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Post by lpmoderator on Sept 12, 2007 8:40:42 GMT
No, you are talking about the FIRST series DNAYS eps out on DVD (made and transmitted by Rediffusion). I'm talking about the SECOND series; i'm wondering if, although the episodes were transmitted by Thames after the changeover, that they were actually MADE by Rediffusion earlier. The one surviving series 2 ep (not on the DVD) has Thames idents, although this is no proof of who actually made the programme.
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Post by Simon Winters on Sept 12, 2007 9:07:10 GMT
'Do Not Adjust Your Stocking' is not on the dvd. I am pretty sure it was made by Thames at the end of 1968, so is a Thames telerecording. It definately has Thames idents.
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Post by lpmoderator on Sept 12, 2007 9:46:56 GMT
No one's saying it's on the DVD. It wasn't a part of either series 1 or 2 but was a one-off. What's in dispute is whether Thames made it themselves or Rediffusion had already prepared it (Thames were about 5 months old when it was transmitted but that's no indication in itself that they made it - or otherwise!) Having a Thames ident on it means nothing either.
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Post by Christopher Perry on Sept 12, 2007 10:29:19 GMT
We have all the production paper work on the A-R Do Not Adjust Your Set and Stocking was made by A-R at Wembley, and just delayed.
It is interesting about why shows like Queen Street Gang were not kept. Perhaps they were made by A-R, we do have A-R paperwork to show that the original idea was commissioned by A-R, but Sexton Blake was Thames-made coz their scripts say (c) Thames.
I think tape stock was just re-used very quickly. ABC's VT library was at Teddington so it could have gone in there, but space was at a premium.
Thames International were a separate archive and held stuff in their own vaults until 1996 when they were closed and re-merged. Any duplicate stuff was dumped. Curse of the Mummy's Tomb came back from International, and on M2, not a normal format to sell overseas. And of course International had the missing Bless This House and Father Dear Father. Any T/Rs would have been with them, if they were anywhere, but since Father Dear Father from 1968 was being sold on Vt I think the policy was generally not to t/r, but sell videotape instead.
c
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Post by lpmoderator on Sept 12, 2007 11:17:58 GMT
Is there any possibility that Thames t/rs may exist in other locations? I'm told that sales copies of Pardon My Genie were around in this form at ITC at some stage (where it presumably may have been distributed from)? Is there any evidence that they did this on Thames' behalf at any time?
Do you have any paperwork on the second series of DNAYS, Chris? I'm just trying to work out if it was Thames or Rediffusion made.
On a related note, is there an ITV equivalent of BBC Caversham for checking out paperwork / records of their programmes?
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Post by hartley967 on Sept 12, 2007 11:18:21 GMT
Colour TRs were made of many popular Thames series of that era such as The tomorrow people love thy neighbour man at the top david nixon ace of wands these definitely went to New Zealand. and were maybe still used at a time when tapes made on the otherside of the world were not always guaranteed a 100% reliable playback? due to different atmospheric conditions etc However the main TR era was presumably during the time when the UK had the oldest and most incompatible TV system in the world?
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Post by B Thomas on Sept 12, 2007 11:46:29 GMT
The first I heard about the Ace Of Wands t/rs was some years back when (I think) Andrew Pixley said he was aware there were episodes around in this format (I think one ep or more of The Meddlers and one of the other series 3 stories). There is also mention of this either on this site previously or on Mausoleum or Roobarbs in the Ace threads. Series Three (excepting The Beautiful People) of "Ace of Wands" was purchased and screened in NZ around 1975. At that point NZBC had no facilities for VT broadcast - thus everything was imported as T/R; either struck in UK or Australia.
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Post by Tim Disney on Sept 12, 2007 13:05:41 GMT
I stand to be corrected, but I'm sure some Thames t/r's were actually struck overseas by programme syndication services. It could be possible that a VT master was sent to the syndication company for susequent t/r's. However it would make sense for either an original Thames t/r or negative to be exported and prints to be duped as and when required. It does however mean that there could still be t/r's or negatives lurking in major British export markets. I've had some colour Thames t/r dupes on 16mm in the past with Canadian syndication information all over them.
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Post by Christopher Perry on Sept 12, 2007 14:01:46 GMT
Hi
Not sure why ITC would have Pardon My Genie, that was probably a mistake. Thames International had its own base, mainly under Tottenham Court Road.
I, too, have some colour Thames t/rs but all were from Thames International and no earlier than 1973.
c
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Post by hartley967 on Sept 12, 2007 19:06:45 GMT
I stand to be corrected, but I'm sure some Thames t/r's were actually struck overseas by programme syndication services. It could be possible that a VT master was sent to the syndication company for susequent t/r's. However it would make sense for either an original Thames t/r or negative to be exported and prints to be duped as and when required. It does however mean that there could still be t/r's or negatives lurking in major British export markets. I've had some colour Thames t/r dupes on 16mm in the past with Canadian syndication information all over them. Thames used a company in London called Colour Film Services, but as you said some may have been struck abroad. Colour film Services was still going a few years ago (doing superb modern telerecording from computer animations etc ) but not sure now, at the time were based near ITC's old pad at Perivale. CFS prints in the 1970s were usually struck on cheap Eastman rubbish and IMHO were not as good as stuff coming from Rank or Humphries... but then again they were meant to be disposable.
