Apollo studio broadcasts

[shoz]

I know something similar to this has been covered else so please forgive me.

During the Apollo moon landings the BBC (and ITV, I believe) had studio broadcasts with James Burke and Patrick Moore following each mission and talking to various guests. Do any of these studio broadcasts still exist in any form?

[Andrew Martin]

A certain number of them do - unfortunately not for Apollo 11, but there are various 'programme as broadcast' recordings for Apollos 8-10, and some for the later missions.

[johnstewart]

What about the 'Shibaden' snippets and brief James Burke to shot VT used in Paul Vanessis' recent documentary on Apollo 11?

Or were these not from the studio discussion programmes?

[shoz]

andrewmartin said:

A certain number of them do - unfortunately not for Apollo 11, but there are various 'programme as broadcast' recordings for Apollos 8-10, and some for the later missions.

This sounds very interesting. Have you got any more information please? Which missions, who has them, anything you have would be great.
Thanks.

[Andrew Martin]

johnstewart said:

What about the 'Shibaden' snippets and brief James Burke to shot VT used in Paul Vanessis' recent documentary on Apollo 11?

Or were these not from the studio discussion programmes?

I think I'm right in saying there's very little of the actual dedicated programmes, though there is a bit of James Burke to camera, which I think was from "24 Hours". So yes there is something 'in any form' but it isn't substantial - other than the soundtrack which is held in domestic-recording quality.

[johnstewart]

Would I be right to take this to mean that the clips were either a continuing of the coverage during '24 hours'; or a short repeat clip in reference to an earlier transmission?

The ones I recall seeing for years were Apollo 8 (Panorama special Dec 68); and Apollo 15 (1972); splashdown on T/R.

Later the Apollo 13 coverage VT seemed to turn up; a spectacular find.

I'm not sure ITV have got anything by way of the live studio coverage. Don't recall seeing anything at all. Someone has traced a - possibly European cable - transmission recording of MAGPIEs special on Apollo 13.

[Andrew Martin]

No, I think the bit in "24 Hours" was a live update.

[Deleted]

Does the 24 Hours programme containing the live update exist in full, Andrew? Interested to know how that came to survive on VT (or was this common for that programme at the time?)

[Andrew Martin]

I don't think it was VT, I think it was a telerecording. I can't honestly remember off hand, but there are a few complete telerecordings of "24 Hours". There may be the odd surviving VT PasB, I know there are one or two inserts existing, and as to whether they made VT PasBs routinely - I doubt it, but it's not something I've ever researched. Chances are, as it was going out five days a week most of the year round they wouldn't have been able to afford PasB recording it regularly, nor would they likely have seen any point in doing so...

[Deleted]

Thanks Andrew. The clip I was talking about though (as used in Paul's documentary) was specifically a b/w VT clip (rather than t/r) of James Burke giving an update to camera on the Apollo 11 mission. I was just wondering what the source was and whether the whole edition of whatever it came from existed.

[grahambriddon]

I hope Paul Vanezis will not mind me reposting below a couple of posts he originally made on this very forum, just before his excellent documentary was broadcast last year. They are very detailed and contain information on what exists from the BBC Apollo 11 broadcasts and also the decisions he made on what to use in the documentary. Paul may no longer have this information readily to hand to post his own reply.




Paul Vanezis Administrator Re: Apollo 11 Reply #64 on Yesterday at 11:03pm »
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Yesterday at 6:37pm, Andy Henderson wrote:I'm not attempting to lecture or claim a moral standpoint, but I do think that this forum generates an immense amount of rubbish about the subject of missing television. Why do I think that? Largely because of the large amount of mixed up data, misinformation and cod theories often presented as fact.

I couldn't agree more. I don't want to get into a big debate about why things were kept and why they weren't. Suffice it to say that I am happy that we have so much material surviving. But criticising any company for a past policy regarding archive retention is pointless. I think we can take it as read that everyone here would prefer that more material survived the ravages of time. Beyond that there is nothing more to be said because it's just crying over spilt milk.

