|
|
Post by markhumphries on Dec 21, 2018 22:40:53 GMT
Article from the Liverpool Echi tweeted by PM. That’s a lot of BBC film cans there... well the ones we can see, who knows what’s off camera. So what’s stopping handing those back or even telling us what he has found? I thought he was not hoarding stuff. |
|
|
|
Post by John Wall on Dec 22, 2018 0:50:05 GMT
Article from the Liverpool Echi tweeted by PM. That’s a lot of BBC film cans there... well the ones we can see, who knows what’s off camera. So what’s stopping handing those back or even telling us what he has found? I thought he was not hoarding stuff. There are more announcements promised for the new year. Last Saturday there was an extract from an episode of the Rag Trade that hadn’t previously been advised. |
|
|
|
Post by markhumphries on Dec 22, 2018 7:39:58 GMT
That’s a lot of BBC film cans there... well the ones we can see, who knows what’s off camera. So what’s stopping handing those back or even telling us what he has found? I thought he was not hoarding stuff. There are more announcements promised for the new year. Last Saturday there was an extract from an episode of the Rag Trade that hadn’t previously been advised. Sorry, I mean if all that’s missing material he has collected over the years, why not just return it as soon as he found it? Why stockpile it? Surly all it has done is create a massive backlog for people now to work through, when restoration work could have been ongoing over the years and making stuff available for the people who want to see it. I don’t understand the need to stockpile they many finds and do nothing with them... |
|
|
|
Post by John Wall on Dec 22, 2018 12:18:43 GMT
There are more announcements promised for the new year. Last Saturday there was an extract from an episode of the Rag Trade that hadn’t previously been advised. Sorry, I mean if all that’s missing material he has collected over the years, why not just return it as soon as he found it? Why stockpile it? Surly all it has done is create a massive backlog for people now to work through, when restoration work could have been ongoing over the years and making stuff available for the people who want to see it. I don’t understand the need to stockpile they many finds and do nothing with them... I’m not convinced that there’s a “massive” amount been recovered. A lot of places won’t have yielded anything but can be ticked off. He’s probably come across a lot of 16mm prints of American film series. Some material won’t be missing - such as the Steptoe “My Old Man’s a Tory” - although it may be a better copy. Why should everything need “restoration”? If you’re going to broadcast things - such as the M&Ws - or release them on DVD then some work is probably going to be necessary. However, in many cases it’s probably limited to cleaning the print, renewal of splices, etc before storing it in archival conditions and scanning it. What is clear - contrary to some of the views posted here - is that he is working with copyright holders. Although I can’t prove it I expect he’s got letters of accreditation, etc from the BBC, etc. I have no idea what will be revealed in 2019 but the indications are that it will be worthwhile. It could be material from the BBC or one of the ITV companies, it may need work, it may be going to be broadcast or released on DVD. The M&Ws were handled very well. It seems that they were recovered in 2018, someone at the BBC decided that they were worth broadcasting - on Boxing Day!, commissioned Colour Recovery, grading, Vidfire, etc, etc and the official announcement was scheduled for just before MBW but also advised that they’d be shown over Christmas - that’s very good management of expectations. What we seem to have is everybody working together to ensure that important material is made available appropriately. |
|
RWels
Member
Posts: 2,910
|
Post by RWels on Dec 22, 2018 21:19:07 GMT
There are more announcements promised for the new year. Last Saturday there was an extract from an episode of the Rag Trade that hadn’t previously been advised. Sorry, I mean if all that’s missing material he has collected over the years, why not just return it as soon as he found it? Why stockpile it? Surly all it has done is create a massive backlog for people now to work through, when restoration work could have been ongoing over the years and making stuff available for the people who want to see it. I don’t understand the need to stockpile they many finds and do nothing with them... It may be some sort if wishful thinking that's at work here. There are about 100 cans in that picture, maximum. Who says they all contain film? Or if, that it's UK television, or missing? It might be five reels of an East German 1983 documentary on geese migration for example. Morris has a business related to film, right? 100 cans is nothing. If he was a bookbinder, he might have been photographed in front of a bookshelf full of interesting spines; that doesn't mean he found a missing Gutenberg bible or Aristotle's Poetics. |
|
|
|
Post by adamjordan on Dec 23, 2018 7:16:00 GMT
Quite.
If some educated guesswork is applied, the probability of finding intact copies of BBC or ITV programming that is missing is very small. And if we are wishing for specific titles the likelihood becomes much slimmer. Even if Phil clears out of an old archive (or Cinema!) a thousand reels what percentage do you reckon would be uk tv? Then what would be ‘of interest’ ie missing. Then what of that is recoverable? Then of that, what is left that is ‘of further interest’? ie stuff people are particularly interested in?