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Post by Tim Disney on Sept 12, 2007 22:13:00 GMT
CFS prints in the 1970s were usually struck on cheap Eastman rubbish That'll account for some of the horrid faded Thames prints then. I know they say that when we look back to the past we do it through rose tinted spectacles, but with CFS prints it really was rose tinted! :-)
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Post by hartley967 on Sept 13, 2007 9:06:02 GMT
CFS prints in the 1970s were usually struck on cheap Eastman rubbish That'll account for some of the horrid faded Thames prints then. I know they say that when we look back to the past we do it through rose tinted spectacles, but with CFS prints it really was rose tinted! :-) Yes Eastman 'pink' seems to have affected more American prints than British?, some say it was because some processors left out a fixing process to save time thus money. This would explain why some prints are still ok while others are not. but off course it was in the interest of the TV company's copyright not to have top quality material wandering around the world years after only 2 or 3 showings had been paid for. The other thing is the business practices of the time, apparently Ampex told the BBC to break up VERA. So maybe small processors (once in Kodak's clutches ) had to accept what was given to them?. .
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Post by johnstewart on Sept 17, 2007 19:28:39 GMT
Nevermind John, he is keeping the interest up and were obviously good threads of yours as they have brought a response .... again Thanks Hartley - I agree there have been some fascinating responses second time round. The only reservation I have is that the orginal thoughts I had were posted as if the new correspondant had gone to the effort of thinking them up himself. Of course he's then laying claim whilst saving the effort of thinking for yourself. P.S. I suspect Anthony and Craig Murison may be aliases of the same...
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Post by johnstewart on Sept 17, 2007 19:51:33 GMT
Onto my own updated thoughts. The implication may be then from Chris and Laurences comments that some of the early Thames childrens productions; such as 'QUEEN ST GANG'; the continuation of 'SEXTON BLAKE' and 'THE ADVENTURES OF PROFESSOR BRANESTAWM' may have been actually made by ABC for Thames using the Thames logo.
If this were so presumably as ABC had lost the franchise they would have made them solely for Thames with no rights to overseas sales. As ABC made them, Thames would not own the copyright to sell them either so this might explain the recycling.
It doesn't explain why the continuation of ABCs 'MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION' series were all kept though.
I had heard 'TYRANT KING' was kept as it was the first Euston Films production and designed as a model example for the qualityof both the company and to future kids TV makers at Thames. The other reasons might be; it couldn't be recycled as it was on film; and I recall a friend pointing out it was made in collaboration with London Transport. That would imply a partner owned copyright. But if Thames and Euston films had actively promoted such and organisation it would obviously cast them in a good light; to attract other potential organisations to use them; if they kept the series.
To summarise; apart from the odd series 'SMITH'; 'TWO Ds AND A DOG'; 'ELEPHANTS EGGS IN A RHUBARB TREE' and oddments from series ('ZINGALONG'); the pre 1972 period seems overall depleted.
I wonder if there was pre 72 sometimes a contract written into the making of a programme before it was made. As regards comedy - If 'BLESS THIS HOUSE' and 'MOTHER MAKES THREE'; for example were briefed as being designed for overseas marketing before they were produced; perhaps this explains why other titles in the comedy genre like 'A PRESENT FOR DICKIE' were generally wiped.
Notice that something does happen in the Summer 72 period whereby one can examine the previous period of kids TV as being mainly wiped; and see then on it was largely kept. An example of this is how the first complete MAGPIEs recorded off air seem to occur in this period.
It implies that either there was a change in Senior staff at that time, who commissioned a change in policy. Ot Thames commercial policy changed.
Andrew Pixley researched that no ACE OF WANDS were given rights to overseas sales bar series 3 and 'Seven serpents'. This implies that maybe no policy or consideration to sales of any Thames childrens series was made until the period in which 'Serpents' was repeated (1973). It may have been that the instruction was then handed down to retain copies of all comedy or drama genre series made for children so that they could be included in the new sales policy.
Though it's a great shame tapes prior to this were wiped it might explain why.
So why were the titles I quoted kept? I'd guess 'Two Ds' has something to do with David Jasons own intervention. At that time he had been excuded from the 'Do not adjust' teams defcetion to the BBC. Jason may have wanted to have his vehicles kept in case one would launch him to success. It might be that he had friends in the top line at Thames who were pro Jason and arranged both to have his work saved; and the Thames 'DNAYS' wiped.
In the case of the surviving VT I would guess that maybe like the ZINGALONG; it was an oddment that got overlooked on a shelf during a mass wiping that maybe was not catalogued for years at which point it was topical; thus escaped further wiping.
As for 'SMITH'; well this was like 'MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION' a period drama from a literary source. These production were normally given a bigger budget; but may have also been viewed as having re use in an educational context; such as clips in schools programmes to illustrate the novels?
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Post by Peter Elliott on Sept 17, 2007 21:05:52 GMT
In the case of the surviving VT I would guess that maybe like the ZINGALONG; it was an oddment that got overlooked on a shelf during a mass wiping that maybe was not catalogued for years at which point it was topical; thus escaped further wiping. I understand that this was the case. The discovery of the videotape of episode 1 of DNAYS series 2 came as a major surprise because (from what I recall) it was either mislabelled or misfiled and managed to escape the wipings and go un-noticed for many years. So perhaps it was misfiled very early on. I am a fan of the immortal "Rainbow". I have asked in the past just what still survives of this because though we had episode 1 on the 30th Anniversary DVD, all other episodes on the official DVDs were all from 1982 onwards. I was told that a lot of pre 1982 episodes were wiped but some have been kept as colour T/Rs. I have only seen one or two 70s clips of this show in retro programs over the years off VT featuring Geoffrey Hayes who I believe came onboard in 1973 or 1974. Seeing that Thames colour T/Rs have been under the microscope here is it true most 70s "Rainbow" VT's have been wiped and that some exist as colour T/Rs? If so, how much is left?
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