So, moving things on a bit, I'm sure some want to know what material is likely to be seen in the Apollo 11 programme. To outline what material I began with is a good place to start. There are 12 reels of original videotape material in the BBC archive which are 60 and 90 minute spools. These consist of (roughly) the following:

1. Astronaut interviews/Launch day
2. Telecast/Michael Charlton
3. Telecast - Lunar Module
4. Telecast - Lunar Orbit
5. Lunar Landing/Charlton
6. Moonwalk 1
7. Charlton/Moonwalk 2
8. Moonwalk 3/Charlton
9. Lunar Ascent/Charlton
10. Splashdown 1
11. Splashdown 2
12. Splashdown 3

In addition there are 5 DAT recordings, dubbed from Off-Air quarter inch tapes. These cover the following:

1. Launch Programme (slightly incomplete)
2. Various bulletins including Lunar Orbit programme
3. Lunar Module Highlights programme
3. Moonwalk (First Hour)
4. Lunar Landing
5. Lunar Ascent
6. Splashdown

My brief was to recreate as far as possible the various broadcasts over the 8 days into a 2 hour programme. I firstly, having logged the existing material looked at the previous broadcasts of Apollo 10 and Apollo 8. I also looked at how Apollo 12 had been handled as I felt that this may give me a clue as to how items had been packaged. Apollo 10's launch programme was also the first to use the Space Studio with the same set and moon model that was used for Apollo 11. It was tempting to use material from this programme which dealt with explanations of the mission but I decided to remain pure to the Apollo 11 material.

In addition I also had access to film insert material. Having said that, much of this was logged under a different programme number to the videotape spools and consisted of the following:

1. Kennedy Speech
2. Spacesuit
3. Blast Escape Room
4. Saturn V
5. Command Module

In the main these items were presented by James Burke and some of it was also logged under Apollo 10...but only with a main title of 'Space Films'. Much of the rare material that's in the programme from film wasn't logged under Apollo at all but under the spurious 'Space Films' title! Some only came to light last week. Another film I have used which was listed under Apollo 10 was 'Weightless Flying'. This I think was originally an insert for 'Tomorrow's World'.

To assist in telling the story of Apollo 11, I also filmed some links with Patrick Moore plus some new voice over which helps clarify certain material where I don't have the original commentary, or where our knowledge of the moon has moved on.

I also had access to the BBC News film items which were all in colour. That said, the only one I wanted to use was a film piece about how to escape from the Saturn V in an emergency, presented by Reg Turnill from the Apollo 11 launch pad. I would have used this if I had not found the 'Blast Escape Room' film which was the actual film insert used in the launch programme. So the running order of the programme is as follows.

Moon Night Link
Titles (Created from Nasa Stills +plus original Apollo 11 logo)
Patrick introduction
Launch day - This features the live satellite feed from Cape Kennedy and Michael Charltons live commentary.
Blast Escape Room film insert - introduced by Cliff Michelmore
Launch with Michael Charlton live commentary
Patrick Link and astronaut film of Transposition and Docking
Command Module film - presented by James Burke

Telecast - Earth. Lunar Module checkout.

At this point I should add that I do not have the BBC audio for every broadcast, so I am indebted to Graham Briddon who has leant me a 16mm film of certain key moments from the mission. This is a highly unusual film in that it contains what seems to be a film recording from an off-air video recording. The sound is very good, better that the quarter inch PasB's. It features a clip of a film insert with James Burke practicing weightless training, the lunar module entry which seems to be from a highlights programme and live recording of Buzz Aldrin in the lunar module itself. All of this has a commentary from James Burke plus a closing in vision link from Burke in the Space Studio. You even get a glimpse of Patrick Moore! This telecast material does indeed survive in colour. The entry into the lunar module is not though on the BBC's insert tapes but the lunar module checkout is. I have used both, getting the colour pictures from Nasa (who sent me 21 hours of footage).

I should add that although the BBC material is a 525 to 625 conversion done live using the old standards converter from a dodgy satellite feed, it is superior in many ways to the footage supplied by Nasa which are (good) colour film recordings.

I have used at the end of this an edited interview with mission director George Hage who was interviewed live I think by Michael Charlton. Again this is colour material although I have taken the liberty of correcting the 5 frame audio offset!

We then have 10 minutes (it was 23) of the lunar orbit telecast. This was broadcast live by the BBC and is commentated by James Burke, Michael Charlton and Patrick Moore. It is basically live coverage of the moons surface from lunar orbit. It is fascinating. This material was once again in the BBC library and I have added the PasB audio to it.

