints or solely as a set of negatives - they would both have been destroyed at near enough the same time.
How did the BFI actually purchase these episodes (i.e. which BBC entity did they contact to make the acquisitions)? Why didn't they acquire all four negatives of The Krotons, even though it was perfectly possible to do so? Also, what happened to the film print of Krotons #4 and why is it not listed in the audits of 1977/78? Was the serial already beginning to be 'destroyed' by the time the BFI acquired what it could?
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Post by Jon Preddle on Sept 10, 2018 23:33:12 GMT
Why didn't they acquire all four negatives of The Krotons, even though it was perfectly possible to do so? Also, what happened to the film print of Krotons #4 and why is it not listed in the audits of 1977/78? Was the serial already beginning to be 'destroyed' by the time the BFI acquired what it could? The BBC Film Library retained the 35mm neg of part 1. Enterprises owned and retained all four as 16mm negs and prints, and those went to the BFI. When Ian Levine went to the Film Library in 1977, he viewed prints of eps 1,2, and 3. 4 may well have been there, since they presumably went to the BFI soon after. |
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Post by Jon Preddle on Sept 10, 2018 23:38:40 GMT
I take it he sales paper work for these story's to the BFI no longer exists, I had always thought that BBC Enterprises offered them to the BFI when they were going to be junked and the BFI took them. I had no idea that they were sold to the BFI. This makes me wonder if any other episodes were sold to non broadcasters (other than Ian Levine) Not that anyone has found. As noted in "Wiped" (vol 2, pg 172), according to BFI records the stories were lodged at the Institute in either 1978 or 1980, long after the fact! |
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Post by Robert Lia on Sept 10, 2018 23:52:10 GMT
Would that mean the BBC were still technically disposing of black and white material as late as 1979 or 1980? By that time Dr. Who was starting to get really popular in the USA but sill before Time Life Films / Lyon heart Television started taking an active interest in distributing the earlier adventures of the first three Doctors
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Post by Jon Preddle on Sept 11, 2018 1:55:32 GMT
Would that mean the BBC were still technically disposing of black and white material as late as 1979 or 1980? By that time Dr. Who was starting to get really popular in the USA but sill before Time Life Films / Lyon heart Television started taking an active interest in distributing the earlier adventures of the first three Doctors No, all it means is that the films were logged into the BFI's catalogue then, but they'd actually received them sometime earlier. If they'd been catalogued straight away, we'd have a better idea of exactly when Enterprises was disposing of these and other films. |
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Post by Richard Bignell on Sept 11, 2018 7:48:53 GMT
The BFI had limited budget - they had to buy these films; they weren't donated by the BBC for free. So it's more likely they only acquired 19 negatives and prints -- The Dominators, The Krotons and The War Games -- because that's all they could afford. And the ones they didn't buy were junked by the BBC. Actually, that's not quite correct, Jon. The telerecordings were given to the NFTVA by Enid Mawson at Enterprises, who didn't realise that she was not allowed to simply give the unwanted material away to third parties. That all stopped when Sue Malden discovered that the NFTVA had the negatives and asked how they'd come by them. She then spoke to Mawson and it didn't happen again. Certainly, at that time, the NFTVA had a specific committee and a specific annual budget to purchase copies of television material for their archive direct from all broadcasters. At the time The Space Pirates was made, Enterprises held the rights to sell the material for a period of around five years. By the time the mid-70s arrived, it was deemed that there was no point asking for an extension (especially as no one have purchased the story since 1972), so the rights lapsed. Once that happened, the need to hold onto the material was no longer there. The fact that The Dominators, The Krotons and The War Games all had an extra sale around 1975/76 probably meant that the assets stayed on the shelf at Enterprises for a little while longer. |
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Post by Jon Preddle on Sept 11, 2018 9:41:58 GMT
The BFI had limited budget - they had to buy these films; they weren't donated by the BBC for free. So it's more likely they only acquired 19 negatives and prints -- The Dominators, The Krotons and The War Games -- because that's all they could afford. And the ones they didn't buy were junked by the BBC. Actually, that's not quite correct, Jon. The telerecordings were given to the NFTVA by Enid Mawson at Enterprises, who didn't realise that she was not allowed to simply give the unwanted material away to third parties. That all stopped when Sue Malden discovered that the NFTVA had the negatives and asked how they'd come by them. She then spoke to Mawson and it didn't happen again. Ah, thanks for the correction. I was sure I had read somewhere that BFI had to pay for the prints. |
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Post by Robert Lia on Sept 11, 2018 20:12:35 GMT
I had thought it strange that the BFI was paying for material being wiped considering they are not an actual broadcaster. Enid Mawson is technically a hero as had she not given those unwanted film prints and negatives to the BFI they would not exist now.
Some one please correct me if any of the story's given to the BFI were recovered in duplicate over the years
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