|
|
|
|
Post by John Wall on Dec 23, 2018 9:12:04 GMT
Quite. If some educated guesswork is applied, the probability of finding intact copies of BBC or ITV programming that is missing is very small. And if we are wishing for specific titles the likelihood becomes much slimmer. Even if Phil clears out of an old archive (or Cinema!) a thousand reels what percentage do you reckon would be uk tv? Then what would be ‘of interest’ ie missing. Then what of that is recoverable? Then of that, what is left that is ‘of further interest’? ie stuff people are particularly interested in? Absolutely, it’s a numbers game. PM was extremely lucky finding those eleven - originally twelve - prints in Nigeria and two were duplicates. |
|
|
|
Post by Vaughan Stanger on Dec 23, 2018 11:32:16 GMT
Quite. If some educated guesswork is applied, the probability of finding intact copies of BBC or ITV programming that is missing is very small. And if we are wishing for specific titles the likelihood becomes much slimmer. Even if Phil clears out of an old archive (or Cinema!) a thousand reels what percentage do you reckon would be uk tv? Then what would be ‘of interest’ ie missing. Then what of that is recoverable? Then of that, what is left that is ‘of further interest’? ie stuff people are particularly interested in? Absolutely, it’s a numbers game. PM was extremely lucky finding those eleven - originally twelve - prints in Nigeria and two were duplicates. I totally agree. The largest single find in recent years was about 60 TV plays in the Library of Congress archive. I'd guess Phil has found several dozen missing episodes from all British TV series. He's declared about 20 so far. If he finds more than 100 I'd be amazed and delighted. |
|
|
|
Post by John Wall on Dec 23, 2018 14:18:33 GMT
Absolutely, it’s a numbers game. PM was extremely lucky finding those eleven - originally twelve - prints in Nigeria and two were duplicates. I totally agree. The largest single find in recent years was about 60 TV plays in the Library of Congress archive. I'd guess Phil has found several dozen missing episodes from all British TV series. He's declared about 20 so far. If he finds more than 100 I'd be amazed and delighted. I’m not sure of the full tally although if you include Enemy and Web it gets probably gets up to around 20. The chances, nowadays, of finding anything are pretty slim. At MBW he talked about audition prints - that’s what he found in Monaco and the M&Ws in Sierra Leone were auditions. |
|
|
|
Post by Vaughan Stanger on Dec 23, 2018 16:09:34 GMT
I totally agree. The largest single find in recent years was about 60 TV plays in the Library of Congress archive. I'd guess Phil has found several dozen missing episodes from all British TV series. He's declared about 20 so far. If he finds more than 100 I'd be amazed and delighted. I’m not sure of the full tally although if you include Enemy and Web it gets probably gets up to around 20. The chances, nowadays, of finding anything are pretty slim. At MBW he talked about audition prints - that’s what he found in Monaco and the M&Ws in Sierra Leone were auditions. Phil Morris's officially returned MEs: 2 Sky at Night (2011), 9 Doctor Who (2013), 8 comedy/light ent (2018). Also found and then lost: Another Doctor Who. Also found but not playable by conventional means: M&W S1 ep2. Also mentioned (at a convention?): a missing Troubleshooters. PM has tweeted about, but not quantified, more Basil Brush. Can anyone add to that list? Non-missing finds: 3 Doctor Who episodes (incl. a mushy Pertwee), a Steptoe & Son (My Old Man's a Tory), a B&W Callan, some B&W Joe 90s, an edited version of the Basil Brush returned in 2018. I think someone spotted an episode from one of the Pathfinders series in a Nigeria photo. I expect more have been mentioned that I can't immediately recall. To put the more exciting finds in perspective, at one point I read about Phil finding a nearly complete run of M*A*S*H. That would be in excess of 200 episodes. I'd expect long-running US TV series to dominate his hauls. |
|
|
|
Post by Alex Weidmann on Dec 27, 2018 19:43:18 GMT
In the MBW session, Phil mentioned that the M&W episodes ended up in a cinema, because the TV transmitter in Sierra Leone had a weak signal: so they wanted to give the episodes a wider audience.
Since that was the last country on one of the bicycling chains, it opens up the tantalising possibility that he found more than we currently know about in that cinema.
Or perhaps in other cinemas around the country that were screening TV material in the 60s & 70s.
Sierra Leone's TV station was supposed to be the graveyard of practically all the missing Hartnells when it was bombed in the late 1990s: so it's just possible some of them may have survived after all.
Probably wishful thinking I know; but my fingers are firmly crossed!
|
|
RWels
Member
Posts: 2,910
|
Post by RWels on Dec 27, 2018 21:17:08 GMT
Sierra Leone's TV station was supposed to be the graveyard of practically all the missing Hartnells when it was bombed in the late 1990s: so it's just possible some of them may have survived after all. Probably wishful thinking I know; but my fingers are firmly crossed! But that was no doubt the first thing he looked for; and haven't they stated that no extra Who has been found? |
|
|
|
Post by Alex Weidmann on Dec 27, 2018 23:10:17 GMT
I believe that photo was taken in the BBC Archive Centre; not Phil's personal vault!
|
|
|
|
Post by Alex Weidmann on Dec 27, 2018 23:13:30 GMT
Sierra Leone's TV station was supposed to be the graveyard of practically all the missing Hartnells when it was bombed in the late 1990s: so it's just possible some of them may have survived after all. Probably wishful thinking I know; but my fingers are firmly crossed! But that was no doubt the first thing he looked for; and haven't they stated that no extra Who has been found? I'm not aware he's said any such thing; but even if he has, don't forget he denied any Who recoveries in 2013, shortly before they were announced. |
|
|
|
Post by richardwoods on Dec 28, 2018 9:56:26 GMT
Sierra Leone's TV station was supposed to be the graveyard of practically all the missing Hartnells when it was bombed in the late 1990s: so it's just possible some of them may have survived after all. Probably wishful thinking I know; but my fingers are firmly crossed! But that was no doubt the first thing he looked for; and haven't they stated that no extra Who has been found? Has he? I thought he said that no more Who recoveries were being announced. Apologies if I'm wrong & this has been clarified. |
|