There are three areas where I have used Nasa footage to tell the story that couldn't be told in 1969. There was no live video material of the landing or lunar ascent from the moon. Here I used the Mission control vision from the BBC mastertapes, added the audio from the PasB audio recording and then used the 16mm film footage shot from the lunar module for both. OK, it's not as was broadcast but the alternative is a shot of Mission control during these sections with some on screen graphics. I have used quite a lot of this during the landing.

For the Moonwalk, the BBC has a complete copy which is also on VT. Nasa sent me a film recording! The BBC's is one of the better quality ones although it has suffered two satellite journeys and is very noisy. The moonwalk has James Burke and Patrick Moores commentary from the audio PasB plus the live video material which as you all know is black and white. I have edited this material down from two and a half hours to around 40 minutes. To be fair, the bulk of the most interesting material is in the first hour and the live Burke/Moore commentary only covers this period, the audio PasB stopping after that amount of time. I have also added some colour 16mm footage to this. I was quite careful because I didn't want to lose the impact of the live pictures, so I haven't used the colour footage of Armstrong making his first step but stayed with the grainy black and white images.

I have also added a motion blur filter to this footage. Before anyone accuses me of tampering I should explain why I did this. Firstly, the pictures are extremely noisy. With a low bit rate broadcast on BBC4 the picture would display compression artefacts worse than anything I could do to it. Secondly, the camera that was used to relay the pictures back was a 320 line tube camera outputting 10 progressive frames per second. These pictures were then scan converted to 525/60 and satted to Houston. They were then satted to London and put through the BBC converter.

Because of the low electronic frame rate I have worked out that there is a new frame approximately every 2.5 frames. Therefore I can add a motion blur effect across two frames without affecting the motion within the video stream. What it does do though is smooth out any noise. The visual appearence then is of very clean images in comparison to what was there. Those keen enough will spot one very short section that I missed. You can make your own judgement on the result.

Finally, I have also used some colour 16mm footage that Buzz Aldin shot from the window of the lunar module of the landing site plus some footage Michael Collins shot from lunar orbit. The closing is shots of the splashdown and the Apollo crew in quarantine on the USS Hornet.

Music to open and close is the identical orchestral version of Also Sprach Zarathustra which was used for the Apollo Space Unit broadcasts!

So, there we have it. The programme lasts 1 hour, 58 minutes and two seconds and I hope you all enjoy it, particularly the one or two surprises I've not mentioned.

If you do enjoy it please do offer feedback to the BBC. It would be great to do a series of these archive Apollo missions and there is a lot more material for other missions in the library.

Regards,
Paul

Paul Vanezis Administrator Re: Apollo 11 « Reply #72 on Today at 1:00pm »
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Today at 12:05am, Andy Hernderson wrote:Some form of live adjustments seem to have been made as the image improves considerably.

The signal from the camera was relayed back to Earth and was recieved by three radio telescopes. One was at Goldstone in California, one at Honeysuckle Creek in Australia and one at Parkes in Australia. The first images are I believe Honeysuckle Creek, who had their picture upside down on their scan converter. The varying quality was Nasa switching between the various different sources, the quality varying due to the different signal strengths of the three sources.

Nasa eventually opted for the Parkes picture which is why the quality dramatically increases. However, the earliest material was from Honeysuckle Creek and the pictures of the first step were actually taken from here by the local Australian broadcasters. This was apparently better quality than that which was broadcast to the rest of the world which was from Goldstone. I did track down a film recording of this at the ABC but they would only give me a limited licence for the footage...even though it is copyright Nasa and deemed by them in the Public Domain, so alas I had to decline their footage. Somewhere there is a Quad tape recorded by Sydney Video direct from the scan converter. I would like to track that tape down, so if anyone knows where it may have ended up please let me know!

Regards,
Paul

Paul Vanezis Administrator Re: Apollo 11 « Reply #93 on Today at 12:00am »
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Yesterday at 7:42pm, Westy 2 wrote:Cracking prog, MR V !

(And made locally too - BBC Birmingham !)

Thanks to all who watched and enjoyed the programme. Of course if you really liked it do show your appreciation and tell the BBC!

To answer a few questions about this; the first black and white VT link with James Burke was taken from the 16/07/69 PasB recording of that nights '24 Hours', a current affairs programme. I was under some pressure to edit it to remove reference to Lunar 15 but I think we got away with it with Patrick's link.

