Untransmitted Material (Film Inserts)

[A Barron]

I hope this is not off topic.

So, as the title says, this is thread about Untrasmitted material, which as far as I can tell is barely a talking point. I have not been able to find much on the subject, maybe people are not interested in it, but I am.

I believe the well know examples of this are:
    • The Pilot Episode (1963)
    • The Original Recording of The Daleks Episode One "The Dead Planet"
    • The Original Two Final Episodes of Planet of Giants That Were Merged

Now we have the first one of these, the cliff hanger of the second and a mix of the third, however these are not what interested me.

My interest in this started when I learnt about the original ending of The Highlanders where Jamie stayed behind, which was then re-shot to show Jamie joining the TARDIS team. I have looked around and not been able to find anyone talking about the possibility of finding the original film of the ending. This I thought was surprising as not only would I (at least) class this as a desirable find, but we also have a shot clip of untransmitted location footage from the same serial giving at least a little credibility to the idea that more could be found. We also have more untransmitted material from missing serials that I would though would provoke more people to talk about this topic.

Missing serials for which we have untransmitted material:
    • The Highlanders (Clapper Board)
    • The Evil of the Daleks (Unused Model Shots)
    • The Abominable Snowmen (Unused Location Footage)
    • Fury from the Deep (Unused Take)
 
There maybe some more of which I am unaware. Most if not all of the untransmitted footage that has survived, has done so because they were recorded as film inserts rather than taped. We also have transmitted footage that survived because they were originally film inserts.

Missing serials for which we have transmitted material:

• The Daleks' Master Plan (Jungle Scenes)
• The Abominable Snowmen (Used Location Footage - albeit from an existing episode)
  
• The Space Pirates (Model shots)

Again there may be more that I cannot think of in this moment.

One other piece of untransmitted material that at least I would like to find is the cut scene from the fourth episode of The Myth Makers, where Vicki meets and talks to Katarina about her life in Troy. Unlike the re-shot seen with Jamie, this scene is actually cannon and we do not even have the audio for it, similar to the cut material from Planet of Giants which I believe has been reconstructed in some form?

So my questions are:

1. What untransmitted material would you like to find if you could? (Example: Troughton nearly being crushed by the Gravitron in The Moonbase)
2. If you could find any film insert regardless of whether it was transmitted, what would it be? (Example: The helicopter chase in Fury from the Deep)
3. Does anyone know anything more about this topic?
4. Do we have documents that list the fates of the original film inserts both model and location?
5. It seems that more unused film inserts have survived than their transmitted counterparts, if true why is this?
6. Katerina's cut scene would have been recorded on tape rather than as a film insert; how would it have been cut out of the episode and what is its likely fate?
7. The film inserts from The Space Pirates were in a film can for another programme, is it possible that there is more Doctor Who material that could in different cans or has everything been checked?
8. There seems to be little talk over film inserts in general regardless of being broadcast or not; are we assuming we have found all there is or is it just not worth it? This is the only thread I could find on the subject of finding some: missingepisodes.proboards.com/thread/11859/film-inserts-helicopter-chase-fury

[Richard Bignell]

Do we have documents that list the fates of the original film inserts both model and location?

No. Film inserts were routinely disposed of once the finished programme was completed and transmitted. Occasionally they hung around for a little bit in the Film Library until they were signed off for disposal, but +99% would have been junked as they would be of no further use.

It seems that more unused film inserts have survived than their transmitted counterparts, if true why is this?

Luck.

Katerina's cut scene would have been recorded on tap rather than as a film insert; how would it have been cut out of the episode and what is its likely fate?

By "recorded on tap" I presume that you mean done in studio on video. In the 1960s, the practice was to physically edit the tape by "developing" the video tracks, cutting out the required piece and rejoining the tape. This was kept down to a minimum as every physical edit cost the production money, which would ultimately go into the pot to buy a new one once the old once was past reuse. The edited Quad tape would then be thrown away as it wasn't of use to anyone.

Later, editing was done electronically by transferring the required scenes from the recording tapes onto a new one, with the studio tapes being wiped once the episode had been shown.

The film inserts from The Space Pirates were in a film can for another programme, is it possible that there is more Doctor Who material that could in different cans or has everything been checked?

Everything has been checked. The process was done when the archive transferred to it's new home in Perivale several years ago.

[G D Peck]

Jan 26, 2021 13:50:12 GMT A Barron said:

I hope this is not off topic.

So, as the title says, this is thread about Untrasmitted material, which as far as I can tell is barely a talking point. I have not been able to find much on the subject, maybe people are not interested in it, but I am.

I believe the well know examples of this are:
    • The Original Recording of The Daleks Episode One "The Dead Planet"
    • The Original Two Final Episodes of Planet of Giants That Were Merged

To be honest, as much as I would like any missing episode to be returned, these three episodes are the ones I am most interested in, unlikely as it is they would ever turn up.