The poorer quality link with James Burke was originally recorded on some sort of 405 line video system, a reel to reel affair I suspect with dodgy reception. At some point in the past this was film recorded rather well to 16mm commag neg. This was the film loaned to me by Graham Briddon. It also contains a lot of sound which I didn't have on the audio PasB which was in the library from an off-air.

I have taken some liberties again with the launch material. The original broadcast suffered from a disruption to the satellite feed. Michael Charlton is commentating to pictures he can see in Houston so he knows nothing of the reception problems in the UK and carries on. The pictures of the astronauts eating breakfast were preceded by pictures of them eating a meal the night before. I removed these because there is only so much footage of people eating you can usefully get away with. I also replaced this footage with a better quality conversion of the original rushes, tidying up one or two dodgy film edits along the way. By the time Charlton talks about "this great shot of the three astronauts leaving the manned spacecraft center" the pictures had been lost in the UK so we're effectively seeing them for the first time in the UK in context. There are one or two studio pieces from Michelmore, Burke and Moore plus the film of the blast escape room which which broke up the launch coverage from the cape and the latter is included virtually intact. I tidied up one nasty film join. The launch is covered in meticulous detail but limited to the shots of the rocket on the pad you can see. There is one humourous moment I cut out where the keyed silhouette of an operative from the ABC TV corp adjusts the live countdown caption and is himself keyed over the action. Again, I think the final 6 minutes and the earlier material is enough to convey the sense of watching the live event and I deliberately didn't use the Patrick Moore of today commentating over it. Michael Charltons contemporary commentary works so well.

I cut out of the coverage after the point of first stage separation. I used some film that Nasa sent me of this as it was not clear on the live coverage. I should add that the separation I used is Apollo 11. The first stage separation used in the 'Days That Shook The World' programme earlier is from the film Moonwalk One' and I believe that that separation is in fact Apollo 12.

All the later sections involving better quality images with Burke/Moore/Charlton live commentary has had the audio of the PasB sound retimed exactly to the correct vision, including the Moonwalk. I've tried to include all the contemporary commentary removing only as live 'errors' by Burke and Charlton.

The one area where I was concerned things dragged a little was the 10 minute sequence of the lunar orbit. I think by adding Patrick Moore here we break up the monotony of the live pictures which although I find fascinating, I'm sure others do not!

Hope you all enjoyed it.

Cheers,
Paul

Paul Vanezis Administrator Re: Apollo 11 « Reply #94 on Today at 12:32am »
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Feb 28, 2006, 9:28pm, Andy Henderson wrote:Re: the image change on the scanner camera.

Aside from the different feeds, I now think the main picture alteration was made by Aldrin who is told to adjust the 'shadow' image and reset the camera to what sounds like F2 and 1/60 sec. Assuming that is his iris adjustment, the image does improve.

Hi Andy.

The astronauts don't make any adjustments to the camera on the lunar surface; they are able to make adjustments to the colour camera in the LEM but not the black and white Westinghouse camera on the lunar surface.

The statement you hear is from Houston who tell Aldrin the shutter speed and f stop to set the onboard 16mm camera to "for shadow photography on the sequence camera". This is at an early stage where he is still filming Armstrong taking the contingency sample I think but could refer to the later 1 frame per second footage set going followed by Aldrin coming down the ladder.

There is a document all about the lunar camera if you're interested in it.

Cheers,
Paul

Paul Vanezis Re: Apollo 11 « Reply #99 on Today at 12:15am »
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Yesterday at 10:17pm, Gary C wrote:Just finished watching it. Brilliant stuff! I hadn't seen the colour VT from inside the LEM showing the control panels, amazed at the quality!
Paul, can you tell me why James Burke wasn't involved in the making of this programme? I always thought he was a brilliantly informative presenter.

Hiya. All I was told about James Burke was that he was "unavailable". That came from his US agent.

The colour footage from inside the LEM was actually a large part of what the BBC had recorded and kept. Some earlier material I had the commentary for but not the pictures and had to get those from Nasa (entering the LEM).

Andrew Doherty mentioned the Lunar 15 reference. The wisdom was that it appeared out of the blue in the link and could have confused viewers. However, we got Patrick to back ref it in a link and it worked out OK. The logo was just copied from the one behind James Burke. in the 24 Hours link. I believe it is a BBC design!

Cheers,
Paul