I think it would be fascinating to enjoy ‘new’ performances from the original TARDIS crew. With the other missing episode we can at least hear their performances.

One thing I love about The Pilot, is watching the different choices the actors make, script changes and the slightly different camera set ups etc.
It would be interesting to compare the original recording of The Dead Planet to the transmitted version as we can with The Pilot and the transmitted An Unearthly Child.

I believe episodes 3 & 4 of Planet of Giants were tele-recorded to both 16mm and 35mm film, is that correct? I suppose there could be a very slim chance of a recovery if so.

Is there any evidence that the original recording of The Dead Planet was tele-recorded at all? I’m assuming not, as there would probably be no need for it to be.

I’m also curious if any more location or film sequences have turned up in the last few years and on a similar note any further behind the scenes footage like the Shibaden footage on the City of Death DVD.

[Richard Bignell]

Feb 5, 2021 0:03:40 GMT G D Peck said:

I believe episodes 3 & 4 of Planet of Giants were tele-recorded to both 16mm and 35mm film, is that correct? I suppose there could be a very slim chance of a recovery if so.

Yes, the videotapes were film recorded to 16mm first to work out how it should be edited, with the final edit being done on the 35mm recording, so the trims for either would need to turn up.

Is there any evidence that the original recording of The Dead Planet was tele-recorded at all? I’m assuming not, as there would probably be no need for it to be.

It depends when they were actually doing them at this stage. Some were film recorded on transmission and some were done later, sit all depends on how quickly they came to the decision that the original session was unusable.

I’m also curious if any more location or film sequences have turned up in the last few years and on a similar note any further behind the scenes footage like the Shibaden footage on the City of Death DVD.

No actual programme elements, as far as I can recall, but we did find and secure the use of another bit of behind-the-scenes 8mm cine footage taken during the making of The Daemons, which will appear on the upcoming Season 8 Blu-ray set.

I do hope that some further Shibaden recordings will be found. As far as we can gather, they started to be used regularly from the production of Terror of the Autons onwards, so there's possibilities of finding studio material, early edits of episodes etc. With the number of reels that were used throughout the 1970s, there's always the vague possibility that some additional ones to those we already have ended up surviving somewhere.

[A Barron]

This link was just posted in the The Web of Fear 3, thread but Paul talks about a hunt for film inserts to I thought I would add it here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qehEUrK3VH0

[RWels]

Mar 20, 2021 15:00:02 GMT A Barron said:

This link was just posted in the The Web of Fear 3, thread but Paul talks about a hunt for film inserts to I thought I would add it here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qehEUrK3VH0

I believe the specific person has already been located. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

[Jaspal Cheema]

The pilot is absolutely incredible,even more powerful than the transmitted episode. I take it that it was technical inadequacies and the overly serious initial portrayal of Hartnell's Dr that made Sydney Newman call for a remount.But the fact that Sydney gave it a second chance is due Waris Hussein's compelling direction under Verity Lambert's faith in Hartnell's talent and the originality of the programme.Almost 60 years later it is a stunning landmark in the history of television.

[garygraham]

Jan 26, 2021 14:41:29 GMT Richard Bignell said:

By "recorded on tap" I presume that you mean done in studio on video. In the 1960s, the practice was to physically edit the tape by "developing" the video tracks, cutting out the required piece and rejoining the tape. This was kept down to a minimum as every physical edit cost the production money, which would ultimately go into the pot to buy a new one once the old once was past reuse. The edited Quad tape would then be thrown away as it wasn't of use to anyone.



Later, editing was done electronically by transferring the required scenes from the recording tapes onto a new one, with the studio tapes being wiped once the episode had been shown.

As you say, cutting the tape was fairly rare. They would never record anything new over a cut splice. But if there was just one cut in the middle, the tape before or after could be put onto a new reel and used for something short. 

The usual way of making programmes on video was "as live", possibly stopping and starting again once or twice with the actors cued in as the video operator made an assemble edit onto the master tape. Programmes would only be allowed a certain number of stops sometimes as it was time consuming. Possibly they still do that on some programmes today because editing time costs money. I am out of touch... 

By the early 70s extensive editing was being done on Quad from one machine to another on dramas such as Thriller. Probably manually then but computerised edit lists and control were around soon after. 

The BBC continued to physically cut tape on sports programmes until the 1980s as it was a fast way to remove large chunks rather than copying to a second machine. 
 

[Richard Marple]

By the mid 1970s it was common to offline edit with Shibaden tape machines and timecoded tapes, at least at the BBC.

This meant the master tapes would only be used for the final edit to prevent wear & potential damage.